Franco “Bifo” Berardi: The Soul At Work. From Alienation to Autonomy (2009)

“Capital has managed to overcome the dualism of body and soul by establishing a workforce in which everything we mean by the Soul—language, creativity, affects—is mobilized for its own benefit. Industrial production put to work bodies, muscles, and arms. Now, in the sphere of digital technology and cyberculture, exploitation involves the mind, language, and emotions in order to generate value—while our bodies disappear in front of our computer screens.

In this, his newest book, Franco “Bifo” Berardi—key member of the Italian Autonomist movement and a close associate of Félix Guattari—addresses these new forms of estrangement. In the philosophical landscape of the 1960s and 1970s, the Hegelian concept of alienation was used to define the harnessing of subjectivity. The estrangement of workers from their labor, the feeling of alienation they experienced, and their refusal to submit to it became the bases for a human community that remained autonomous from capital. But today a new condition of alienation has taken root in which workers commonly and voluntarily work overtime, the population is tethered to cell phones and Blackberries, debt has become a postmodern form of slavery, and antidepressants are commonly used to meet the unending pressure of production. As a result, the conditions for community have run aground and new philosophical categories are needed. The Soul at Work is a clarion call for a new collective effort to reclaim happiness.

The Soul at Work is Bifo’s long overdue introduction to English-speaking readers. This Semiotext(e) edition is also the book’s first appearance in any language.”

Preface by Jason Smith
Translated by Francesca Cadel, Giuseppina Mecchia
Publisher Semiotext(e), 2009
Foreign Agents series
ISBN 1584350768, 9781584350767
229 pages

Reviews: Michael Goddard (Mute, 2009), Lukas Keefer (Metapsychology, 2011), McKenzie Wark (Public Seminar, 2015).

Publisher

PDF (thanks to esco_bar, updated on 2017-6-26)

Herbert Marcuse: One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (1964–) [EN, ES, GR, TR, CZ, AL]

“One of the most important texts of modern times, Herbert Marcuses analysis and image of a one-dimensional man in a one-dimensional society has shaped many young radicals ways of seeing and experiencing life. Published in 1964, it fast became an ideological bible for the emergent New Left. As Douglas Kellner notes in his introduction, Marcuses greatest work was a damning indictment of contemporary Western societies, capitalist and communist. Yet it also expressed the hopes of a radical philosopher that human freedom and happiness could be greatly expanded beyond the regimented thought and behaviour prevalent in the established society. For those who held the reins of power Marcuses call to arms threatened civilization to its very core. For many others, however, it represented a freedom hitherto unimaginable.”

First edition published by Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964
Second edition by Routledge, 1991
ISBN 9780415289764
275 pages

One-Dimensional Man (English, 2nd ed., 1964/1991, 11 MB, updated on 2016-12-23)
El Hombre unidimensional (Spanish, trans. Antonio Elorza, 1965/1993, added on 2014-6-7)
Ο μονοδιάστατος άνθρωπος (Greek, trans. Μπάμπης Λυκούδης, 1971, added on 2014-6-7)
Tek-Boyutlu Insan (Turkish, trans. Aziz Yardimli, 1986, HTML, added on 2014-6-7)
Jednorozměrný člověk (Czech, trans. Miroslav Rýdl, 1991, added on 2014-6-11)
Njeriu njëdimensional (Albanian, trans. Gaqo Karakshi, 2006, added on 2014-6-7)