Beyond primitive accumulation: capitalism and colonial wars in Maurizio Lazzarato

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to theoretical discussions on the political and social philosophy of Maurizio Lazzarato. Through a literature review focusing on the Italian author’s latest Works published in Brazil, I sought to understand the connections he establishes between capitalism and colonialism, particularly concerning the issue of war. Engaged in an intellectually evolving and (self)critical body of work, Lazzarato is currently reevaluating his Marxist and Foucaultian influences, especially regarding colonial and enslavement domination, as well as their racist reverberations in the contemporary world – fundamental to the survival of capital itself. Drawing on other epistemological sources, taking capitalism as a multiplicity of modes of production and destruction, which ontologically encompasses the extreme subjugation of racialized bodies and whose history is characterized by countless conflicts and massacres, Lazzarato expands and diversifies perspectives on the intolerable violence of the capitalist system, intensified by the global hegemony of neoliberalism, and emphasizes the urgency of revolutionary theoretical and political alternatives.