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One could say that the distinctive choices of MTAP boil down to these: 1) the idea of rendering prior results organic, in the form of a theory; 2) the generalization of the concept of real abstraction; 3) the theoretical acceptance of the technical system as a component, alongside capital, of a broader process; 4) the emphasis on the idea of earthly redemption; 5) the definition of Augustinian religions. ¶ Almost everything else was already, for the most part, present in the authors listed in the Preface and especially in Camatte: his is the idea of a species-wide illness, which he called speciosis, with its individual repercussion, ontosis, as is much of the conclusions of the Postilla — his the formula "Against all hope".

1) An explicit theory.

MTAP saw as its task the selection, from a centuries-old mass of penetrating reflections on the human condition, of a series of evidences and theoretical proposals, composing them into a coherent framework. ¶ This framework is informed by the twentieth-century view of science, medicine, and engineering: disciplines that now take for granted operating and choosing in a field of reality largely obscure — on the basis of partial evidence, missing or approximate data, probabilistic knowledge and operational rules — building models rarely causal in the classical sense. ¶ The explicit theoretical form — and thus well exposed to criticism and amendments — is, yes, also an invitation to those who reflect on these themes to do likewise.

2) Real abstraction.

It is extended from a characteristic proper to money (Sohn-Rethel) to a class that includes television (McLuhan), imperial roads (Mumford), smartphones, the State, up to Borgesian hrönir: objects that are born from ideas and act upon the real.

3) The technical system.

The autonomy of the technical system accounts for the overlooked evidence of Mumford, as well as that of Heidegger, Ellul, and — on the organizational-bureaucratic side — Bruno Rizzi, attempting to harmonize them with the Marxian idea of subsumption, while redefining its subjects. ¶ In Marx (perhaps not entirely free from unconscious religious schemas: monotheism of capital, messianism of the proletariat), capital is the sole subsuming subject and subsumes everything — but this everything remains undetermined beyond industrial labour. ¶ In MTAP, two subsuming subjects operate in parallel: capital subsumes the Gemeinwesen: it transforms direct human relations into monetary mediations (from breastfeeding to formula milk, from friendship to networking, from family care to purchasable services); the technical system subsumes human, biological, and natural activity: it replaces faculties and processes with technical devices (from memory to the database, from orientation to GPS, from birth to assisted reproduction, from breath to respiratory apparatuses). ¶ Each with its own dream: unlimited valorization (capital), unlimited substitution of the natural given (technique). They operate in conflictual interaction, modifying each other mutually, but without a definitive hierarchy: so far, neither stably dominates the other.

4) Earthly redemption.

Voegelin read modernity as a rebirth of ancient gnosis: man who wants to remake the world, transform immanence into salvation, build paradise on earth and creates totalitarian hell. In his schema, Christianity opposes gnosis. This reading on one hand does not account for the contemplative and world-fleeing line present in gnosis (not only Simone Weil), on the other hand it ignores the gnostic-redemptive core already operative in Pauline-Johannine Christianity and especially in Augustine. ¶ MTAP, by redefining that driving idea — from gnosis to earthly redemption — achieves greater explanatory results with less factual reduction.

5) The Augustinian religions.

MTAP identifies as Augustinian religions that family of Christianities — practical Catholicism (beyond Thomistic doctrinal oscillations), Lutheranism, Calvinism — which share: a fallen nature-creation to be redeemed; a pessimistic anthropology: corrupt human nature, impotent will; contempt for human naturality: the body as a burden; emphasis on grace as an external power that redeems from within; liquidation of the anti-abstractive elements of the evangelical message: openness to the Simple, critique of activism ("Martha, Martha, you are worried..."); critique of value ("Freely you have received, freely give...") and of accumulation ("Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth..."), scandalous welcome of children ("unless you become like..."). Protestantism is not a break but a radicalization: Luther and Calvin expel evangelical residues (it is no coincidence that Lutherans expel children from churches) and carry Augustine to its extreme consequences. ¶ The definition of Augustinian religions allows the overcoming of some difficulties in the Weberian thesis on the relationship between the capitalist spirit and the Protestant ethic: work as a calling, worldly asceticism as an instrument of grace, rational order as an expression of faith. But this schema implied an artificial historical discontinuity, a cage of dates already questioned by the work of Sombart and Fanfani, who had shown how economic rationality, accounting, and accumulation were operative centuries before the Reformation (1517).

Gemeinwesen Group

Last revision  October 31, 2025