Why socius?

From Capitalism and Schizophrenia

[edit] Up for debate

In my opinion, the fundamental question behind the concept of socius is this:

If we rid ourselves of anthropocentrism and essentialism, how do we explain that for example despotic structures are being socially reproduced? How can we account for any consistency in human societies?

First one must understand the fundamental relation between social production and channelled flows of desire. Unchannelled desire is flowing freely, in every direction so to speak, giving no common ground for social production. But channelling flows of desire allows “common goals” and “mutual interests” to be formed. And this in turn makes social (re)production possible.

Second: The socius is a body that channels the flows of desire.

This body consists of inscriptions, historical marks of actual social production. Picture this body of inscriptions as a surface on top of which social production is taking place. The social production on top of the socius is Society, standing knee-deep in flows of desire, that simultaneously puts the machinic processes of social production (see ATPC 480, on social formation) in motion and is being coded by that very same social production.

This commonly shared surface holds for example the inscription of socially produced Capital. The magic trick is however, that once being recorded on the body of the socius, the Capital rather seems to be the cause of social production – capital generating capital, by investment, and so on… The mark of capital on the body of the socius, channels flows of desire towards the endless, socially produced, accumulation of Capital itself. (AOC 10-11)

(Somewhat like the mark of surveillance structures in our day and age, that are motivated through a channelled flow of fear, therefore socially (re)produced, while appearing to be serving-protecting-withholding society, when it actually is controlling it.)

It’s important to bare in mind that there is really no master of deception behind this, it’s not one of those viciously planted grand narratives – the deception is produced by social production itself. Another fine point to make, is that there’s no call for teleologic behind the rise and fall of different dominating machinic processes of social production (as D&G would prefer, rather than "mode of production" (ATPC 480, once again)). The flow can be “disturbed”, recoded, redirected, suddenly and significantly by a number of rather innocent looking factors.

--Marcus Nilsson 10:17, 11 October 2007 (CEST)

Just adding some notes: If you start recording social production you will be able to see certain types of structures reoccurring - in different places, of different components, but from the same process, the same abstract machine. A historical record of social production thus will provide at least circumstantial evidence of which machinical processes are predominant within a certain period of time.

What D&G suggests is that a historical recording of social production is not just descriptive (telling us what abstract machine is dominating), but also normative (playing a part in determining what abstract machine will dominate) - it is actual in itself, not just the distant account of something actual! Like the sediment build-up of the river directs the very flow of water and sand that created it, the build-up of social production directs the flows of desire from which it comes into being.

(Insert here the marxist understanding that historical eras are defined by modes of production, and make note of both the similarities and the differences towards the idea of dominating machinical processes as defining factor.) --Marcus Nilsson 15:02, 12 October 2007 (CEST)