[D66] [JD: 31] The World Computer

[R.O.]

*Alexander R. Galloway* <http://cultureandcommunication.org/galloway/> · blog 
<http://cultureandcommunication.org/galloway/> ·

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  The World Computer

March 22, 2021 <http://cultureandcommunication.org/galloway/the-world-computer>

Jonathan Beller's new book, /The World Computer/ <https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-world-computer>, is on the 
intimate relation between information and power. Characterized by the author as “political in intention, 
speculative in execution, and concrete in its engagement” (70), the book touches on computers, photography, 
film, and finance, all the while attending to the specific details of racialization and proletarianization. 
Beller's book is part of a growing wave of new titles devoted to politics and technology, from Katherine 
McKittrick's new book /Dear Science/ <https://www.dukeupress.edu/dear-science-and-other-stories>, to McKenzie 
Wark's /Capital is Dead/ <https://www.versobooks.com/books/3762-capital-is-dead>, to Jason Smith's /Smart 
Machines and Service Work/ <https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/S/bo70564105.html>, along 
with many others.

Beller approaches the question of information and power by triangulating three areas, racialization, 
computation, and capitalism. His mission is to show that these three areas are inextricably linked, and that 
racialization is the ultimate logic that fuels both computation and capitalism. I applaud Beller for his 
willingness to expand the historical frame, not just to the post-1945 period, or even the 20th C as a whole, 
but back some "seven centuries ago" (17) to the development of modern capitalism through what Marx called 
primitive accumulation. Indeed one might follow this path even further, given that _quantification is a 
problem in metaphysics _more generally, not just in capitalism.


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