In this work which follows The Anti-Oedipus published in 1972, Deleuze-Guattari questions not only the foundations of analytical and Marxist structuralism, but also all theories, whether communication or information, which aim at systematization.
For the system, they replace a sort of patchwork which distinguishes smooth space from striated space according to multiplicities of futures, of intensity which intervene through all sign regimes. In the same way that they had reconstructed a policy of Kafka in which his work was read like a writing machine with multiple ramifications which revealed a language torn from meaning, representation and power, in the same way, in A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze-Guattari crosses all sign regimes: linguistics and writing of course but also music, philosophy, psychiatry, economics and history: that of peoples and that of the state apparatus.
Each of these sets constitutes a plateau, that is to say “ a continuous region of intensities ” and all these plateaus which intertwine, draw perpetual combinations between major and minor forces which form the framework of Mille plateaus.
Indeed, it is not a question of distinguishing between major and minor, but of conceiving their future, it being understood that there is only becoming a minority. And it is one of the great interests of this work to never settle down in an institution. Deleuze-Guattari is only interested in transformations of the social field through his lines of flight which concern the elements of art, science and politics.