A rich and audacious account of the mutually reinforcing transformations of capitalism and technology in the age of AI
AI and algorithms are more than technologies. They are rooted in new capitalist forms and processes that transcend economics and technology to reshape social reality, politics, culture, and subjectivities.
Set out in twenty theses—stretching across geopolitics, the mining of rare earths, labor, crypto, influencers, climate change, Gen AI, social acceleration, Silicon Valley ideologies, and predictive policing—this book situates contemporary social change in the context of the advent of algorithmic capital. Jonathan Martineau and Jonathan Durand Folco show how the valorization of data and the development of AI are symptoms of deeper socio-economic and political mutations.
Algorithmic capital is, at once, a logic of accumulation, a form of social power, a mediation of social relations, and a relation to nature, as well as a multidimensional reality that profoundly reorganizes social life. In the face of this new and alarming stage of capitalism, the book explores possibilities for organizing and resistance, tracing a path toward a post-capitalist and just world.
What People Are Saying
"In 20 theses, this book develops a powerful, critical and multidimensional way of thinking about the algorithmic logic and artificial intelligence that are transforming our lives today." Aurélien Berthier,  Agir par la Culture Magazine
"A critical theory of the profound transformations that the digital economy is bringing to modern capitalism. An essential book." Fred Savard, Â Podcast
"Jonathan Durand Folco and Jonathan Martineau offer us an intellectual and theoretical toolbox to help us better understand a whole series of phenomena that have swept through our societies over the last twenty years or so."Â Â Jean-Benoit Dumais, Â Endorsement
"The book is on a grand scale in terms of both its theoretical ambition and the considerable amount of information it contains." Mircea Vultur, Â Relations Industrielles
"A well-founded and researched argument."Â Samuel Cossette, Â Labour/Le travail
"Algorithmic Capital does a number of important things that, in combination, make it a wonderfully pedagogical text: it draws a distinction between an ethics of AI and a critical theory of AI; it conveys a practical urgency in its form, unfurling in theses instead of chapters; and it insists that the radicality of theory lies in identifying ‘the real possibilities for emancipatory action and the good life’ in the social world as we find it. Most importantly, perhaps, given their central thesis that ‘a theory of algorithms needs a theory of capitalism,’ Martineau and Durand Folco demonstrate that if our thought is going to keep up with developments in AI, it needs to slow down." Beverley Best, author of The Automatic Fetish
About the Authors
Jonathan Martineau is Associate Professor at the Liberal Arts College, Concordia University, Montreal, and Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Time, Technology and Capitalism (CIRTTC - cirttc.org). He specializes in the history of ideas, political economy, critical theory and technology studies. He is the author of Time, Capitalism and Alienation and editor of Marxisme anglo-saxon. Figures contemporaines.
Jonathan Durand Folco is Associate Professor at the School for Social Innovation, St Paul University, Ottawa. He specializes in political philosophy, critical theory, democracy studies and social innovation. He is the author of Réinventer la démocratie and À nous la ville! Traité de municipalisme.
