Марксизм и критическая теория (Marxism and critical theory)

2021-06-17 07:23:56 Javier Moreno Zacares- Euphoria of the rentier?

For classical political economists, capitalism was defined by a pattern of self-sustaining growth driven by market competition. Competition compels producers to maximise the cost-efficiency of their operations, typically with labour-saving means, resulting in a systematic expansion of output that cheapens the price of commodities this is what Marxists have long called ‘the law of value’. If such a dynamic is what distinguishes capitalism from other modes of production, then we need to confront the fact that the capitalist world economy appears to be transforming into the mirror image of this. With growth slowing down to a trickle and productivity stagnating, it appears that accumulation is now less about making anything and more about simply owning something. Profit-making is increasingly about cornering scarce assets in order to drive up their price a practice that the classics called ‘rent’ and which they identified not with capitalists, but with landlords. As rentierism takes over, it appears that capitalism’s distinct forms of surplus extraction, organized around the impersonal pressures of the world market, are giving way to juridico-political forms of exploitation fees, leases, politically-sustained capital gains. From the late David Graeber to Robert Brenner, authoritative theorists of capitalism with opposing ideas of its origins and development are now converging on the view that contemporary patterns of class domination look, increasingly, non-capitalist. For McKenzie Wark, this warrants the provocative question: is it something worse?

https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii129/articles/javier-moreno-zacares-euphoria-of-the-rentier Открыть/Комментировать

2021-06-16 17:39:56 Mark Steven - The Quiet Radicalism of James Joyce’s Ulysses

On Bloomsday, we’re celebrating James Joyce’s Ulysses. It’s one of the greatest novels ever, and it calls forth a world where every named and unnamed minor character gets to be the hero. What could be more socialist?

https://jacobinmag.com/2021/06/ulysses-socialist-literature-james-joyce-bloomsday Открыть/Комментировать

2021-06-16 16:05:05 McDonald’s in the Post–Civil Rights Era, with Marcia Chatelain

An interview with Marcia Chatelain, the author of Franchise a book about how “stateless people found some comfort in a corporation”

In Franchise, Marcia Chatelain argues that McDonald’s nationwide expansion in the late 1960s was inextricably tied to the aftermath of the civil rights movement. For black communities, fast-food companies were both solution and symptom. On the one hand, they often were willing to do business in riot-afflicted black communities where others were not, creating gathering spaces and opportunities for jobs and community revitalization. On the other hand, fast food served as a stand-in for the state; it represented the move from government-backed civil rights to the “silver rights” to participate in the market economy. In this interview, we discuss how writing this book changed Chatelain’s outlook on racial capitalism, the role of corporate diversification in blunting racial progress, and how activists focused on getting communities of color to make better choices when it comes to food can rethink their approach to food justice.

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/mcdonalds-in-the-post-civil-rights-era-with-marcia-chatelain Открыть/Комментировать

2021-06-16 12:57:54 Andy Merrifield - Lefebvre and Althusser: reinterpreting Marxist humanism and anti-humanism

Humanists like Henri Lefebvre suggest Marxism should celebrate what Hegel called a “freedom of subjectivity,” that it should prioritise the free will aspect of Marx’s vision, his yearning for “an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” The young, romantic Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts are particularly dear to the humanist Marxist’s heart. Here, in 1844, still smitten by Hegelian idealism, the concept of alienation dominates or rather dis-alienation the transcending of alienation, the freeing of human beings from capitalist enslavement, from wage labour. Marx posits a “total man” as the liberated person, as subject and object finding unity, rediscovering inner human essence, the ability for people to realise a limitless variety of possible individualities.

For anti-humanists like Louis Althusser this reasoning rings out bogus, as something ideological, problematic for any socialist ambition. Socialism needs a “scientific” concept, says Althusser. “Humanism” here presupposes an “empiricism of the subject,” a kind of “essence” to human beings, which, Althusser reckons, the mature Marx the Marx from the mid-1850s onwards rejects. Humanism throws a “universal” veil over society, whereas revolutionary struggle isn’t a struggle to liberate “humankind” as such, but a struggle between classes. So, if we should ever talk about humanism, says Althusser, we might at least talk about “class humanism,” or “proletarian humanism.” Marxist liberation isn’t about releasing any transcendental human essence, nor expressive of personal freedom; it’s a historical phase that ends class exploitation, that builds democracy for the working classes.

https://mronline.org/2021/06/13/lefebvre-and-althusser-reinterpreting-marxist-humanism-and-anti-humanism/ Открыть/Комментировать

2021-06-16 10:01:55 Goran Therborn - Inequality and world political landscapes

Why has there been so little political response or popular resistance to the abrupt turn toward increasing inequality since 1980, particularly in the core capitalist countries? Does the sudden abandonment of neoliberal austerity for unprecedented economic stimulus to counter the effects of the coronavirus herald a belated era of reform? Will the end of covid-19 resemble 1945 in the West, when not even a victorious war record could defend societies of privilege from social anger? There are hopeful signs in unexpected places, like the editorial boardroom of the Financial Times and the Alpine resort of Davos. On 3 April last year the ft solemnly declared: ‘Radical reforms are required to forge a society that will work for all’ “Redistribution will again be on the agenda.’ Meanwhile the founder-director of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, has let it be known that he expects ‘a period of massive redistribution from the rich to the poor and from capital to labour’ after the ‘massive social turmoil’ brought by the pandemic.

https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii129/articles/goran-therborn-inequality-and-world-political-landscapes Открыть/Комментировать

2021-06-15 18:46:34 Рынок или Госплан

Дебаты Ростислава Капелюшникова против Бориса Кагарлицкого

Дебаты СВТВ о государственном планировании экономики.



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2021-06-15 16:59:27 Quinn Slobodian - Hayek’s Bastards: The Populist Right’s Neoliberal Roots

Much of the media has framed the populist right as a backlash against neoliberalism but they share common roots in the project to defend social hierarchies against the threat of equality.

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/06/hayeks-bastards-the-populist-rights-neoliberal-roots Открыть/Комментировать

2021-06-15 14:50:03 Damien Cahill, Martijn Konings - Neoliberalism

For over three decades neoliberalism has been the dominant economic ideology. While it may have emerged relatively unscathed from the global financial crisis of 2007-8, neoliberalism is now - more than ever - under scrutiny from critics who argue that it has failed to live up to its promises, creating instead an increasingly unequal and insecure world. This book offers a nuanced and probing analysis of the meaning and practical application of neoliberalism today, separating myth from reality. Drawing on examples such as the growth of finance, the role of corporate power and the rise of workfare, the book advances a balanced but distinctive perspective on neoliberalism as involving the interaction of ideas, material economic change and political transformations. It interrogates claims about the impending death of neoliberalism and considers the sources of its resilience in the current climate of political disenchantment and economic austerity. Clearly and accessibly written, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars across the social sciences. Открыть/Комментировать

2021-06-15 12:29:44 Рози Брайдотти - Животные, аномалии и неорганические Другие

Животное перестало быть одним из привилегированных терминов, определяющих отношение европейского субъекта к инаковости. Метафизика инаковости опирается на предполагаемую политическую анатомию, имплицитно смоделированную на идеалах белизны, маскулинности, нормальности, молодости и здоровья. Все другие формы, как диалектической инаковости (небелые, немужские, ненормальные, немолодые и нездоровые), так и категориальной инаковости (зооморфные, недееспособные или искалеченные), стали патологизированы и отброшены по ту сторону нормальности — то есть рассматриваются как аномальные, девиантные и чудовищные. Эта морфологическая нормативность является по своей сути антропоцентричной и обусловленной гендером и расой. Это утвердило и сформировало основные характеристики доминирующего субъекта как мужчину и в том, что в нем содержится, а также в том, что он исключил как иное.

https://syg.ma/@iana-fishova/zhivotnyie-anomalii-i-nieorghanichieskiie-drughiie Открыть/Комментировать