Cybernetic Capitalism: A Book Presentation
In Cybernetic Capitalism (Fordham University Press), social philosopher Jan Overwijk develops a “critical systems theory” in order to trace the paradoxes of the “cybernetic rationalization” of capitalism. Contemporary capitalism is organized on principles of information and communication, the domain of what used to be called “cybernetics”. Managers have reimagined the workplace itself as a giant cybernetic machine, while neoliberal ideologues likened markets to information processors. What is the strange logic that governs these domains? How does cybernetic “rationalization” simultaneously lead to society’s “irrationalization”, now Silicon Valley oligarchs collude with “conspiritualist swarms”?
At this book presentation, Jan Overwijk enters into dialogue with Anna-Verena Nosthoff. Overwijk is NWO Rubicon postdoctoral fellow at Frankfurt’s Institut für Sozialforschung and assistant professor at the University for Humanistic Studies, Utrecht. Nosthoff is junior professor Ethics of Digitization at the Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg and co-director of the Critical Data Lab at Humboldt Universität Berlin and Universität Oldenburg. Her book Kybernetik und Kritik: Eine Theorie digitaler Regierungskunst is forthcoming with Suhrkamp in 2026. The event will be moderated by Ole Bogner, research associate in Sociological Theory and History of Theory at the Goethe Universität Frankfurt.
With Jan Overwijk, Anna-Verena Nosthoff, and Ole Bogner (moderation)
