Cybernetic Capitalism
A Critical Theory of the Incommunicable
This book can be opened with
A Conceptual Interrogation of Capital in a Cybernetic Environment
Cybernetic Capitalism presents a groundbreaking synthesis of Niklas Luhmann's systems theory and critical theory. Overwijk examines how neoliberal capitalism now thrives on the management of incommunicability rather than the pursuit of total communicability, harnessing ecological complexity as its driving force. Contrary to earlier critiques that highlighted capitalism's push to render all social life fully communicable, the current era encourages market incalculability, profits from user unpredictability, and spurs service
workers' creativity.
This ecological logic resonates with the extractivist drive of the Anthropocene, reframing our understanding of capitalism as an adaptive, environment-attuned system. Cybernetic Capitalism also exposes how these dynamics intersect with the cultural rise of conspiracy theories and radical-right irrationalism. By illuminating capitalism's paradoxical reliance on both rationalist and irrationalist currents, Overwijk provides a vital new lens for interpreting the complex politics of our time.
Cybernetic Capitalism works to develop a critical systems theory on the basis of an encounter between the Frankfurt School notion of instrumental reason and the fundamental innovation of Luhmannian systems theory, namely operational closure. The book shows how we might fix what the author rightly perceives as the flaws in each. With an impressive clarity of conceptual thinking the book makes surprising and exciting connections between a vast number of disparate discourses.—Mark B. N. Hansen, Duke University
As the curtains of 2025 rise to environmental catastrophe, record inequality, and an unbridled far right, how can we make sense of a world order that appears as irrational as it does relentless? What are we to do with that peculiar notion of rationalization when these and similar dynamics seem to have rendered it all but obsolete? In response, Jan Overwijk’s Cybernetic Capitalism: A Critical Theory of the Incommunicable develops a “critical systems theory” with which to demystify our sociopolitical juncture.—Marc Kohlbry, Critical Inquiry
Introduction: Abstract Ecologies | 1
1. Critical Systems Theory: Ecological Confrontation | 15
2. Spiraling into Control: Paradoxes of Thermodynamic Rationalization | 55
3. The Vitalist Alternative: Sympoietic Multitudes | 93
4. Cybernetic Rationalization: Valorizing the Incommunicable | 121
Epilogue: Cybernetic Irrationalization | 155
Acknowledgments | 179
Notes | 183
Bibliography | 189
Index | 211
