Abstract

The left sees struggles over the knowledge economy as battles for what Marx called the “general intellect.” After clarifying that capital has always expropriated knowledge, the chapter shows the role of the general intellect in the transformation from Fordism to post-Fordism, as socialist and anti-colonial struggles claimed a stake in the general intellect and capital worked back to repress and enclose the movements. It also, however, absorbed the demands of the movements in perverted form. It then shows how post-Fordism depends on the general intellect and how left theorists of the general intellect end up reinforcing the knowledge economy’s demand for more and more knowledge, despite the incalculability of knowledge.