This article traces the centrality of capitalism in the work of three decolonial feminists: María Lugones, Sylvia Wynter, and Sayek Valencia. Elaborating on the role of capitalism in each of their work separately, I argue that each of these thinkers conceptualizes capitalism in a novel and urgent way, charting new directions for both theory and social movement practice. I thus argue that the decolonial feminist tradition holds crucial philosophical and historical resources for understanding the emergence of capitalism and its endurance.

Marcuse had in Brazil, in the 70s, an one-sided reception, being seen only as a guru of the counter-culture. Against this misconception the paper exposes the intrinsic relationship between theory and practice in Marcuses's philosophy, characterized as a political philosophy whose main concern is the radical transformation of capitalist society.Marcuse teve no Brasil na década de 1970 uma recepção unilateral, sendo visto unicamente como guru da contra-cultura. Contra esse equívoco o artigo mostra a relação intrínseca entre teoria e prática na (...) filosofia de Marcuse, caracterizada como uma filosofia política cuja preocupação central é a transformação radical da sociedade capitalista. (shrink)

This article presents a revised version of negative utilitarianism. Previous versions have relied on a hedonistic theory of value and stated that suffering should be minimized. The traditional rebuttal is that the doctrine in this form morally requires us to end all sentient life. To avoid this, a need-based theory of value is introduced. The frustration of the needs not to suffer and not to have one’s autonomy dwarfed should, prima facie, be decreased. When decreasing the need frustration of some (...) would increase the need frustration of others, the case is deferred and a fuller ethical analysis is conducted. The author’s perceptions on murder, extinction, the right to die, antinatalism, veganism, and abortion are used to reach a reflective equilibrium. The new theory is then applied to consumerism, material growth, and power relations. The main finding is that the burden of proof should be on those who promote the status quo. (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)

When in 2001 Earth Liberation Front activists drove metal spikes into hundreds of trees in Gifford Pinchot National Forest, they were protesting the sale of a section of the old-growth forest to a timber company. But ELF's communiqu on the action went beyond the radical group's customary brief. Drawing connections between the harms facing the myriad animals who make their home in the trees and the struggles for social justice among ordinary human beings resisting exclusion and marginalization, the dispatch declared, (...) "all oppression is linked, just as we are all linked," and decried the "patriarchal nightmare" in the form of "techno-industrial global capitalism." In Total Liberation, David Naguib Pellow takes up this claim and makes sense of the often tense and violent relationships among humans, ecosystems, and nonhuman animal species, expanding our understanding of inequality and activists' uncompromising efforts to oppose it. Grounded in interviews with more than one hundred activists, on-the-spot fieldwork, and analyses of thousands of pages of documents, websites, journals, and zines, Total Liberation reveals the ways in which radical environmental and animal rights movements challenge inequity through a vision they call "total liberation." In its encounters with such infamous activists as scott crow, Tre Arrow, Lauren Regan, Rod Coronado, and Gina Lynn, the book offers a close-up, insider's view of one of the most important--and feared--social movements of our day. At the same time, it shows how and why the U.S. justice system plays to that fear, applying to these movements measures generally reserved for "jihadists"--with disturbing implications for civil liberties and constitutional freedom. How do the adherents of "total liberation" fight oppression and seek justice for humans, nonhumans, and ecosystems alike? And how is this pursuit shaped by the politics of anarchism and anticapitalism? In his answers, Pellow provides crucial in-depth insight into the origins and social significance of the earth and animal liberation movements and their increasingly common and compelling critique of inequality as a threat to life and a dream of a future characterized by social and ecological justice for all. (shrink)

Friedrich Wilhelm Graf attends to questions of the role and function of theology and churches in the former DDR. Current and short-winded theological-political paradigms are in his opinion too little useful to reflect upon and clear up the meanwhile historical period of»Kirche im Sozialismus«. Graf discusses the remarkable affirmation of streams of theology towards socialism. Dealing with this topic from an historical point of view begins in the early nineteeth century, precicely: in the attitude of social-romantic anticapitalism. This view (...) pointsout a surprising line of continuity, which Ieads to the theological approval of socialism in the former DDR-churches. (shrink)

A poetics of the real -- The ideology of death -- Bioeconomics: the hidden megascience -- Biopoetics: desiring to be -- Natural anticapitalism -- Commons: inviting the other -- Poetic objectivity -- Culture: imagining the other.

Recent studies have revealed how workers’ movements adapted republicanism into a language of anticapitalism in the nineteenth century. Much less attention has been paid, however, to the role feminists played in this process. This essay addresses this oversight by introducing the voices of the utopian socialists under July Monarchy France. These socialists insisted that there could be no social revolution without sexual revolution. Although they are often positioned outside of the republican tradition, this essay argues that the utopian socialists (...) are better understood as rendering the legacy of classical and French republicanism compatible with nascent workers’ movements in the 1830s. By foregrounding the feminist Flora Tristan, this essay shows how utopian socialists weaponized republican tropes to address the social question, thereby expanding what a republican critique of capitalism could look like. (shrink)

One of the most original features of Ernst Bloch’s philosophy is the mixture of religious elements with an emancipation theory rooted in Marxism. However, his philosophy of religion is expressed in an unconventional way. It inherits the best products of the German soul in order to overcome the pessimism of the fin-de-siècle philosophies and revive the emancipatory struggles. This article explores the forms ofexpression of this thought in Bloch’s early philosophy through the analysis of his claim for “religion without God”, (...) and against all vulgar atheism that abolishes the experience of human inwardness. In this context, the theological concept of the “invisible Church” is presented as Bloch’s way of anchoring the anti-capitalist and anti-militarist struggle in a strong symbolic content that would serve as its base and reserve of energies. Thepaper concludes that, at the heart of Bloch’s project, there is a radical critique of the economic system and a search for radical alternatives to it. (shrink)

Los movimientos sociales contemporáneos se hacen antisistémicos en su propia dinámica, cuando profundizan sus empeños y descubren la naturaleza e interconexiones de los obstáculos que enfrentan. Empieza a generalizarse la intuición, anticipada por pensadores radicales del último medio siglo, de que estamos al fin de una era. A partir de las experiencias de la Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca, reflexiono en este trabajo sobre la necesidad de limpiar nuestras miradas –contaminadas aún por la era que termina- al concebir (...) las luchas actuales y emprender esfuerzos de transformación. Serían desgaste estéril si están atrapados en elementos de la víspera. La nueva sociedad no puede ser mera extrapolación de la antigua. Al plantear la necesidad de preparar el funeral de la sociedad económica (capitalismo y socialismo), del imperio estadounidense y del régimen político mexicano, sugiero también caminos para acotar con mayor precisión los rumbos y maneras de la lucha anticapitalista actual. (shrink)

In an interview dealing with his latest book, The Alterglobalist strategy, Gustave Massiah answers a series of questions dealing with the crisis of neoliberal capitalism and with the specific agenda of alterglobalist strategies. The main topic of the interview is the relation between antineoliberal and anticapitalist struggles and the question of the possible and the desirable scenarios emerging from the crisis.

A partir de la afirmación de que el capitalismo prosigue su expansión, el autor se pregunta cómo llevar a cabo una lucha anticapitalista en esas condiciones. Rescata que éste fue el contexto de los primeros socialistas, pre-marxistas o utópicos, y que esta radicalidad anticapitalista se encuentra hoy en la protesta ecologista. Introduce el concepto de "discrepancia radical" con el derroche capitalista, que amenaza para la vida de la especie humana y de la naturaleza. Acude el autor en su tesis al (...) Segundo Tratado sobre el Gobierno Civil, de John Locke, para luego postular los elementos políticos de una discrepancia radical y la necesidad de redefinir el papel militante de la izquierda. (shrink)