What is Accelerationism?
Accelerationism is not one movement but a cluster of arguments. All of them say the same thing at the start: technology and capitalism are changing the world, going back is not possible, so the sensible move is to go faster. After that, the camps split. One camp hopes speed will carry society past capitalism. Another hopes it will free markets and machines from democratic control. A third, violent camp uses the word for a plan to push society into collapse. Writers on the subject usually insist that these three should not be lumped together.
Core beliefs
- The march of capitalism and technology is too strong to stop, so resisting it is a waste of effort.
- Nostalgia for a slower, simpler past is a trap and not a real political plan.
- Automation and artificial intelligence will change work and human life in deep ways.
- Slow, cautious institutions struggle to keep up with the speed of change.
- Pushing present trends to their limit may open a path to a very different society.
History
The word first showed up in Roger Zelazny's 1967 novel Lord of Light, where it meant something different. Its political meaning came later, when the critic Benjamin Noys used it in 2010 to describe a strand of French theory. That strand grew out of the 1970s, when Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari and Jean-Francois Lyotard wrote about the strange, even thrilling, energy of capitalism. Behind them stood Karl Marx, who thought capitalism tore down old societies. In the 1990s a small research group at Warwick University, the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit, mixed this theory with science fiction and digital culture. The 2010s brought a left-wing revival, aimed at automation and shorter working weeks. Alongside it, a far-right offshoot linked to the Dark Enlightenment turned against democracy. In the 2020s, some tech investors and engineers adopted the label for their wish to build AI quickly.
Variants
Left accelerationism wants full automation, less work, and technology owned and planned for shared goals. Right accelerationism, sometimes called unconditional, treats the market as a force beyond human control and distrusts voters who try to slow it. Effective accelerationism, often shortened to e/acc, is a pro-technology outlook that wants little regulation of AI. Militant accelerationism is a separate and violent far-right idea. Its followers want to speed up the breakdown of society to start a race war. Many scholars say this last group has borrowed the name more than the philosophy.
Criticisms
Left critics say accelerationism mixes up faster technology with real progress, and forgets to ask who owns the machines and who profits. Green critics point out that pushing growth harder means more pollution and more pressure on resources. Democrats object to the strand that sees elections as a brake to be removed, and some reject the eugenic ideas that crept into the far-right wing. Police and security agencies treat the militant version as a terror threat, since it has been linked to mass shootings and plots by white supremacists. Supporters of the philosophical versions reply that they describe forces already at work and do not call for violence.
In practice
No government has ruled in the name of accelerationism. Its reach is in books, art, online forums and arguments about the future. Left accelerationist ideas fed debates about basic income and the end of work. Effective accelerationism has been used in public fights against AI safety rules. The militant strand has done real harm: the gunman who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019 was tied to that wider scene, and neo-Nazi networks have used the label. Several countries have charged or banned such groups. On the 12 axes, it scores at the far Embrace end of Technology and strongly toward Global on Trade.