True Accelerationism
= 'True Accelerationism' was a six-part series on the P2P Foundation blog. See our entry on Regenerative Accelerationism for a conceptual update.
Context
Via Deep Seek:
Written as a response to the then-prominent Left Accelerationism of Srnicek and Williams, Bauwens’ six-part series argued that the real question is not whether to accelerate, but what to accelerate. He proposed a “True Accelerationism” focused on building a post-capitalist, commons-based society.
Here is a summary of its core tenets as a set of contrasts:
- Ecological, not extractive.
- Distributed, not centralized.
- Local & bioregional, not globalist.
- Commons-based, not corporate.
- Focused on biophysical infrastructure (soil, solar, manufacturing), not digital abstraction alone.
The individual posts fleshed out this vision by pointing to concrete, existing alternatives that could be scaled:
- Soil-Based Carbon Capture as a powerful, shovel-ready technology to reverse biospheric destruction.
- Renewable Energy and its scale economics as the basis for a new civilization of abundance.
- Sustainable Distributed Manufacturing (the LM3D system) as a model for a post-industrial, peer-produced material economy.
- Large-Scale Ecosystem Restoration (via John D. Liu’s work) as proof that damaged bioregions can be rehabilitated.
- The primacy of local-level change in building resilient, self-governing communities.
In essence, Bauwens’ intervention was a call to accelerate the construction of the new system within the shell of the old, rather than accelerating capitalism’s contradictions or simply applying the brakes.
"Bauwens’ 2016 series is not just a historical footnote; it anticipates R/Acc while providing a corrective lens that clarifies the stakes of the current disagreement.
1. It anticipates R/Acc’s “constructive acceleration.” The core move of R/Acc—accelerating the building of alternatives rather than accelerating capitalism itself—is precisely what Bauwens proposed a decade earlier. The P2P wiki page on R/Acc explicitly acknowledges this lineage, noting that Bauwens’ series “referenced the potential of a True Accelerationism” that prefigured these ideas. Bauwens’ focus on distributed manufacturing, soil restoration, and renewable energy as the true accelerators of a new civilization directly prefigures R/Acc’s emphasis on bioregional infrastructure and relocalized production.
2. It grounds “acceleration” in biophysical reality, not digital abstraction.
While R/Acc often operates in the register of protocols, currencies, and crypto-infrastructure, Bauwens’ series insists that the material base is soil, energy, and manufacturing. This is a crucial corrective. It reminds R/Acc that a “regenerative civilization” cannot be built on digital feedback loops alone; it requires the ecological acceleration of carbon capture and ecosystem restoration, and the material acceleration of distributed, sustainable production. This prevents “acceleration” from collapsing into another form of techno-idealism.
3. It offers a prefigurative answer to Bendell’s dilemma.
Bendell’s decelerationism is motivated by a fear that accelerating collapse will destroy the systems people depend on before alternatives are ready. Bauwens’ “True Accelerationism” is precisely a strategy for building those alternatives now, at the local and bioregional level, so that communities are not left waiting for a top-down transition. It is an acceleration of prefigurative resilience, which speaks directly to Bendell’s concern for the vulnerable. The goal is not to speed up the breakdown, but to speed up the construction of the lifeboats—and the new society—while the old one falters.
4. It reframes the debate away from a simple speed binary.
Bauwens’ intervention, rooted in P2P theory, suggests the real axis is not fast vs. slow, but centralized/extractive vs. distributed/commons-based. One can “accelerate” the growth of commons-based, bioregional systems while simultaneously “decelerating” the expansion of extractive, globalized infrastructure. This is a more nuanced political grammar than the current R/Acc vs. Decel binary, which can sometimes sound like a disagreement about the speed of a single, monolithic system. Bauwens’ framework allows for a selective accelerationism and a selective decelerationism simultaneously, organized around the logic of the commons.
5. It critiques the automationist fantasy of Left Accelerationism.
Bauwens’ original target was the Left Accelerationist dream of full automation and universal basic income as a utopian escape. He argued that the first task is not to demand a fully automated future, but to create actually existing post-capitalist livelihoods in the present. This critique remains relevant: it cautions against any accelerationism—including a purely digital R/Acc—that defers the hard work of building material, ecological, and social alternatives to a future technological fix.
In sum, Bauwens’ 2016 series does not simply predict R/Acc. It provides a materialist and commons-oriented foundation for it, while also offering a bridge to Decelerationist concerns. It suggests that the most meaningful “acceleration” is the accelerated construction of a distributed, ecological, and commons-based civilization—a project that is, by its very nature, also a form of deceleration: a slowing of the extractive machine as the regenerative one grows stronger.
Discussion
The New Decelerationism vs Regenerative Accelerationism debate
Find the debate here
Deep Seek:
The present debate is framed by two poles:
Regenerative Accelerationism (Benjamin Life): R/Acc argues for “leaning into capitalism’s runaway feedback loops” but re-embedding value in relationships rather than extraction. Its aim is to “fork the source code of society” by building self-amplifying alternatives—community currencies, federated cooperatives, open protocols, and bioregional infrastructure—that strengthen with each departure from the extractive system. It explicitly distinguishes itself from techno-capitalist acceleration, positioning itself as the “complement and completion” of defensive accelerationism (d/acc).
Decelerationism (Jem Bendell): Bendell argues that “speeding up this breakdown causes massive harm to everyday people who still depend on current systems”. Decelerationism is a call to slow down technological development, economic expansion, and ecological destruction to create space for communities to adapt, rebuild local resilience, and govern new technologies safely. It is a politics of care, caution, and managed transition in the face of collapse.
The Cosmo-Local Synthesis
Michel Bauwens (with DeepSeek)
< A viable synthesis for the 21st century would likely resemble a federated network of bioregional commons that are internally decelerated (stable populations, ecological limits, selective technology) but externally embedded in a defensive and diplomatic architecture that prevents any single hegemonic power from crushing them individually. >
< Decelerationism is the internal logic of the commons (stability, sufficiency, care), while R/Acc is the external logic of survival (building the infrastructure of coordination and defense fast enough to matter). The multi-level selection rule is the bridge between them. >
The essence of my reponse would be that decelerationism cannot work on its own because it disgards forces and the response to threats by stronger forces, and that R/Acc may be used for too accomating positions.
The synthesis is based on conjoining the two principles in a complementary fashion:
1) internal decelarationism in stabilized communities
2) but: they must be able not just to defend themselves but use technology in a way that strenghtens their own power.
This is of course what is addressed by the cosmo-local strategy, here is the full argument, the result of a dialogue with DeepSeek based on my prompts and wiki material:
- Implications for R/Acc vs. Decelerationism
The question of whether "the group defend can itself against hegemonic forces?" needs to be refined:
* What is the nature of the hegemonic threat?
A geographically isolated island facing pre-industrial neighbors (Tokugawa) faces a different threat environment than a minority regime governing a vast population (Qing) or a small religious community within a liberal state (Amish).
* What technologies actually constitute "strength" in a given threat environment?
For Tokugawa Japan, firearms were a threat to internal stability, not a source of external strength. For Qing China, firearms were both, and the state chose internal stability at the cost of external strength.
* Is there a niche available?
The Amish strategy works because the American hegemon tolerates them. A bioregional commons-based society that attempts to decelerate while embedded within a hostile global capitalist order faces a much harder problem: it must either remain invisible (like the Amish), remain useful (like a specialized supplier), or build sufficient defensive capacity to deter predation.
The R/Acc insight is that building the new system within the shell of the old is the only viable path. The Decelerationist insight is that speeding up the destruction of the old system before the new one is ready is catastrophic for the vulnerable. Your multi-level selection rule forces a synthesis: the new system must be built fast enough to achieve viability (R/Acc) but selectively enough to avoid provoking the hegemon into crushing it before it is ready (Decelerationism).
It must also be defensible enough to survive if the hegemon collapses or turns predatory. The Tokugawa lesson is that insulation requires a monopoly on the technologies of violence at the boundary while suppressing their diffusion internally. The Amish lesson is that insulation within a hegemon requires political invisibility and economic usefulness. The Qing lesson is that suppressing internal sub-group capacity in the name of stability creates a brittle system that fails catastrophically when the external environment shifts.
< A viable synthesis for the 21st century would likely resemble a federated network of bioregional commons that are internally decelerated (stable populations, ecological limits, selective technology) but externally embedded in a defensive and diplomatic architecture that prevents any single hegemonic power from crushing them individually. >
This is not a return to Tokugawa isolation, but a distributed, multi-level strategy that uses the tools of the digital age (R/Acc's protocols, federated networks, open-source infrastructure) to build the coordination capacity necessary for collective defense without requiring the centralization that would recreate the Qing dilemma.
The positions are therefore not exclusive. The historical cases suggest they are two phases of a single strategy:
- Decelerationism is the internal logic of the commons (stability, sufficiency, care),
- while R/Acc is the external logic of survival (building the infrastructure of coordination and defense fast enough to matter).
The multi-level selection rule is precisely the bridge between them.
Directory
- Michel Bauwens on P2P and Accelerationism (1) [1]
- True Accelerationism (2): How Soil-Based Carbon Capture Can Reverse Climate Change [2]
- True Accelerationism (3): Abundance is the basis of civilization, on the scale economics of renewable energy [3]
- True Accelerationism (4): The LM3D, the first system of sustainable distributed manufacturing may be ready by 2017 [4]
- True Accelerationism (5): John D. Liu on Large-Scale Ecosystem Restoration Projects [5]
- True Accelerationism (6): Rehabiliting the importance of change at the local level [6]2016/01/27