Futurism without a Future

Abstract

An interview with the renowned Italian autonomist Marxist philosopher, Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi. The discussion charts Berardi’s entry into, and expulsion from, the Italian Communist Party in his teenage years and his introduction to the operaismo movement through Mario Tronti’s classic text Workers and Capital (1966). As one of the founders of the pirate station ‘Radio Alice’ and the avant-garde magazine A/traverso, Berardi was heavily involved in the 1977 protests in Bologna, one of the major struggles of the Italian operaismo movement. Berardi also discusses his close friendship with Félix Guattari (including his role in getting Berardi out of prison in Paris) and the influence of Jean Baudrillard on his philosophical practice. Alongside these intellectual and political genealogies, we chat about the war in Ukraine, Israel’s siege on Gaza, and the role psychoanalytic theory might play in understanding politics today. To finish, Berardi outlines his new book Quit Everything (2024) and how its central ideas speak to younger people who now think of themselves as ‘the last generation’.