テスライズムを超えて

プラットフォーム資本主義の諸傾向と未来の再想像

抄録

    This paper examines “platform capitalism” as a new regime of accumulation that succeeds “industrial capitalism (Fordism）” and “post-industrial capitalism (post-Fordism）”, analyzing its defining characteristics, operational modes, and emerging tendencies. The initial sections focus on the transformation of labor within platform capitalism, highlighting tendencies such as the multiplication of labor, the intensification of algorithmic management, the simultaneous urbanization of platforms and platformization of cities, and the ongoing transition from neoliberalism to neo-feudalism.

    The subsequent sections explore tendencies within platform capitalism that accelerate circulation, drive financialization, and amplify speculation. To encapsulate these shifts, the concept of “Teslaism” is introduced as a marker of a new historical phase. This term, coined by artist Bahar Noorizadeh in her 2022 video work, Teslaism: Economics at the End of the End of the Future, which features a character inspired by Elon Musk, suggests a new production system that follows “post-Fordism (Toyotism）.”

    In Teslaism, grasped as a tendency within platform capitalism, we observe a shift from the “profit-seeking entrepreneurial subject” to the “credit-seeking portfolio manager,” accompanied by trends toward the platformization of personalities and calls for “self-assetization.” The vision of “the end of the end of the future” presented here entails rebranding “the look of the future” to facilitate the limitless movement of capital, enhancing the “creditworthiness of the future” as an object of speculation, and interpellating individuals to become “speculators of the self” or “portfolio managers of the self.” In counter to this, media studies in the era of Teslaism must strive to reimagine a new beginning of the future, moving beyond this “end of the end of the future” imaginary.