Autonomists draw on Marx’s early notebooks and single out his comments there about the role that human beings’ general productive and creative capacity (the “general intellect”) can play in the development of capitalism (for a more popular version of this argument, see Mason, Postcapitalism, 164–67). Autonomists propose that, as humans become increasingly part of the social factory, particularly online, they become able to turn their creativity against capitalism. But Marx’s words even in the Grundrisse were more ambiguous: “The development of fixed capital indicates to what degree general social knowledge has become a direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it” (Grundrisse, 706, emphasis added). If by “the general intellect” we mean the organizational and creative power within capitalism (think of Google’s leadership), then Marx’s comment allows for a radically different conclusion from that which the Autonomists draw: “the general intellect” might be the means for capitalism to appropriate social life.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 794