Surplus-Value of Code, Surplus-Value of Flow and Machinic Surplus-Value:Codification and Decodification of Surplus in Deleuze & Guattari

Abstract

This article examines Deleuze & Guattari’s reworking of the Marxian category of surplus-value in Anti-Oedipus, expanding it beyond capitalism. The authors distinguish four types: surplus-value of code, specific to pre-capitalist societies (primitive and despotic), where an extra-economic instance (moral, religious, political) dominates the coding of flows and the extraction of surplus is discernible, as in tribute or corvée; the human, from the capital–labor contradiction; the machinic, from advanced capitalism with technoscience; and surplus-value of flow, which is intrinsically capitalist and encompasses both the human and the machinic. A fifth type, financial surplus-value, is mentioned in seminars. Surplus-value of flow is properly capitalist, operating under generalized decoding, where the economic instance is determining and dominant. It is characterized by differential relations between flows of distinct potencies, such as financing and means of payment, capital and labor (human surplus-value), and market and technoscientific innovation (machinic surplus-value). Financial surplus-value functions in the integration of human and machinic surplus-values into surplus-value of flow. Machinic surplus-value underscores the centrality of knowledge and technoscience, where human labor becomes “machinic” and adjacent to productive processes. The immeasurable nature and non-localizable command are essential features of surplus-value of flow, which manifests as an impersonal economic force.