All biotechnology-related promises are based upon its technological potential; yet, many of these promises assure the solution for chronic socio-economic problems in the Third World through a new technological revolution in agriculture. The forecasting is that such a revolution will start delivering its most profound impact early in the 21st century. However, 11 years before the year 2000, a critical analysis of its promises against its current trends indicates that the future use and impact of biotechnology in the Third World (...) rely presently upon crucial contradictions.As a result of such contradictions—Social Goals vs. Private Gains, Social Problems vs. Technical Solutions, Agricultural vs. Industrial Revolution, Cooperation vs. Competition, and Control over Nature vs. Control Over People—there is a high likelihood that (1) traditional farming will become increasingly obsolete, (2) technological and economic dependence of developing on developed countries will persist and even increase, (3) food and fiber production will be increasingly dislocated from developing to developed countries and from farms to industries, (4) the market for specific tropical products will be destroyed and therefore entire economies may collapse, (5) hunger and poverty will persist and even increase, and (6) social unrest may increase worldwide. (shrink)

In this book Luigino Bruni analyses the market and its ethos, illuminating the history of capitalism and highlighting the need for a new ethical direction. In the last two centuries, the present vision of the market economy that can be called capitalism has produced remarkable economic, technological and civic results; but today, in these times of crisis, it has become obsolete, because it is about to exhaust its innovative and civilising force. The historical and theoretical analysis of (...) this book aims to show that a new ethos of market would come from a reconsideration of some of the ideas that were at the foundation of modern political and civil economy. The ideas of Adam Smith and Antonio Genovesi see markets as a vehicle for mutual advantage, public happiness and civic virtues; and it is these concepts that are necessary for a reconfiguring the market towards a great cooperative enterprise aimed directly at the mutual advantage of the subjects involved in the exchange and, indirectly, at the common good of society. (shrink)

The essay is the critical reflection on the current state of global politics. It points to the importance of reconnecting politics with more substantial “human affairs”. The search for new understanding and conceptual tools is necessary on both sides of the political spectrum, however, the left should press for its lost identity more urgently. But what is even more urgent is the planetary vision based on reflexive rationality and a politics of dialogue, respect for the environment and civil society, overcoming (...) obsolete and pointless political strategies and forms of life. Knowledge and nature are to be taken as public assets. (shrink)

The question of peaceful and nonpeaceful paths of the socialist revolution and the building of socialism is now the subject of the lively discussion in the international Communist and workers' movement. It is sometimes asserted that V. I. Lenin raised violence to an absolute, that he saw armed insurrection and civil war as virtually the only means of carrying out the socialist revolution. Inasmuch as under today's conditions, particularly in developed capitalist countries, seizure of power by the working class and (...) toiling masses through armed insurrection is allegedly totally impossible, the conclusion is drawn that a number of basic propositions of Leninism are obsolete and that Leninism is a purely Russian phenomenon with no international significance. All such conclusions are nothing but a distortion of Leninism. (shrink)

Benjamin's famous description of the aura in the `Small History of Photography' starts: `What is aura? A strange texture of space and time...', and ends with: `That means breathing the aura of these mountains and this branch'. Until now, the meaning of `breathing' has hardly been subject to interpretation. In this article it will be shown that Benjamin refers to Goethe's `diastole/systole', and to Hölderlin's concept of the unity of antagonistic dispositions, for example the paradoxical constellation of the sacred/sobriety. To (...) Benjamin `breathing' means the original, prehistorical, situation of harmony and peace. Together with the decline of bourgeois society, parallel to the development of a new technology in photography and film, the aura disappears. In its place we find the dialectical image. Benjamin tries to show that the decline of the aura is not just some aesthetic question, but that it is connected to the traditional philosophical problem of defining the truth and the relation between myth and rationality. Referring to Benjamin's cosmological speculations, as well as to his references to Baudelaire, it can be argued that, notwithstanding his lyrical description of the aura, Benjamin was in favour of the destruction of the aura. Under the conditions of a capitalist economy and a malfunctioning republic, a society which can be defined as `false', the traditional idea of aura, being the `shine' of a true society, cannot be taken for granted. The `dialectical image', showing that antagonistic forces hide behind a `shine' of unity and harmony, enables us to see that the traditional idea of truth is obsolete and to look for a new solution. (shrink)

The Twenty-fifth Congress of the CPSU emphasized that under present-day conditions, problems of ideological struggle and conflict between the two social systems are assuming increasing importance. In this connection, particularly significant for us are questions pertaining to the deepening confrontation of socialism and capitalism in the realm of social philosophy, which, with the relaxation of international tensions and strengthening of scientific and cultural contacts, is in many respects acquiring new sharpness and assuming new forms. It is precisely in the (...) sphere of the theory of social philosophy that bourgeois and revisionist thought strives the most for some kind of "infiltration of ideas," because this sphere is falsely regarded as "remote" from politics and the class struggle going on in the world. In this sphere attempts are being made to find new methods of struggle against Marxism-Leninism, but in fact these are often only modernized variants of the old ones, which have become decrepit and obsolete in the extreme. Of particular significance under present conditions is criticism of bourgeois Marxology as one of the basic and principal trends in the theoretical struggle of capitalism-oriented philosophy against Marxism. To reveal all this convincingly it is necessary to turn to history. (shrink)

In recent publications Paolo Virno and Carlo Vercellone have called attention to Marx’s category of the general intellect in theGrundrisse, and to the unprecedented role its diffusion plays in contemporary capitalism. According to Virno, the flourishing of the general intellect, which Marx thought could only take place within communism, characterises post-Fordist capitalism. Vercellone adds that Marx’s account of the real subsumption of living labour under capital is obsolete in contemporary cognitive capitalism. Both authors regard Marx’s value (...) theory as historically obsolete. I argue that these views rest on a confusion of value and wealth, a neglect of Marx’s account of the role of ‘free gifts’ to capital, an underestimation of the role of the general intellect in the period prior to the rise of post-Fordism/cognitive capitalism, and an underestimation of the restrictions on the diffusion of the general intellect in contemporary capitalism. (shrink)

From the perspective of a recent graduate, this article offers a critique of non-STEM higher education in England as unfit for purpose. Whilst universities blindly focus on employability, transferable skills and narrow bands of subject knowledge, the economic world around them has collapsed into absurdity. The graduate today is now faced with economic, social and cultural precarity which is unreflected in the rigid structures and narrow focus of their degree. This article seeks a radical return to the ancient principles of (...) a liberal arts education. Far from this being regressive, I argue that this education can and should be reclaimed and reinvigorated by the flexibility, difficulty and complexity of modern philosophy. Drawing on both Zygmunt Bauman’s liquid modernity and Nigel Tubbs' modern metaphysics, this article argues that higher education is far from obsolete but that its continuing relevance in late Capitalism can only arise from a return to the questions of how graduates can best thrive i... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hyper-Abjects:Finitude, “Sustainability,” and the Maternal Body in the AnthropoceneBethany DoaneThe concept of the Anthropocene prioritizes a new paradigmatic scale that seems to outweigh that of “the political”: imagining deep time or the death of the human species as a result of climate change tends to negate the (relatively speaking) smaller-scale concerns of race, class, gender, or capitalism. While feminist critique is often circumscribed by this political scale, and (...) thus may seem to be dwarfed or rendered obsolete by the geological, deep-time scale of the Anthropocene, examining issues of feminist concern from this geological perspective has profound implications for thinking not only of gender politics but also of how to construct something like the political at all in this new era. Suggesting a new and normative global politics is, of course, beyond the scope of this article, but perhaps we might begin to conceive of a political schema that would function more appropriately in light of this grander scale. At the very least we may begin to think the borders or limits of the species as it has existed in the modern era in a way that neither environmentalism nor posthumanism has yet been able to sufficiently tackle.The Anthropocene marks the epoch in which human activities have caused global environmental changes that will leave their mark in the geological strata of the earth itself.1 While the specific moments of its onset are contested, its beginnings are generally associated with the industrial age; Crutzen and Stoermer mark its onset at roughly 1800 with the beginnings [End Page 251] of the industrial revolution. (Timothy Morton pinpoints it more specifically with the invention of the steam engine in 1794.) The changes made in this era of geological, technological, and climate convergence have accelerated in the last seventy years or so in what scientists call the Great Acceleration, which began around 1940 and quickened anthropogenic impact with events like the testing/dropping of atomic bombs, the homogenization of biodiversity, mass extinctions as a result of human activity, and various types of drilling and mining.2 In the era broadly conceived as modernity, the steady march of “progress” that has so shaped the paradigm of the period has been made possible only through its own abjections: those phenomena that mark the era as limited, limiting, and unsustainable. In other words, the “birth of the modern world” was made possible only through devastating acts of violence: institutionalized inequalities like slavery, oppression, colonization, and war. These acts of violence translate as cannibalization at the global scale: the exploitation of most members of the species and the consumption of their resources for the benefit and luxury of the few. While these forms of violence have been criticized and confronted by political and theoretical movements since at least the middle of the twentieth century, thinking of them in terms of the Anthropocene and deep time allows us to consider their consequences in a new light. Our present awareness of the Anthropocene makes visible phenomena like climate, global warming, earth, and the “anthropos” that present us with the very real eventuality of species finitude. Species finitude calls into question not just the practices of modernity that have brought about the Anthropocene (the exploitation of the many for the benefit of the few), but the entire paradigm of global thinking that is invested in progress, growth, and even in any environmentalism that calls for stewardship of the earth. The notion of care for an entity like “nature” or “the environment” only reinforces the separation between the human and its milieu, a separation that is impossible to maintain in light of the absolute inextricability that the Anthropocene brings to light.At the heart of this essay are two theoretical concepts: Julia Kristeva’s abjection, and Timothy Morton’s hyperobjects, both of which stand for a sort of insufficiency or impossibility of discourse (politics, the Symbolic, etc.) in managing some Real object or phenomenon. Kristeva’s abject is generally thought of as functioning at two levels or scales: the personal, in which an individual must cast off the abject of the maternal body in order to become a proper subject; and the social or... (shrink)

The old discussion of 'Market or State' is obsolete. There will always have to be a mix of market and state. The only relevant question is what that mix should look like. How far do we have to let the market go its own way in order to create as much welfare as possible for everyone? What is the responsibility of the government in creating welfare? These are difficult questions. But they are also interesting questions and Paul De Grauwe (...) analyses them in this book. The desired mix of market and state is anything but easy to bring about. It is a difficult and sometimes destructive process that is constantly in motion. There are periods in history in which the market gains in importance. During other periods the opposite occurs and government is more dominant. The turning points in this pendulum swing typically seem to coincide with disruptive events that test the limits of market and state. Why we experience this dynamic is an important theme in the book. Will the market, which today is afforded a greater and greater role due to globalization, run up against its limits? Or do the financial crisis and growing income inequality show that we have already reached those limits? Do we have to brace ourselves for a rejection of the capitalist system? Are we returning to an economy in which the government is running the show? (shrink)

This paper brings about a conversation between Schumpeterian and Polanyian perspectives on markets and their central role in the capitalist economy. For Schumpeter, markets were critical to the process of selftransformation of economic activity, but in his vision, markets as such were largely taken for granted. Markets enabled the introduction of new processes and products equally as well as rendering economic activities obsolete, with the entrepreneur and firm as agents of change, generating new combinations of activities and driven by (...) the creative power of knowledge. Innovation and markets are jointly the engines of endogenous growth. For Karl Polanyi, by contrast, although markets were the central feature of the capitalist economy from the beginning of the nineteenth century, his main interest is the constant impulse for markets as institutions to expand into every aspect of social life and the countermovement of regulation to restrain what he sees as their essentially destructive nature. His focus is therefore on markets as instituted economic processes, driven by the double movement of regulation and de-regulation. He scarcely considers innovation in production or consumption, concentrating on institutions of exchange and distribution. The paper explores the two perspectives in order to ask the question that their confrontation raises: What is the relation between intra-market endogenous change and marketframework institutional change? To test out each perspective, a schematic “long-duration” empirical account of the United Kingdom food distribution markets is subjected to a Schumpeterian and Polanyian reading, and each is exposed for complementary deficits. A broader explanatory framework is sketched that proposes analysis of innovation in market institutions--especially processes exchange and distribution-- in combination with innovation in production and consumption. It is suggested that to explore the constant change of capitalist economies, these four economic domains each involve different orders of innovation and transformation that have complex feedbacks and interactions with each other. Rather than according primacy to one or other order of change, we require a complex causal account embracing multiple instituted economic processes.Cet article discute de la vision des marchés et de leur rôle central dans l’économie capitaliste selon Schumpeter et Polanyi. Pour Schumpeter, les marchés sont essentiels au processus d’auto transformation de l’activité économique, mais dans son approche il présuppose l’existence des marchés. Les marchés permettent l’introduction de nouveaux processus et produits et rendent en même temps les activités économiques obsolètes. Les marchés, avec l’entrepreneur et la firme comme agents du changement, créent de nouvelles combinaisons d’activités et sont dynamisés par le pouvoir créatif de la connaissance. L’innovation et les marchés sont conjointement les moteurs de la croissance endogène. Chez Karl Polanyi, en revanche, bien que les marchés soient un élément central de l’économie capitaliste dès le début du 19ème siècle, l’attention se porte sur le mouvement permament des marchés-institutions à s’étendre à tous les domaines de la vie sociale ainsi que sur le contre-mouvement de la régulation à limiter ce que Polanyi considère comme la nature destructrice des marchés. Son interêt se porte ainsi aux marchés comme des processus économiques établis, conduits par un double mouvement de régulation et de dérégulation. Il ne considère que rarement l’innovation de production ou de consommation, et se concentre sur les institutions de l’échange et de la distribution.L’article explore les deux visions afin de sinterroger sur ce que la confrontation des approches soulève comme question: Quelle est la relation entre les changements endogènes intra marché et les changements institutionnels de la structure de marché? Pour tester chacune des visions, un compte-rendu empirique sur longue période de la distribution alimentaire au Royaume-Uni est soumis à une lecture Schumpeterienne et Polanyienne.Un cadre explicatif plus large est esquissé et suggère une analyse de l’innovation des institutions de marché - particulièrement des processus d’échange et de distribution - conjointement à l’innovation de production et de consommation. Il est suggéré que pour analyser le changement permanent des économies capitalistes, il faut considérer les ordres d’innovation et de transformation de ces quatres domaines économiques qui connaissent des “effets de retour” ainsi des interactions. Au lieu d’accorder la primauté à un des ordres de changement, il est nécessaire de rendre compte d’une causalité complexe qui prend en compte des processus économiques multiples. (shrink)

The essay examines some core ideas in P. Sloterdijk′s more recent publications. Two issues are of concern here. Drawing on a Heideggerian terminology and position on the problem, Sloterdijk presents some critical descriptions of the expansive character of capitalist civilisation. But he doesn′t seem to acknowledge the real internal essence of modern society. Instead of this he presents a simplified anthropological interpretation of its social and cultural character. It is not, as he sees it, social structures nor moral or religious (...) values which produce the character of our modern times, but rather a duality of beastly impulses, which on the one hand are prevented or tamed whilst on the other being allowed free reign of expression. In this context the author aligns himself with the increasingly obsolete tradition of disdain for the masses. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dmitry Khanin THE POSTMODERN POSTURE Postmodernists—the sectarians ofour day—proclaim that the old kingdom of historical narrative and historical subject has perished, and is now being replaced by a new one of ahistorical discourses and ahistorical characters. According to these prophets, "history" is anyway just changes in ways of talking about history. Anyone who does not agree with the ahistoricity of the postmodern world oudook may be accused—and tried on (...) the spot—of defending the cause of the totalitarian Reason against the most liberating movement of today. This postmodernist abuse of history is paradoxical, since the very notion of history coming to its end and giving way to the ahistorical kingdom of freedom and merry debauchery is itself a very old idea, even a mythological one. The description ofhistory as marching toward its own demise relies on a whole tradition which portrays history as a drama. Aristode's conception of tragedy as a sequence of actions culminating in a dénouement has no doubt shaped this view of historical process. Christian and other religious millenarians have announced the end of history already many times. Yet another notorious instance of such eschatological daydreaming is the futurology of Karl Marx, who envisaged the kingdom of communism as occupying this same ahistorical space. A rather obsolete idea, perhaps, but it seems still to attract postmodernists, though they give it a characteristic twist, since they sincerely believe theory, discourse, écriture (i.e., theoretico-symbolical activity) are much more important than any actual historical contentprocesses and events. One of the most notable spokesmen for this approach is Arthur Danto, who insists that world history evolved in a good Hegelian manner until the theorists came to understand that history depends on their Philosophy and Literature, © 1990, 14: 239-247 240Philosophy and Literature texts much more than theorists themselves depend on historical processes and events.1 Many theoreticians working in an otherwise Marxist tradition similarly are glad to assert with FredricJameson that we must say farewell to Marx's positivistic illusion that history is driven by laws disguised as economic forces.2 In the epoch of "late capitalism," says Jameson, consumption gains the upper hand over production and becomes the mainspring of history. Of course, in light of recent doings in Europe I am tempted to ask if we owe it to postmodernists—and their ahistorical, inconsistent, and generally confounding claims about history lying in ruins—that the Berlin Wall actually is in ruins and Vaclav Havel is president of Czechoslovakia. Even more daring theorists may now declare an era of "very late capitalism." Here it will not be merely the mass media that act transformatively on society (as McLuhan claimed), but rather consumer goods themselves, like state-of-the-art washing machines or French perfumes, which create a new aura of intellectual discourse. TL· Postmodern Scene: Excremental Culture and Hyper-AesÜietics, a book by two Canadian authors, Arthur Kroker and David Cook, promotes such a sea change in the theoretical landscape and along the way presents a joyous recapitulation ofthe latest fads in postmodern thinking. The new apostolic generation ofpostmodern critics seems to enjoy the beautiful new things that can be bought for bucks, worrying at the same time that bucks may be losing some of their purchasing power. Like Hari-Krishnas dancing in the street they luckily possess a sort of happy consciousness which also recalls their puritanical great grandfathers who regarded profligacy as the greatest sin and much preferred saving to spending. In what follows I want to draw a portrait of this new postmodern posture. A few main assumptions underlie Kroker's and Cook's wake for postmodernism, which, in its peculiar genre of philosophic obituary, epitomizes and thus prepares for future oblivion views which were exceedingly popular in the preceding decade. First of all, the authors adopt Baudrillard's equation of Marx and Nietzsche: "Marx and Nietzsche shared a deep and common affinity in meditating upon historical (Christian) and materialistic (capitalist) expressions ofthewill ofpower."3 From Baudrillard's perspective Marx appears as a pathetic romantic who tried to defend the "referential illusion" by renaturalizing concrete labor even though its entirely abstract character was brilliandy revealed in Das Kapital. Baudrillard... (shrink)

Frederick Turner argues in The Culture of Hope that avant‐garde attitudes have become obsolete, inhibiting, and altogether blind to the creative possibilities of the future, with its new science and technology and triumphant capitalism. Paradoxically, Turner argues, the cultural future involves a regression to a classical spirit, indeed, to traditional modes of representation and a new religiosity. But Turner has sold avant‐garde achievement short, even misrepresented it, however correct his analysis and assessment of its current character. He has (...) also overestimated capitalism and religion, and his paradigm deploys clichés of decadence and renewal in a Manichean struggle. While his hopefulness is admirable, it is tragically inadequate. (shrink)

A careful and tough-minded analysis of Marxian economics from within. Wolfson treats Marx's economic theory as worthy of serious discussion and not just as an obsolete curiosity in the history of economic thought. His thorough analysis shows what elements in the theory are empirically confirmable and what elements are not. Ultimately, Wolfson feels Marx fails to make a convincing case for his most critical prediction: the progressive immiseration of the proletariat and the consequent break-up of the capitalist form of (...) social organization.--J. T. (shrink)

A succinct introduction to the history of capitalism by the renowned political theorist.

ABSTRACT Capitalism on Edge aims to redraw the terms of analysis of the so-called democratic capitalism and sketches a political agenda for emancipating society of its grip. This symposium reflects critically on Azmanova’s book and challenges her arguments on methodological, thematic, and substantive grounds. Azar Dakwar introduces the book’s claims and wonders about the nature of the anti-capitalistic agency Azmanova’s ascribes to the precariat. David Ingram worries about Azmanova’s deposing of “economic democracy” and the impact of which on (...) the prospect of radical change she advocates. William Callison casts doubt over the empirical plausibility of Azmanova’s vision of crisis-free transition out of democratic capitalism. Eilat Maoz interrogates Azmanova’s emancipatory project from the historical standpoint of (de)colonization and global imperialism. In her reply to these criticisms, Azmanova accepts some and parries others, while bringing their points closer to her anti-capitalist vision. (shrink)

This article seeks to expose some of the themes addressed in Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus, especially those in which the authors use Marx’s work as a starting point for their own theses. I first present the thesis of history as mere contingency, defended by the authors from a new examination of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. I show how the authors choose some fragments of Marx’s work to support an anti-dialectical thesis, contrary to Marx’s, although they do not (...) elaborate a critique of the German philosopher. In the second place, I present the authors’ thesis with respect to the nature of capital and its development, making use of their reading of the law of tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Here too, the selective recourse to Marx results in an abandonment of the labor theory of value, with the thesis of machinic surplus value. This thesis contributes to the new ontology proposed by the authors, which dissolves the categories of subject and object, while equating and homogenizing all that exists, flattening the diversity of the social world. Finally, I critique the design of revolution proposed by the authors in close connection with their new ontology. (shrink)

I am interested in placing Aristotle’s discussion of the soul in De Anima in historical context, arguing that the philosophical terrain within which he developed his own theory is not radically different from that of our own time. As we can gather from historical overview of Book I, Aristotle faces essentially the same challenges and choices in the field of philosophical psychology as the moderns do. As such, he stands firmly within the mainstream philosophical development, and presents a genuine alternative (...) to the dominant theories of mind. I defend this thesis against a misrepresentation of Aristotle’s view which suggests that the ‘traditional’ views on the nature of mind are not even intelligible given Aristotle’s peculiar presuppositions and his limited stock of concepts. This, if true, would make Aristotle’s psychology fully ‘superseded’ by later developments, in the same manner as his physics was ‘superseded’ by the subsequent progress in natural sciences. Against this I argue that the central notions of De Anima , when properly understood, are quite ‘commensurable’ with any modern post-Cartesian theory. (shrink)

In this article, we will outline the principles of stakeholder capitalism and describe how this view rejects problematic assumptions in the current narratives of capitalism. Traditional narratives of capitalism rely upon the assumptions of competition, limited resources, and a winner-take-all mentality as fundamental to business and economic activity. These approaches leave little room for ethical analysis, have a simplistic view of human beings, and focus on value-capture rather than value-creation. We argue these assumptions about capitalism are (...) inadequate and leave four problems in their wake. We wish to reframe the narrative of capitalism around the reinforcing concepts of stakeholders coupled with value creation and trade. If we think about how a society can sustain a system of voluntary value creation and trade, then capitalism can once more become a useful concept. (shrink)

In a modern capitalist society, the senior executives of large profit-seeking corporations play an important role in shaping the collective life of the society as a whole. In this sense, they exercise social authority. This his book argues that if such authority is to be accepted as legitimate, it must be understood as a form of political authority that is exercised in concert with the authority of governments.

Orthodox economics operates within a hypothesized world of perfect competition in which perfect consumers and firms act to bring about supposedly optimal outcomes. The discrepancies between this model and the reality it claims to address are then attributed to particular imperfections in reality itself. Most heterodox economists seize on this fact and insist that the world is characterized by imperfect competition. But this only ties them to the notion of perfect competition, which remains as their point of departure and base (...) of comparison. There is no imperfection without perfection. In Capitalism, Anwar Shaikh takes a different approach. He demonstrates that most of the central propositions of economic analysis can be derived without any reference to standard devices such as hyperrationality, optimization, perfect competition, perfect information, representative agents, or so-called rational expectations. This perspective allows him to look afresh at virtually all the elements of economic analysis: the laws of demand and supply, the determination of wage and profit rates, technological change, relative prices, interest rates, bond and equity prices, exchange rates, terms and balance of trade, growth, unemployment, inflation, and long booms culminating in recurrent general crises. In every case, Shaikh's innovative theory is applied to modern empirical patterns and contrasted with neoclassical, Keynesian, and Post-Keynesian approaches to the same issues. Shaikh's object of analysis is the economics of capitalism, and he explores the subject in this expansive light. This is how the classical economists, as well as Keynes and Kalecki, approached the issue. Anyone interested in capitalism and economics in general can gain a wealth of knowledge from this ground-breaking text. (shrink)

This paper responds to the question of whether the Internet has made lectures obsolete and Matthew Pickles’ investigation of why lectures persist. It is written as a pastiche of R.K. Narayan, about whom a somewhat parallel question is probably asked. Pickles refers to a logic lecturer so dry people went swimming, and a pastiche approach is an alternative.

ABSTRACT The article critically discusses Rahel Jaeggi’s recent philosophical contribution to a critical theory of capitalism. The first part reconstructs Jaeggi’s account of Lebensform, life-form, that builds up the main ontological framework for addressing and problematizing capitalism intended not as an economic system but as a social whole. The second part focuses on the three different theoretical strategies that Jaeggi puts forward to detect and deal with capitalism’s immanent flaws. The third and last part problematizes the metaphysical (...) assumptions and implications of Jaeggi’s understanding of life-form and outlines a more dialectical, or “transactional” notion of form of life, which is inspired by Dewey’s non-reductionist naturalist method of inquiry. The overall aim is to strengthen the philosophical critique of the capitalist form of life. (shrink)

I suggest that we can read Marx in the light of recent analytic, neo-Hegelian thought. I summarize the Pittsburgh School philosophers’ claims about the myth of the given, the claim that human experience is conceptual all the way out, and that we live in a space of reasons. I show how Hegel has been read in those terms, and then apply that reading of Hegel to Marx’s argument that capital is akin to what Hegel called Geist, or spirit. We can (...) understand capitalism as a space of reasons that is contradictory: while the space of reasons is supposed to make human freedom possible, our space of reasons makes freedom impossible. Reading Marx in this way is helpful, because it avoids the flaws of analytical Marxism, existentialism and structuralism. However, it raises a large problem of its own: Can the theory of the space of reasons be applied to a society that is not free of alienation? I argue that it can, but only in ways that would not satisfy the analytic neo-Hegelians themselves. (shrink)

Our global ecological crisis demands that we question the rationality of the culture that has caused it: western modernity's free market capitalism. Philip Goodchild develops arguments from Nietzsche, Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marx, to suggest that our love of Western modernity is an expression of a piety in which capitalism becomes a global religion, in practice, if not always in belief. This book presents a philosophical alternative that demands attention from philosophers, critical theorists, philosophers of religion, theologians, and those (...) in ecological politics. (shrink)

Benjamin's fragment 'Capitalism as Religion', written in 1921, was only published several decades after his death. Its aim is to show that capitalism is a cultic religion, without mercy or truce, leading humanity to the 'house of despair'. It is an astonishing document, directly based on Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, but – in ways akin to Ernst Bloch or Erich Fromm – transforming Weber's 'value-free' analysis into a ferocious anticapitalist argument, probably inspired (...) by Gustav Landauer's romantic and libertarian socialism. This article analyses Benjamin's fragment and explores its relationship to Weber's thesis, as well as to the tradition of romantic anticapitalism. (shrink)

A dazzling blend of business vision, history, social psychology, and economics, The Support Economy starts with a compelling premise: People have changed more than the corporations upon which their well-being depends. In the chasm that now separates the new individuals from the old organizations is the opportunity to forge a capitalism suited to our times and so unleash a vast new potential for wealth creation. In recent years, many books have offered fixes for this crisis, but they have dealt (...) only with its symptoms. The Support Economy is the first book to critically examine its cause: Managerial capitalism has outlived the society it was once designed to serve. It successfully achieved the efficient production of goods and services, but today's individuals want more. They want to take their lives into their own hands and are ready to pay for the support and advocacy necessary to fulfill that yearning. The next leap forward in wealth creation depends upon developing a new capitalism that speaks to the needs of people today. The Support Economy will be the next "must read" big think book. It speaks to every business and technology leader, as well as every reader interested in the future of the economy and society. (shrink)

From the early days of philosophy, ethics and justice, there is wide consensus that the constancy of the laws establishes the legal system. On the other hand, the rate at which we accumulate knowledge is gaining speed like never before. Due to the recently increased attention of academics to climate change and other environmental issues, a lot of new knowledge has been obtained about carbon management, its role in nature and mechanisms regarding the formation and degradation of organic matter. A (...) multidisciplinary techno-economic assessment of current composting standards and laws that took into account the current state of knowledge about carbon management was carried out as a case study. Economic and environmental damage caused by outdated laws was revealed. In addition, it was found that the introduction of the best composts into the market is permitted, causing additional negative environmental as well as economic impacts. (shrink)

This article provides a history of private sector tracking technologies, examining how the advent of commercial surveillance centered around a logic of data capitalism. Data capitalism is a system in which the commoditization of our data enables an asymmetric redistribution of power that is weighted toward the actors who have access and the capability to make sense of information. It is enacted through capitalism and justified by the association of networked technologies with the political and social benefits (...) of online community, drawing upon narratives that foreground the social and political benefits of networked technologies. I examine its origins in the wake of the dotcom bubble, when technology makers sought to develop a new business model to support online commerce. By leveraging user data for advertising purposes, they contributed to an information environment in which every action leaves behind traces collected by companies for commercial purposes. Through analysis of primary source materials produced by technology makers, journalists, and business analysts, I examine the emergence of data capitalism between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s and its central role in the contemporary information economy. (shrink)

David Schweickart moves beyond the familiar arguments against globalizing capitalism to contribute something absolutely necessary and long overdue—a coherent vision of a viable, desirable alternative to capitalism. He names this system Economic Democracy, a successor-system to capitalism which preserves the efficiency strengths of a market economy while extending democracy to the workplace and to the structures of investment finance. Drawing on both theoretical and empirical research, Schweickart shows how and why this model is efficient, dynamic, and superior (...) to capitalism along a range of values. (shrink)

“Racial capitalism” has surfaced during the past few decades in projects that highlight the production of difference in tandem with the production of capital—usually through violence. Scholars in this tradition typically draw their inspiration—and framework—from Cedric Robinson’s influential 1983 text, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. This article uses the work of Orlando Patterson to highlight some limits of “racial capitalism” as a theoretical project. First, the “racial capitalism” literature rarely clarifies what scholars mean (...) by “race” or “capitalism.” Second, some scholars using this conceptual language treat black subjectivity as a debilitated condition. An alleged byproduct of the Transatlantic slave trade, this debilitated form of black subjectivity derives from an African American exceptionalism that treats slavery as a form of abject status particular to capitalism without providing adequate theoretical justification or historical explanation. By contrast, we demonstrate how Patterson’s insights about property, status, and capital offer an analysis of slavery more attentive to race, gender, sexuality, age, and ability. We close by using the “forensics of capital” to explore the notions of causality and protocols for determining who owes what to whom implicit in Patterson’s concept of “social death.”. (shrink)

The recognition of capitalism as a core component of modernity has often led to conflation of the two categories; this happens to critics as well as defenders of capitalism, and it reflects their shared but only partly acknowledged premises. A tendency to interpret capitalism as a self-contained system has strongly affected the debate on its historical significance; this reductionistic approach could be adapted to different ideological stances as well as to changing views of capitalism's long-term trajectory. (...) The notion of a `spirit of capitalism', in the sense of cultural sources essential to the constitution (and arguably also to the continuity) of the capitalist order, has been one of the most important correctives to economic determinism and reductionism, but it has proved difficult to link this dimension to other aspects of the problematic. The article surveys the contributions of Weber, Sombart, Castoriadis and - most recently - Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello to this debate. The last section then discusses the work of Fernand Braudel and suggests that it could serve to reformulate the problematic of capitalism in more multidimensional terms. (shrink)

The Capitalist Schema uses marxist philosophy to explain how money frames all social relations in our capitalist world and how money regulates and conditions social references to past and future social life. Consequently, modern life becomes ever more abstract and leveled, and all human desire becomes channeled towards profit and making money.

The wake of the financial crisis has inspired hopes for dramatic change and stirred visions of capitalism’s terminal collapse. Yet capitalism is not on its deathbed, utopia is not in our future, and revolution is not in the cards. In Capitalism on Edge, Albena Azmanova demonstrates that radical progressive change is still attainable, but it must come from an unexpected direction. Azmanova’s new critique of capitalism focuses on the competitive pursuit of profit rather than on forms (...) of ownership and patterns of wealth distribution. She contends that neoliberal capitalism has mutated into a new form—precarity capitalism—marked by the emergence of a precarious multitude. Widespread economic insecurity ails the 99 percent across differences in income, education, and professional occupation; it is the underlying cause of such diverse hardships as work-related stress and chronic unemployment. In response, Azmanova calls for forging a broad alliance of strange bedfellows whose discontent would challenge not only capitalism’s unfair outcomes but also the drive for profit at its core. To achieve this synthesis, progressive forces need to go beyond the old ideological certitudes of, on the left, fighting inequality and, on the right, increasing competition. Azmanova details reforms that would enable a dramatic transformation of the current system without a revolutionary break. An iconoclastic critique of left orthodoxy, Capitalism on Edge confronts the intellectual and political impasses of our time to discern a new path of emancipation. (shrink)

After 1989, capitalism has successfully presented itself as the only realistic political-economic system - a situation that the bank crisis of 2008, far from ending, actually compounded. The book analyses the development and principal features of this capitalist realism as a lived ideological framework. Using examples from politics, films, fiction, work and education, it argues that capitalist realism colours all areas of contemporary experience. But it will also show that, because of a number of inconsistencies and glitches internal to (...) the capitalist reality program capitalism in fact is anything but realistic. (shrink)

Interest in the relationship between race and the expanded reproduction of capitalism has exploded across the social sciences and humanities over the past several years. Despite this widespread appreciation and interest, profound disagreement, debate, and analytical impression persists, not least regarding the relationship between race and the necessary ‘laws of motion’ of capitalist society. This article begins by tracing the core approaches to the race and capitalism conversation, paying particular attention to their understanding of the necessity/contingency distinction. It (...) then proceeds to make the case for race as a contingent – which, emphatically, does not mean local or insignificant – relatively autonomous, and historically path-dependent terrain of struggle in capitalist society, which has largely functioned to maintain capital’s necessary disequilibrium between the value form and its value relations, but need not do so. It closes by exploring the implications of this claim in relation to recent historical-geographical research on post-1898 US imperialism. (shrink)

This article develops and defends a triadic account of structural domination, according to which structural domination (e.g. patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism) is a triadic relation between dominator(s), dominated, and regulator(s)—the constitutive domination dyad plus those roles and norms expressively upholding it. The article elaborates on the relationship between structure and agency from the perspective of both oppressor and oppressed and discusses the deduction of the concept of the capitalist state from the concept of capitalism. On the basis of (...) these definitions, it shows that structural domination under capitalism presupposes collective power but no joint agency or shared intentions on the part of the dominators. (shrink)

In general, capitalists deserve profits and losses for their contribution to the general welfare. Market imperfections and the range of permissible prices (at least within the boundaries of exploitation) prevent the alignment from being a direct one, but the connection generally holds. In the context of the market, this thesis preserves the central place of moral responsibility in moral desert. It also satisfies the fittingness and proportionality conditions of moral desert and provides a backward-looking and pre-institutional ground of it. In (...) addition, the focus on contribution unifies several different types of act-based desert, specifically deserved profits and losses, deserved punishment, and deserved wages. Hence, to the extent that desert-satisfaction is relevant in the selection of an economic system, this result strengthens the case for capitalism. (shrink)

This paper analyses the main perceptions of capitalism and crises from a mainstream and heterodox perspective. Broadly defined within the neoclassical structure, the mainstream approaches support the idea of long-term stability of capitalism and describe crises as exogenous events. The heterodox perceptions, on the contrary, perceive crises as an internal feature of capitalism and propose to reframe the global economy within the limits of the socio-environmental systems. Despite the historical recurrence of crises, the neoclassic capitalist framework and (...) the related mainstream perceptions are still dominating the international economic debate. Most of the crises have then been addressed with reforms oriented to adjust some elements of the system without changing the overall economic structure. On the contrary, limited numbers of initiatives have been implemented to reorganise the economy according to the heterodox perspectives. Within this context, further analysis would be needed to investigate the feasibility of the proposed heterodox solutions. By discussing the main perceptions of capitalism and crises and by considering the ethical implications of the mainstream and the heterodox approaches, the present paper contributes to the existing debate around stability of capitalism and provides a starting point for analysis oriented to investigate the feasibility of alternative economic structures. (shrink)

Liberalism generally holds that legitimate political power is limited and is to be impartially exercised, only for the public good. Liberals accordingly assign political priority to maintaining certain basic liberties and equality of opportunities; they advocate an essential role for markets in economic activity, and they recognize government's crucial role in correcting market breakdowns and providing public goods. Classical liberalism and what I call “the high liberal tradition” are two main branches of liberalism. Classical liberalism evolved from the works of (...) Adam Smith and the classical utilitarian economists; its major 20th century representatives include Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. The high liberal tradition developed from John Stuart Mill's works, and its major philosophical representatives in the 20th century are John Dewey and, later, John Rawls. This paper discusses the main distinguishing features of the classical and the high liberal traditions and their respective positions regarding capitalism as an economic and social system. Classical liberals, unlike high liberals, regard economic liberties and rights of private property in productive resources to be nearly as important as basic liberties. They conceive of equality of opportunity in more formal terms, and regard capitalist markets and the price system as essential not only to the allocation of production resources, but also as the fundamental criterion for the just distribution of income, wealth, and economic powers. High liberals, by contrast, regard the economic liberties as subordinate to the exercise of personal and civic liberties. They are prepared to regulate and restrict economic liberties to achieve greater equality of opportunities, reduce inequalities of economic powers, and promote a broader conception of the public good. And while high liberals endorse markets and the price system as essential to allocation of productive resources, they do not regard markets as the fundamental criterion for assessing just distributions of income, wealth, and economic powers and positions of responsibility. The paper concludes with some reflections upon the essential role that dissimilar conceptions of persons and society play in grounding the different positions on economic justice that classical and high liberals advocate. (shrink)

This dialogue engages with the ethics of politics of capitalism, and enacts a debate between two participants who have divergent views on these matters. Beginning with a discussion concerning definitions of capitalism, it moves on to cover issues concerning our different understandings of the costs and benefits of global capitalist systems. This then leads into a debate about the nature and purposes of regulation, in terms of whether regulation is intended to make competition work better for consumers, or (...) to prevent negative outcomes for citizens. The conclusion speculates about the usefulness or otherwise of this Socratic method of dialogue. (shrink)

This essay argues that the concept of ‘racial capitalism’ can help us understand the connections between seemingly disparate parts of Voltaire’s extensive corpus of work. It contends that even though the Enlightenment’s racial politics abounded with contradictions and ambivalences, Voltaire stood out from his contemporaries. While the connections between his polygenism – the theory that humans of different races were created separately – and material investments in colonial commerce have long been debated by radical historians, this essay suggests that (...) Voltaire’s views about race’s relationship to labour were transformed by France’s colonial losses during the Seven Years’ War. (shrink)

This book discusses how rational choice theory grew out of RAND's work for the US Air Force. It concentrates on the work of William J. Riker, Kenneth J. Arrow, James M. Buchanan, Russel Hardin, and John Rawls. It argues that within the context of the US Cold War with its intensive anti-communist and anti-collectivist sentiment, the foundations of capitalist democracy were grounded in the hyper individualist theory of non-cooperative games.

This book is a completely rewritten version of the author's earlier Capitalism or Worker Control?. Its central thesis is that, despite the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the break-up of the Soviet Union, capitalism cannot be justified on either economic or ethical grounds. There is in fact an alternative to capitalism that promises greater efficiency, and equality, and more rational growth, democracy and meaningful work. This alternative, Economic Democracy, is market socialism with decentralised investment planning (...) and workplace democracy. Professor Schweickart compares this model with other models – laissez-faire conservatism, the Keynesian welfare state, and 'neo-liberalism' – and argues that it is really superior on every count. He also sketches out a possible transition from advanced capitalism, from what is left of the centrally planned economies, and from Third World underdevelopment, to Economic Democracy. The author concludes with some reflections on Marx's communism, as historical materialism, and on the future of Marxism. (shrink)