Criminogenic Cyber-Capitalism: Paul Virilio, Simulation, and the Global Financial Crisis

摘要

This essay is a manifesto expounding the relevance of the critical theory of Paul Virilio to critical criminology. I interpret the global credit crisis as a criminogenic ‘event’, explicable in terms of Virilio’s theory of speed-politics. The trans-national space(s) of globalization are inherently criminogenic. ‘Power crime’ is the criminogenic ‘substance’ of global capitalism. Globalization—intensity, extensity, velocity, and impact—equates with cyber-capitalism, which ensures the operational primacy of simulation. Simulation, the fast moving manipulation of post-reality, causes the ‘disappearance of the real’, which underlines the epistemological crisis that attenuates global economic catastrophe. Simulation equates with the ‘logistics of perception’, which manifests itself through both pure war and speed-politics. Simulation and power crime merge on the level of the criminogenic manipulation of reality, resulting in the ‘accident’ of the global credit crisis. Power crime is the criminogenic medium through which the periodic crises of global capitalism will now occur.