The book responds to the accumulated evidence of the preceding two decades: rising inequality, climate catastrophe, the financialization of daily life, the capture of democratic institutions by corporate interests, and the parallel rise of authoritarian movements across countries that had seemed stably liberal-democratic. Lazzarato argues these phenomena are not accidents of implementation but structural features of capitalism in its current configuration.
The framework applies to AI with particular force. The book's diagnosis of capital's indifference to human flourishing anticipates the structural pattern You On AI documents without theorizing: AI development proceeding at a velocity that exceeds institutional response, capability expansion outrunning the social infrastructure required to distribute its benefits, and the political choice between collective governance and acceptance of the trajectory as natural.
The book was published in French in 2019 as Le capitalisme déteste tout le monde and translated into English in 2021. It synthesizes Lazzarato's engagement with the Yellow Vests movement in France, the global financial crisis, and the rise of authoritarian politics across Europe, the Americas, and beyond.
No social contract. Contemporary capitalism has abandoned any pretense of reciprocal obligation with the societies it operates within.
Fascism or revolution. The choice is structural — reformist middle paths are foreclosed by the depth of the crisis.
Machinic enslavement at scale. The infrastructural capture of human capacities has become the dominant mode of extraction.
Urgency of collective response. Individual adaptation cannot substitute for political transformation at the scale the crisis demands.