Bernard Stiegler's work on the intimate relations between the human and the technical have made him one of the most important voices to have emerged in French philosophy in the last decade. At the same time both an accessible summation of that work and a continuation of it, The Re-Enchantment of the World advances a critique of consumer capitalism that draws on Freud and Marx to construct an utterly contemporary analysis of our time. The book explores the cognitive, affective, social and economic effects of the 'proletarianization' of the consumer in late capitalism and the resulting destruction of the consumer's savoir-vivre. Reflecting the collective work of his activist organisation, Ars Industrialis, Stiegler here sets forth an alternative path to that of 'industrial populism', one that appeals to the force of the human spirit.The Re-Enchantment of the World also includes the manifesto of Ars Industrialis and an account of the organisation's 2005 summit in Tunis.

Introduction: What is to be done?Manifesto of ... Ars IndustrialisPart I: Refounding Society1. The Industrial Age as Service Capitalism2. The Consumer Discharged of his Existence3. Hyperindustrial Service Societies as the Destruction of Individuation by Controlling Adoption Procedures4. Re-Enchanting the World in the Face of the Unhappy Destiny of Consumption5. 'R' Technologies and the New Apparatuses of Spirit6. Overcoming the Capitalism of Drives and Fighting Against its Becoming-Barbaric7. Startled, We Begin Again Differently (!) / The Sudden Surge: a Nw Beginning8. Grammatization and Individuation - Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow9. The Revolution of Capitalism10. A European Way of Life11. The Plan that Enchants MePart II: Investing in the Augmentation of the Value of the 'Human Spirit' Against the Reign of Ignorance12. From the Informatization of Society to "Information Society"13. From the "Information Society" to the "Society of Knowledge" - or, On the Possibility of the Re-Enchantment of the World14. Companies, Public Power, and Industrial Populism15. Changing the Industrial Paradigm16. Information Society, Disenchantment, De-Motivation and Control of Knowledge17. The Re-Instrumentation of Knowledge, the Future of Hyperindustrial Society18. Knowledge and Information19. Knowledge and Memory, or Reign of Ignorance?20. The Risk of Disindividuation as the Growth of Ignorance Rather Than Knowledge21. Cognitive Saturation and Knowledge Management22. Instruments of Knowledge and the Criteria of Selection That They Produce23. Being and Becoming in Technoscience24. The Crisis of Education25. Practical ConsequencesMotion adopted by Ars Industrial on the eve of the Tunis summitBibliographyIndex