in a dialectical reversal peculiar to major advances in social control, the idea that some are free to use others as means to an end, while others are free to allow themselves to be used in that manner, has been proclaimed the very essence of freedom

Spinoza calls ‘conatus’ the effort by which ‘each thing, as far as it can by its own power, strives to persevere in its being.’

Capitalism inherited this layering of markets that evolved over the long term. But it could only truly take form by closing off the last avenues of independent individual or (small-scale) collective production, thus raising material heteronomy to an unprecedented level.

all the aporiae of the subjectivist metaphysics that feed contemporary individualistic thinking

Subjectivist-individualist thought, built around the idea of free will as sovereign self-control, predictably rejects this verdict of radical heteronomy in toto and to its last breath.

with the hope of crossing the critical threshold of the process of accumulation by self-sustaining valorisation

crucially ex ante, in the form of the monetary advance (‘at the start’), namely, as a stock of money-capital, and not as an ex post remuneration for labour-power

A false antinomy (between ‘calculation’ and ‘affects’) par excellence

The reorientation of corporate governance towards maximizing shareholder value – namely, the demand from ‘above’ to extract a rate of return on net capital far beyond the prevailing norms of Fordist capitalism

The reorientation of corporate governance towards maximizing shareholder value – namely, the demand from ‘above’ to extract a rate of return on net capital far beyond the prevailing norms of Fordist capitalism