Nihil novi sub sole: law from the perspective of political accelerationism

Michał Dudek

doi:10.18778/1689-4286.41.01

Authors

Michał Dudek Jagiellonian University in Krakow

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1689-4286.41.01

Keywords:

political accelerationism, Benjamin Noys, Nick Srnicek, Alex Williams, law, critical theory, Marxism

Abstract

This article focuses on political accelerationism—an idea that proposes to use capitalism against itself either by making it as a whole go even faster, pushing it to its limits and beyond until it collapses, or by appropriating some of its elements or tendencies for alternative, emancipatory purposes. It analyses two significant versions of this idea—that of Benjamin Noys and that of Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams—from the perspective of the following question: Is political accelerationism similar to certain previous developments in left critical thought in that it offers a new approach to law or, if it does not contain any explicitly expressed original take on law, enables a novel and fresh conceptualisation of law to be drawn from it? The article concludes that so far political accelerationism does not offer an original approach to law and that any perspectives on law that can be drawn from this idea are reminiscent of basic Marxist approaches to law.

Author Biography

Michał Dudek , Jagiellonian University in Krakow

PhD in Law, works at the Department of Sociology of Law, Faculty of Law and Administration, Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Author of monograph Komunikowanie prawa w dobie pluralizmu kulturowego [The Communication of Law in the Age of Cultural Pluralism] (NOMOS, Kraków, 2014) and various publications on the influence of multiculturalism on law-making and law- applying, legal policy, axiology of law, visuality and law and application of selected threads from contemporary philosophy of technology and science & technology studies to sociology of law.

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