(Note that the page is a transcript of a tal, and there is a link to the talk a line or two beneath the image, if you prefer to hear it spoken)).

Super interesting.

Makes the claim that capital is an autonomous intelligence of sorts, evolving with the tools to measure, judge, and influence the world in terms of “profit”.

No one person person decides the value of things. Rather, as a self-organized way of processing and responding to events that happen in the world, capital, possessing humans as hosts, evolved as a control network to make such decisions.

Excerpt:

The occult concept of an egregore is useful here. An egregore is a non-physical entity that exists in virtue of the collective ritual activities of a group yet operates autonomously, according to its own internal logic, to materially influence and control the group’s activities. The group creates the egregore, and the egregore creates the group, in a self-reinforcing feedback loop.

So capital is an egregore. Not metaphorically, or ironically, but actually. Capital is a being, an autonomous entity, with primitive thoughts about us. Money is how it measures us, and money is how it commands us. Capital is an alien cognition that acts in the world to bind the form of value to its content.

Very worthwhile ideas IMO. This sort of emergent self-serving behavior we attribute to organizations is not that unfamiliar; I think many would agree that successful organizations “evolve”with mechanisms to ensure they continue their own existence (assuming moderate conditions that historically will break down eventually). It is bureaucracy evolving to protect itself; racketeers evolving to ensure the racket continues, etc.

Most of us could probably be convinced such behavior is real and observable. Wright gives a similar framework for understanding capital as a society-organizer, except with a different “prime directive” (maximizing profit, which makes available resources to steer toward other subgoals, such as survival).

While it paints our current condition in a deeply disturbing light, it is comforting to think that we could organize society in such a way that it fundamentally wants to move toward a different self-sustaining goal. Capital operates on the principle that profit begets profit. We must remember that so too does life beget life. Our job is to ensure the creation of such a life-affirming societal structure.