Oct 1, 2026 · 2 hr 6 min · 12 segments
In this episode Alyson and Breht enter the strange and unsettling world of Nick Land: Marx, Nietzsche, Delueze, cybernetics, accelerationism, and the possibility that capitalism is becoming something…
But, um, so I think here's the, here's the number one place to start, especially for a Marxist audience, um, is ... which is a core concept in Nick Land's work, and I have a few core concepts we're gonna, we're gonna discuss.
The first one is that Nick Land s- fundamentally sees capital as a sort of autonomous historical process.
I mean, in some sense it's Marxian and Hegelian in that there is this evolutionary dynamic, this dialectical unfolding of capitalism, um, but he sees it as something that is a sort of, uh, we c- I mean, the time stuff we can get into a bit later.
... that is sort of n- necessary and inevitable and that is carrying us to a post-human future, a h- uh, a future in which human beings themselves, and this is the anti-humanism we'll get to inherent in Nick Land, are sort of overcome, if not completely annihilated, and that while we think capitalism is, you know, a historically contingent process or, uh, just a, a mere, you know, economic mode of production or whatever it is, what become, what becomes clear in, in Land's work is that he sees capital as sort of this blind evolutionary process coming, becoming conscious through its own mechanisms of markets and competition and prices and sort of, uh, reaching its apotheosis and its, its awakening, uh, formally through artificial intelligence, AGI, et cetera.
So, so Land is really, like, radicalizing Marxist core insight that capital confronts us as an impersonal force with its own imperatives, right, the structural analysis of capital that all Marxists have.
But where Marxists would treat capitalism as this historically contingent and specific set of social relations, Land is sort of treating it as something that is becoming and should continue to become, and really no matter what we do, will continue to become autonomous from humanity and is a process by which, uh, you know, humans are the means to its ends, and it will eventually, um, you know, leave us behind.
So, uh, what, what do you think about that, and, and, and w- how would you ar- articulate Land's view of, of capital and capitalism?
capitalism?Yeah, I think it's a good summary on sort of where Land is thinking about this, and where Land-- this, this is where I see Marxism in Land, right? Because I think that one of the most fascinating things that Marx puts out there is this impersonal force of capitalism, and then that Marxist thinkers take up is this idea that capitalism has its own logic and rationality, which it is playing out s- at least somewhat independently from the capitalists themselves.
So one of the things that I think is, like, very interesting in Marx's work that he's very attuned to, and as someone who, like, appreciates Marx from the Althusserian angle, I've often found this to be very powerful in Marx, is that Marx really theorizes capitalism as a force which often acts against the interest of the capitalists, right? The anarchy of the market actually is not good for the bourgeoisie.
The anarchy that capitalism creates fundamentally, structurally in how it opens spaces of markets creates situations where individual bourgeoisie fall.
Members of the class often suffer in various ways because of capitalist logics that are playing out.
And capitalism in Marx is not just the intention of the ruling class imposed onto economics.
It has a sphere of independence that the ruling class themselves becomes, in some sense, enslaved to or subjected to in some way.
And I don't think acknowledging that in and of itself represents a break from Marx, right? I think there are a lot of Marxist thinkers who are really interested in tracing out this independent rationality and logic of capital, thinking about how it structures thought and ideology.
But what Land, I think, is doing above and beyond that is suggesting that this aspect of capitalism really is kind of the totality of capitalism.
But, um, so I think here's the, here's the number one place to start, especially for a Marxist audience, um, is ... which is a core concept in Nick Land's work, and I have a few core concepts we're gonna, we're gonna discuss.
The first one is that Nick Land s- fundamentally sees capital as a sort of autonomous historical process.
I mean, in some sense it's Marxian and Hegelian in that there is this evolutionary dynamic, this dialectical unfolding of capitalism, um, but he sees it as something that is a sort of, uh, we c- I mean, the time stuff we can get into a bit later.
... that is sort of n- necessary and inevitable and that is carrying us to a post-human future, a h- uh, a future in which human beings themselves, and this is the anti-humanism we'll get to inherent in Nick Land, are sort of overcome, if not completely annihilated, and that while we think capitalism is, you know, a historically contingent process or, uh, just a, a mere, you know, economic mode of production or whatever it is, what become, what becomes clear in, in Land's work is that he sees capital as sort of this blind evolutionary process coming, becoming conscious through its own mechanisms of markets and competition and prices and sort of, uh, reaching its apotheosis and its, its awakening, uh, formally through artificial intelligence, AGI, et cetera.
So, so Land is really, like, radicalizing Marxist core insight that capital confronts us as an impersonal force with its own imperatives, right, the structural analysis of capital that all Marxists have.
But where Marxists would treat capitalism as this historically contingent and specific set of social relations, Land is sort of treating it as something that is becoming and should continue to become, and really no matter what we do, will continue to become autonomous from humanity and is a process by which, uh, you know, humans are the means to its ends, and it will eventually, um, you know, leave us behind.
So, uh, what, what do you think about that, and, and, and w- how would you ar- articulate Land's view of, of capital and capitalism?
capitalism?Yeah, I think it's a good summary on sort of where Land is thinking about this, and where Land-- this, this is where I see Marxism in Land, right? Because I think that one of the most fascinating things that Marx puts out there is this impersonal force of capitalism, and then that Marxist thinkers take up is this idea that capitalism has its own logic and rationality, which it is playing out s- at least somewhat independently from the capitalists themselves.
So one of the things that I think is, like, very interesting in Marx's work that he's very attuned to, and as someone who, like, appreciates Marx from the Althusserian angle, I've often found this to be very powerful in Marx, is that Marx really theorizes capitalism as a force which often acts against the interest of the capitalists, right? The anarchy of the market actually is not good for the bourgeoisie.
The anarchy that capitalism creates fundamentally, structurally in how it opens spaces of markets creates situations where individual bourgeoisie fall.
Members of the class often suffer in various ways because of capitalist logics that are playing out.
And capitalism in Marx is not just the intention of the ruling class imposed onto economics.
It has a sphere of independence that the ruling class themselves becomes, in some sense, enslaved to or subjected to in some way.
And I don't think acknowledging that in and of itself represents a break from Marx, right? I think there are a lot of Marxist thinkers who are really interested in tracing out this independent rationality and logic of capital, thinking about how it structures thought and ideology.
But what Land, I think, is doing above and beyond that is suggesting that this aspect of capitalism really is kind of the totality of capitalism.
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