Capitalism and state secrecy: A micropolitics of material flows, covert operations and control

This paper applies a critical, materialist and micropolitical analysis to answer the question ‘What can the capitalist secret state do?’ It argues that the activities of contemporary capitalist states are shaped foundationally by economic imperatives, and that the secret state performs what the capitalist state needs to do but cannot publicly avow. Following a micropolitical analysis of ‘the secret’ and secrecy in terms of flows of power and resistance, the paper applies Deleuze and Guattari’s argument that the prime objective of a capitalist state is to assure free flows of matter, labour and money that enable capital accumulation and economic growth. It uses Deleuze’s ethological ontology and methodology to analyse micropolitically undercover infiltrations of domestic anti-capitalist organisations and clandestine overseas interventions. The paper concludes that the secret state contributes to an architecture of control that sustains the material flows upon which capitalism depends.