Article:

‹Kognitiver Kapitalismus›? Nichtbewusste Kognition und Massenintellektualität

This paper asks in what ways capitalism appropriates the cognitive capacities of digital media technologies. The post-operaist thesis of ‹cognitive capitalism› postulates that capitalism today fundamentally relies on the cognitive capacities of human labor, which, supported by digital media technologies, organizes itself socially. But what if cognition is not merely a capacity of human labor, but can also be attributed to digital media technologies? And what if capital can appropriate these cognitive capacities for its own ends? This paper challenges post-operaist accounts of ‹cognitive capitalism› in considering how nonconscious cognition questions the independence of mass intellectuality, while pointing to transformations in the cognitive assemblages of markets, organizations, and management.