Zaibatsus: A user manual printed in 3D
You couldn’t kill a zaibatsu by assassinating a dozen key executives; there were others waiting to step up the ladder, assume the vacated position, access the vast banks of corporate memory — William Gibson, Neuromancer
Zaibatsu’s (to riff off Gibson’s Cyberpunk nomenclature for Transnational companies) have a front-row seat, a provincial view maybe but a view none-the-less of the Outside, of the complex, of the complete. But, this glimpse gives them the power to compel acquiescence from those protesting, not only the complexity of creation but the process that is decoupling, and reformatting eternity.
As a manifestation of the manual for accelerationism, which has capitalism as the core-component (that being the engine), they can compel man (through wages, salaries, returns, and dividends) into the completion of a new eternity, the completion of a new providence.
The press, bloggers, and others have penned hours of articles on r/acc, the term a weak stand-in for accelerationism, in general, these days. The main concept of these tracts being flawed at best with vaguely a trace of u/acc being explored. This manifestation of reams of QWERTY driven text is little more than a failed attempt to name the Outside, to understand the manual of change and how it implements itself.
As the Zaibatsus organize, the lack of political constraint around them sees accountability scatter and routed.
Society watches in horror, laments, protests, and then claims to not be part of some “alt-wing” but reformists holding these entities accountable.
The members of society who still hold a candle for democracy with elan gusto say there can be a (human) future and a refinement, a new space. It’s what the news, the political parties, and the blogs demand. CNN, Vox and yes even Fox News.
But what does the Stack say?
The great deception
Now I believe I can hear the philosophers protesting that it can only be misery to live in folly, illusion, deception and ignorance, but it isn’t -it’s human. — Desiderius Erasmus
Some will continue deceiving themselves of agency, by Googling for work and cheaper prices online (as the bricks and mortar vanish). Feeding the interface layers with more reasons to grow ever more complex and demand a greater coupling with the senses. In the background acceleration to a trans-human state picks up pace. The things we rely on the Stack to provide require a form of surrender — and a desire to avoid true war with it. The internet, cloud computing, highly complex production lines. The very components of the Stack — the god of systems thinking — requires us to deceive ourselves that any kind of protest against it, while using it isn’t a form of surrender and acquiescence. The nation-state thus becomes de-territorialized in response to the facts on the ground and the removal of agency. Any linked movements join in the swan song.
While true that the “virtual nation-state” defines the seed of a non-Westphalian state system and the future within a context of alt-politics, the “haves” of the current state (The Zaibatsus and their Sovereign Individual ilk), via collapse and a systemic downfall due to black swan events (such as COVID) in the theater (as opposed to the Outside) become the catalyst of this Westphalian collapse.
As governments preside over the context of the term “sovereignty” in the shape of “land” and the “real” that forms its territory, accelerationism as a counter-narrative to their power is but the concept of collapse presented as “the opposition”. It is literally the exploration of the outcome of all paths fusing to one and many. The dissolving of ancient bonds into the contractual.
What happens to those caught in the gears?
Of kith and kin?
Our most bitter enemies are our own kith and kin. Kings have no brothers, no sons, no mother! — Honoré de Balzac
The “kith and kin” model (read: modern Liberal Democratic states) of acting in a fashion to support existing universal protections (social services, public post offices, police, public health) against the alt-politics of late (of both the left and right) and sovereign individual maneuvers (I’m buying a passport out of here) is failing. Some elected a king to stem the tide and only hastened its lapping at their ankles.
Take the US by way of an example. Public debt is mounting along with the COVID death toll and more destruction of the underlying economy is mooted each day. Kith and kin are rent asunder. The meth (or fentanyl) pandemic continues to rage in areas of impoverishment. The press, however, constructs a form (the manifestation of an egregore) to discuss the post-political-wings of society, those that have come from accelerationism’s core. Their fantastic creations lend terms to their own destruction, as part of the kith and kin they eat themselves. This egregore, an ethereal corporation in its own right (big business) not only feeds the king, and the downfall of the king, but creates the king the press wants to regicide. The same king that saw their fortunes turn? Irony is dead.
The state apparatus when it serves the needs of the people seems to prescribe them a tomb. When we state the “future” (of many complex paths yet to be proposed) it is the sovereign individuals future, in a structure and market summarized by “We who wield power first and foremost”. These are the article of concern. Kith and kin are buried.
Consumption
“Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production” — Adam Smith
Provided in the political concept of the state is consumption (written as law) — where the nightmare of consumption of the future in the present is real. Coal, oil, Ponzi schemes, the list is endless. But the future shifts and all consumption become the past. Markets demand it.
The “physical political” — that is the resurrecting of physical projects that consume resources, but in the modern age crumble to empty headlines (infrastructure week) is nothing but a political specter.
The tech sector specifically eats many projects before they begin. Why bother building public transport to cut drink driving, when Uber addresses the problem? COVID will pass, and infrastructure week with it.
It’s the way of the Zaibatsu. Private over the public, a sovereign individual over state sovereignty. Consumption over conservation.
Conclusion
The 3D manual of accelerationism is the Zaibatsu. The Zaibatsu is the egregore of modern society. The Zaibatsu ruled by the sovereign individual, as shareholder or CEO. The Westphalian states demise. The rip-cord of the capitalist engine. The eater of kith and kin. That which demands eternal consumption as fuel for the motor.
