When Slavoj Zizek writes that, “There are, effectively, features that justify calling Deleuze the ideologist of late capitalism,” we should take him seriously. Deleuze, much like Marx, wrote against capitalism, but at the same time was fascinated by its ability to blow apart social formations and forge new ones. Deleuze, in his later writing on control societies, explains further that the anti-hierarchical tendencies described in A Thousand Plateaus could breed monsters just as well as societies based on discipline (making the human body into a part of a well-oiled machine, organizing production) or sovereignty (a hierarchy of nobles, taxing production).

Deleuze and Guattari use the terms deterritorialization and reterritorialization to describe the way in which capitalism can transform a culture in a relatively short period of time. To see an example of this week should examine the case of Chile.

The Miracle of Chile is a term coined by Milton Friedman to describe the sweeping economic reforms carried out by Augusto Pinochet in Chile. While the historical particulars are too complex to describe here, allow me to oversimplify things by calling it a rapid deterritorialization via capitalism. This brings us to the Pokemones, a Chilean youth subculture. The important thing to focus on is the simple statement that, “Pokemones have been at odds with traditionally conservative Chilean society.” Regardless of the media sensationalism about the subculture, it is safe to assume that at least some conflict exists between Pokemones and traditional Chilean society. To put things in Deleuzian terms, Pokemones are the result of capitalism deterritorializing the desires of the traditional culture and reterritorializing them in a way that can be expressed with commodities (hair dye, piercings, Pokemon t-shirts, etc.).