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Accelerationism and political violence

Daniel Tutt · Daniel Tutt · ·12 min read
Commentary by Hex Index staff

Daniel Tutt delivers a provocative diagnosis of a political philosophy that claims to be the future but is currently fueling the very chaos it promises to transcend. He argues that accelerationism has shed its left-wing skin to become an "anti-political" force that mirrors the manic, unregulated logic of venture capital and artificial intelligence bubbles, leaving society on a precipice of institutional paralysis. In an era where tech giants predict the replacement of doctors by algorithms and markets teeter on the edge of collapse, this analysis forces a reckoning with the dangerous allure of speed over strategy.

The Death of the Left-Wing Dream

Tutt begins by dismantling the romanticized vision of the past. He notes that while he once argued left-accelerationism was dead, the reality is that the entire premise was compromised from the start. "Left-accelerationism has disappeared from the debate over accelerationism and in may ways this has led to the entire movement becoming effectively anti-political," he writes. This is a crucial distinction: the movement didn't just fail; it mutated into something that actively rejects political organization in favor of technological determinism.

Accelerationism and political violence

He identifies the current dominant strain as "Effective accelerationism," or "E/acc," a movement he describes as "clearly astro-turfed" and devoid of genuine political will. Instead of a coherent strategy for liberation, the discourse has become a double-bind. "Either embrace capital and its imperatives of unregulated accumulation or fall into despair, either speed up or slow down," Tutt observes. This framing exposes the trap: the only options presented are total submission to market forces or passive hopelessness. The "schizo and manic quality" of the debate, he argues, is not a feature but a bug, reflecting the very psychic disorders capitalism produces.

"The schizo subject is a neo-mandarinite subject, a type of aesthetic signaling and posture that has led the left to think that being cool and hip is what it means to be militant and revolutionary."

This critique of the "schizo subject" is particularly sharp. Tutt draws on the work of Michel Clouscard to distinguish between the poetic, aesthetic use of schizophrenia in philosophy and the actual illness. He argues that left-accelerationists mistakenly elevated a "counterculture subject" into a revolutionary archetype, confusing a "posture" with a strategy. Critics might note that this dismissal of the "schizo" subject risks throwing out the valuable Deleuzian insight about non-linear flows of desire, but Tutt's point stands: when theory becomes a fashion statement for the elite, it loses its power to organize the working class.

The Myth of Automation and the Reality of Labor

The core of Tutt's argument targets the utopian fantasies of "fully automated luxury communism." He contends that these ideas were not just naive but fundamentally misunderstood the mechanics of value creation. "Left-accelerationists made the error of placing planning ahead of organizing, they thought they could circumvent the problem of consciousness, awareness, and struggle through technological planning and digital immersion," he explains. This is a devastating critique of a movement that believed technology could solve political problems without human agency.

Tutt reminds readers that despite the hype around artificial intelligence, "labor remains the primary source of value and that multi-sector automation is impossible in capitalism." The promise of a post-work world is a mirage that distracts from the necessity of collective struggle. He points out that the accelerationist wager assumes a benevolent modification of capitalism by the ruling class, a hope that history suggests is unfounded. The movement's failure to center the working class as an agent of change leaves it vulnerable to being co-opted by the very forces it claims to oppose.

The Shadow of Nick Land and the Right-Wing Turn

Perhaps the most unsettling part of Tutt's analysis is his concession regarding Nick Land, the philosopher often credited as the "Godfather of Right and Left Accelerationism." Despite his "disdain for the neoreactionary philosopher," Tutt admits Land was correct in one specific regard: accelerationism is inherently anti-political. "Accelerationism is an anti-politics. It effectively operates on a double-bind logic," Tutt writes, acknowledging that the movement has arrived at the "unconditional accelerationism" Land always desired.

Tutt traces this lineage back to the industrial revolution and the contradictions of capitalism, noting how accelerationism seeks to "harness the power of technology to transform society through an emphasis on speeding up existing capitalist processes." However, he highlights the dark divergence in Land's thought. While Deleuze and Guattari saw the "schizophrenic" as a liberating force, Land views it as a tool for "genetic manipulation" and "white exit." "For Land, the unregulated accumulation of capital is what will lead to a biological overcoming of the human, and this situation is one where ubiquitous social fragmentation along ethnic and racial lines will only intensify," Tutt explains. This stark contrast reveals how the same philosophical roots can bloom into a "neo-confederate politics" that celebrates racial hierarchy.

"The faith placed in cybernetic and algorithmic technologies to liberate humanity by the prominent libertarian entrepreneur Elon Musk... offers an example of how accelerationism is ultimately a highly standard form of capitalist politics."

Tutt uses the example of Elon Musk to ground these abstract theories in current events. Musk's vision of Mars colonization and his opposition to wealth redistribution exemplify the "creative destruction" ethos that accelerationism champions. This connection is vital: it shows that the "edgy" rhetoric of accelerationism is not subversive but is, in fact, the operating system of modern venture capital. The "anti-politics" of accelerationism serves to pacify the masses by promoting a form of "barbarism" that Nietzsche himself seemed to anticipate. "Nietzsche aimed to accelerate and heighten 'cultural politics' as a deterrent to socialist politics," Tutt notes, linking the philosophical history to the current erosion of democratic norms.

Bottom Line

Daniel Tutt's strongest move is exposing accelerationism not as a radical alternative to capitalism, but as its most enthusiastic and dangerous adherent, stripping away the "cool" aesthetic to reveal a philosophy of unregulated accumulation and social fragmentation. Its biggest vulnerability, however, lies in its dismissal of the very human agency required to build a different future; by rejecting organization in favor of speed, it leaves the door wide open for the worst impulses of the right to take the wheel. Readers should watch how this "anti-political" stance continues to shape the discourse around artificial intelligence and the future of work, as the line between technological optimism and social collapse grows increasingly thin.

Deep Dives

Explore these related deep dives:

  • Nick Land

    The article extensively discusses Nick Land as the founder of accelerationism and his concept of 'unconditional accelerationism.' Understanding his philosophical trajectory from academic to neoreactionary thinker provides essential context for grasping how accelerationism evolved and fragmented.

  • Anti-Oedipus

    The article traces accelerationism's origins to Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus and its concept of 'desiring-machines' and the schizophrenic as revolutionary subject. This foundational text's arguments about capitalism and desire are central to understanding the philosophical basis of accelerationist thought.

Sources

Accelerationism and political violence

by Daniel Tutt · Daniel Tutt · Read full article

It was only a few years ago that I went on This is Revolution podcast to argue that accelerationism — at least in its left-wing form — was dead. In retrospect, however, that may be because the entire premise of accelerationist thought was already fundamentally compromised. But it seems that accelerationism doesn’t want to die, even if its left-wing expression has sputtered out. Hegel’s owl takes flight at dusk, only to return by dawn to the very same perch.

As I write, we sit on the precipice of an AI bubble, talk of a potential catastrophic market crash, we see major layoffs at Amazon, and the ruling class seems to think that within just a few years doctors will be replaced by AI. Where exactly are we at with accelerationism today? I’m happy to announce that I am planning a live podcast discussion on accelerationism with my friends at Pure Panic bookshop in the DC area. Please RSVP to join me accelerationism.eventbrite.com.

My contention is as follows: left-accelerationism has disappeared from the debate over accelerationism and in may ways this has led to the entire movement becoming effectively anti-political. The “Effective accelerationism” movement—the “E/acc” you see on X handles—are a case in point of this anti-political, clearly astro-turfed orientation to accelerationism. It may be that accelerationism has arrived at the true place that its founder Nick Land has always wanted it to be, what he at one time called “unconditional accelerationism” which is neither right nor left but pushed to the point of terminal institutional paralysis.

In fact, for all of my disdain for the neoreactionary philosopher Nick Land, I think that he is correct in this regard. Accelerationism is an anti-politics. It effectively operates on a double-bind logic: either embrace capital and its imperatives of unregulated accumulation or fall into despair, either speed up or slow down. Indeed, this frenetic, schizo and manic quality to the discourse around accelerationism has characterized it ever since its origins with Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

The premise behind accelerationism, as Benjamin Noys points out in his excellent study Malign Velocities, tends to assess the predominant psychic disorders of capitalism: psychopathy, narcissistic personality disorder, schizophrenia, depression, hysteria, anxiety, etc. by intensifying them in order to transcend their limit. Michel Clouscard makes the important point that we must distinguish this naive idea of schizophrenia as Deleuze and Guattari mean it as poetic-worldly ...