Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's substantial project, "Capitalism and Schizophrenia" isn't just a single book, but rather a major two-volume work that significantly impacted philosophy and critical theory. The first volume, _L'Anti-Œdipe_ (translated as _Anti-Oedipus_), was published in 1972, followed by the second volume, _Mille Plateaux_ (translated as _A Thousand Plateaus_), in 1980. While Deleuze had already established himself with insightful readings of philosophers like Nietzsche, Kant, and Spinoza, the collaboration with Guattari, a psychoanalyst, led to this dynamic work, which is often described as challenging and eccentric. At its core, "Capitalism and Schizophrenia" proposes a radical rethinking of psychoanalysis and its relationship to social and political forces, particularly capitalism. They introduce a new framework for analysis called **schizoanalysis**. This isn't just another method; it's a project aimed at "re-engineering" psychoanalysis by repolarizing it around **psychosis** rather than the traditional focus on **neurosis**. Schizoanalysis also seeks to align itself with Marxism, finding common ground between their respective discourses. One of the central critiques Deleuze and Guattari level against traditional psychoanalysis, particularly Freudian interpretation, is that it functions as a kind of "interpretation-as-impoverishment". They argue that psychoanalysis, by interpreting the complex reality of a patient's life through the limited lens of the "family romance" – focusing on the Oedipus complex, psychosexual stages, and family relations – reduces and thus impoverishes the lived experience. They see this as applying a restrictive "master code" or "master narrative" to explain a much richer reality. In their view, this approach assumes the unconscious is solely concerned with psychosexual family drama, neglecting the broader realm they call micropolitical life. They explicitly reject the psychoanalytic explanation for the genesis of psychosis, suggesting instead that its origins can only be organic, stemming from physiological changes in the brain. Consequently, their work doesn't offer a theory for the _treatment_ of psychosis in the conventional sense, but rather focuses on how to adapt the world, not the patient, to its symptoms. Schizoanalysis, in contrast to the symbolic and figurative interpretations of traditional psychoanalysis, aims for a "nonfigurative and nonsymbolic" understanding of the unconscious. The cornerstone concept of schizoanalysis is the **desiring-machine**. For Deleuze and Guattari, desire is not about lack, as theorized by Lacanian psychoanalysis, which sees desire stemming from a fundamental absence or loss. Instead, they posit that desire _is_ production, and its product is reality itself. Building on a critique of Kant's idea that desire, through representation, can cause the reality of its objects primarily in a psychic realm, Deleuze and Guattari argue that if desire is productive, it must be productive _in the real world_ and produce _only reality_. They reject the split between a subjective psychic reality and an objective real world, proposing instead a single process of production that generates the subjects and objects of desire. Therefore, desire is not just a feeling _for_ something (like a sandwich or a movie); it's a process of production with investments far beyond simple "objects of desire". This is why they discuss desire in terms of **machines**: what we perceive as a desire for something is merely a result or product of these desiring-machines. They illustrate this with the example of little Joey, a schizophrenic child whose life seems inextricably interwoven with and constituted by mechanical parts, suggesting how all of us operate through machinic assemblages, even if less visibly. Schizoanalysis, then, posits an "autoproductive desiring machine" in place of the neurotic subjective ego of psychoanalysis. This focus on desire as production links directly to their understanding of **capitalism**. They argue that capitalism produces schizophrenia in the same way it produces commodities. While they distinguish between schizophrenia as a clinical illness, a pathological product that confines the individual, and schizophrenia as a nonpathological _process_, they see the latter as inherent to the operation of capitalism. Capitalist production constantly arrests the schizophrenic process, turning it into a clinical entity. For them, the unconscious is fundamentally schizophrenic and machine-like in its processes, which they call **desiring-production**. Desiring-machines combine to form **assemblages**, which include the subject itself. The concept of the assemblage also grew out of Guattari's work in psychiatric care, seeking ways to create conditions for schizophrenic patients to have a life, viewed as specific "living arrangements". Deleuze and Guattari draw a direct link between the social production characteristic of capitalism and the desiring production they see operating in the unconscious. They describe capitalism as a process of "decoding and the deterritorialization of flows". Capitalism dissolves traditional socioeconomic ties and decodes cultural norms. In this system, capital itself functions as an abstract machine, operating with a non-limitative and unmediated production, much like desire. Social production under capitalism, they argue, is a real production of difference. However, capitalism simultaneously counteracts this liberation of potential through mechanisms of containment, which they call **reterritorialization**. Societies attempt to recode and contain the liberated economic flows. They see the Freudian unconscious, centered on the private individual, as a "last territoriality" assembled from the remnants of earlier cultural formations. The capitalist era sees the emergence of an "abstract subjective essence," exemplified by concepts like libido (in psychoanalysis) and labor power (in political economy). This essence is deterritorialized from its specific, concrete forms but is then brutally reterritorialized within the commodity form. The family itself is not essential but functions structurally under capitalism to channel desire in a way that supports socioeconomic reproduction. These processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization, crucial concepts in their schizoanalysis, are seen as movements inscribed on the "body without organs," their term for the subject of the schizophrenic process. Other key concepts explored in "Capitalism and Schizophrenia" include the distinction between the **molar** and the **molecular**. The molecular refers to the fluid, intensive processes of desire and production, while the molar relates to solidified structures like the State or traditional social groupings. They argue that capital, in its pure function, is stronger than molar structures. They also introduce the concept of the **rhizome**, particularly in _A Thousand Plateaus_. A rhizome is a non-hierarchical, decentralized model of connection and growth, contrasted with arborescent (tree-like) structures that impose unity from a higher dimension. Rhizomes are described as "multiplicities" that are flat and unmeasurable, changing in nature, not just quantity, when new connections are made. This relates to their notion of **intensive multiplicities**, which are rhizomatic, molecular, and destratified, as opposed to **extensive multiplicities**, which are arborescent, molar, and stratified. This intensive dimension relates to affects and pure feeling. Language and literature play a significant role in their analysis. They argue that the Oedipus complex is "literary before being psychoanalytic," suggesting a market value of desire tied to psychoanalytic interpretation and the marketability of certain literary expressions. They critique the way psychoanalytic criticism makes any cultural production amenable to Oedipal reading, denying what they call a "right to nonsense," a free creative space. Schizoanalysis, with its focus on a molecular semiotic, challenges this hermeneutic approach. They see delirium, often associated with schizophrenia, as a medium of historical experience and a better model for understanding desire's investment in the social field, precisely because it challenges traditional notions of belief and representation. "Capitalism and Schizophrenia" was immediately controversial upon the publication of _Anti-Oedipus_. Figures like Fredric Jameson hailed it as a radical intervention, while others, such as Perry Anderson, dismissed it as irrationalist nonsense. Michel Foucault praised _Anti-Oedipus_ as a book of exceptional merit, an "extraordinary profusion of new notions and surprise concepts," though he advised against reading it as a totalizing theory or seeking a conventional "philosophy" within it. Despite Foucault's endorsement, some later thinkers like Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek viewed Guattari as a detrimental influence on Deleuze, corrupting his philosophy with politics. The influence of "Capitalism and Schizophrenia" extends beyond philosophy, impacting cultural production and other disciplines. For instance, the concept of deterritorialization has been borrowed to analyze global flows. Their work is part of a broader intellectual landscape engaging with figures like Marx, Freud, Lacan, Nietzsche, Kant, Bergson, and Spinoza, and engaging with ideas from anti-psychiatry and critiques of state power. To dive deeper into "Capitalism and Schizophrenia," you might explore: - The specific "three syntheses of the unconscious" outlined in _Anti-Oedipus_. - Their detailed critique of Lacan and the symbolic order. - The role of literature, especially the works of Kafka, Miller, and others they discuss, in illuminating their concepts. - The concept of the "body without organs" and its relation to the schizophrenic process and capitalist production. - The political implications of their concepts of deterritorialization and reterritorialization for understanding modern societies and power structures. - The concept of "desiring-production" versus "social production" and how they are intertwined. - The difference between schizophrenia as a clinical state and the schizophrenic _process_ they valorize.