Between desiring machines and war machines: conceptions of fascism in Anti-Oedipus and in A Thousand Plateaus

concepções de fascismo em O anti-Édipo e Mil platôs

Abstract

The paper proposes an introductory conceptual analysis to the problem of fascism as it is developed in the two volumes of Capitalism and schizophrenia, by Deleuze & Guattari. One of the merits of the deleuze-guattarian approach, in line with the “voluntary servitude” tradition, is that it addresses the problem of fascism as a desiring phenomenon, with desire being the motor of the production of and in the social field. In the passage of one volume to the other there is, however, a change of tone in relation to the desiring problematics, and from this derives a transformation in the conceptualization of fascism: In Anti-Oedipus fascism is understood as a “deviation” of the productive forces of desire through the insertion, in the body of desire, of fragments of archaic codes working in a reterritorialization in favor of and for the socius: in order to contain an absolute deterritorialization of desire that would liberate the social field and the desiring production from the socius, elements of reterritorialization are introduced that blocks desire and prevent it from reaching its potential for dissolution of the socius. In A Thousand Plateaus, on the other hand, in addition an analysis of the problem of microfascism as a molecular desiring phenomenon, we have an analysis that modify the axes of the research: from an inversion of the relationship between the war machine and the State apparatus, we have the peculiar situation where the State is taken by a revolutionary fascist war machine, that is, the State is taken by a line of total destruction and has its capture and bureaucratic apparatuses impregnated by a fascist desire that has in the “pure and simple” destruction its unique tendential goal, resulting in a Suicidal State. With all those conceptual developments we can ask ourselves: what are the relationships between fascism and State? In the same way, it is the case of understanding what is currently being called “neo-fascism” within the framework proposed by Deleuze and Guattari and with what they called post-fascism, and, finally, postulating both a global fascist-becoming and pointing out some precautions for avoid it and face it.