-Capital is a semiotic operator- this assertion by Felix Guattari is at the heart of Maurizio Lazzarato's Signs and Machines, which asks us to leave behind the logocentrism that still informs so many critical theories. Lazzarato calls instead for a new theory capable of explaining how signs function in the economy, in power apparatuses, and in the production of subjectivity.

Moving beyond the dualism of signifier and signified, Signs and Machines shows how signs act as -sign-operators- that enter directly into material flows and into the functioning of machines. Money,...

Experts, pundits, and politicians agree: public debt is hindering growth and increasing unemployment. Governments must reduce debt at all cost if they want to restore confidence and get back on a path to prosperity. Maurizio Lazzarato's diagnosis, however, is completely different: under capitalism, debt is not primarily a question of budget and economic concerns but a political relation of subjection and enslavement. Debt has become infinite and unpayable. It disciplines populations, calls for structural reforms, justifies authoritarian crackdowns, and even legitimizes the suspension of...

There is always something schizophrenic about logic in Deleuze, which represents another distinctive characteristic: a deep perversion of the very heart of philosophy. Thus, a preliminary definition of Deleuze's philosophy emerges: an irrational logic of aberrant movements. -- from Aberrant Movements

In Aberrant Movements, David Lapoujade offers one of the first comprehensive treatments of Deleuzian thought. Drawing on the entirety of Deleuze's work as well as his collaborations with Felix Guattari, from the "transcendental empiricism" of Difference and...