Paolo Virno on the General Intellect
* Article: General Intellect. By Paolo Virno. Historical Materialism, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 3-8, 2007
URL = https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233639475_General_Intellect
Summary
- Reading notes from Michel Bauwens, 2006:
Virno starts with a summary of Marx's 'Fragment on the Machines'.
As capitalist development progresses value is no longer derived from work, but form the 'general' intellect of society, as incorporated in fixed capital, i.e. the total system of machines. Yet capitalism still wants to measure value in reference to the input of work. But the realisation of this prophecy by Marx is not leading to a crisis but to new forms of domination.
The 'General Intellect' is a 'real abstraction', with concrete operational power that constructs realities. It is not like the other abstractions of modernity, such as money, which are based on the principle of equivalence, and represent 'something'. The general intellect is non-representational. Without equivalence, it is beyond measure.
For Virno, Marx's fragments make a vital error in identifying it with fixed capital, not seeing the key role it gives to 'living labor'.
Virno then attempts his own definition:
- "We call 'mass intellectuality', the living labor as tangible articulation which is determined by the general intellect. Mass intellectuality as a totality consists of that knowledge of living subjects which is not 'divisible', and which manifests itself in the direct interaction of the workforce."
More information
* Article: General intellect. By Paolo Virno. Entry in Zanini and Fadini (eds) __Lessico Postfordista__ (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2001).