GUIDO PREPARATA - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by GUIDO PREPARATA
Review of Business and Economics Studies, 2021
Poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935), Portugal's literary glory, is also known to have penned ... more Poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935), Portugal's literary glory, is also known to have penned a not inconsiderable corpus of sociological and politological reflections. This essay collates all such original material and glosses it with a view to uncovering Pessoa's religious true colours, and by so doing, goes on to argue that it is no accident, poetics aside, that western cultural intelligentsia finds it expedient to promote the literary output of personages like Pessoa who, in one form or another, preach an ultra-conservative gospel. Though he is not typically recognised as a thinker of the Right at all, the article's thesis is that Pessoa not only cuts a “fascist” figure in the conventional (Leftist) tenor of the epithet, but that the category itself of Fascism ought to be torn off its historical (pro-Liberal) contextualisation and radically reformulated as the default entomological categorisation of modern forms of society, and turned thereby into the norm against whi...
Guido Giacomo Preparata The custom of burning mock-money as a symbolic offering of nutrients and ... more Guido Giacomo Preparata The custom of burning mock-money as a symbolic offering of nutrients and sustenance to one's ancestors in the Afterlife is here analysed in terms of its economic meaning and significance. The theme is treated from two different angles. One is that of the political economy of the gift, which concerns itself with the final uses to which society conveys its economic surplus. The other is that of monetary institutionalism, which seeks to understand what the practice itself actually represents in light of the monetary arrangements that rule the economic exchange within the community itself. The thesis is that, at a first remove, the custom appears to fall into the category of “wasteful expenditure,” in that it is not manifestly conducive to any augmentation of the system's efficiency. But on a subtler level, it is not precisely so for two orders of reasons. First, because the custom is habitually accompanied by subsidiary donations; second, because, in thi...
Austrian mystic Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) devoted significant portions of speculative activity t... more Austrian mystic Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) devoted significant portions of speculative activity to social and economic questions; during the fateful interwar period, he delivered remarkable lectures on the nature of JE
The Ideology of Tyranny, 2007
Review of Business and Economics Studies, 2021
The custom of burning mock-money as a symbolic offering of nutrients and sustenance to one'... more The custom of burning mock-money as a symbolic offering of nutrients and sustenance to one's ancestors in the Afterlife is here analysed in terms of its economic meaning and significance. The theme is treated from two different angles. One is that of the political economy of the gift, which concerns itself with the final uses to which society conveys its economic surplus. The other is that of monetary institutionalism, which seeks to understand what the practice itself actually represents in light of the monetary arrangements that rule the economic exchange within the community itself. The thesis is that, at a first remove, the custom appears to fall into the category of “wasteful expenditure,” in that it is not manifestly conducive to any augmentation of the system's efficiency. But on a subtler level, it is not precisely so for two orders of reasons. First, because the custom is habitually accompanied by subsidiary donations; second, because, in this donative moment, th...
For the past three decades, exponents issued from so-defined under-represented clusters—mostly wo... more For the past three decades, exponents issued from so-defined under-represented clusters—mostly women and variously defined individuals “of color”—have visibly risen to positions of leadership and responsibility in all institutions of the USA. This development has been hailed as a most salubrious improvement in the overall makeup of civic America, and as such it therefore continues to be vigorously encouraged. The move appears to be the natural fruit of progressivism and of a not inconspicuous desire on the part of America’s traditional, White, and male-driven elite to make amends for its brutal past.
The excerpt identifies and summarizes intelligibly an important, if not the most important, drive... more The excerpt identifies and summarizes intelligibly an important, if not the most important, drive of America’s contemporary political economy. The passage is from a 1969 report, titled “Basic Options in International Monetary Affairs,” which was issued by an interdepartmental committee chaired by the then Under-Secretary of the Treasury, Paul Volcker. Initiated at the New York Fed, and later groomed as a protege of David Rockefeller at Chase Manhattan and of Robert Roosa at the US Treasury, Volcker joined the Nixon executive in 1969. Appointed Fed Chairman by Carter in 1979, he would go on to become Reagan’s money czar until 1987. The hagiography celebrates Volcker’s tenure at the Federal Reserve as that of a titanic St. George who rose to technocratic glory for slaying the dragon of America’s “Great Inflation” (1965–1980). From this study’s standpoint, it is of no consequence, however, whether Volcker has indeed been “the greatest chairman the Fed has ever had,”2 as claimed by his ...
Preface A Genealogy of Postmodernism The Great Mother and Dionysus Gnostic Fragments The Marquis ... more Preface A Genealogy of Postmodernism The Great Mother and Dionysus Gnostic Fragments The Marquis de Sade: A Liberal Father to Them All Bataille Michel Foucault and the Social Science-Fiction of Neo-Gnosticism The 'Mocking Varlets' of the Postmodern Left The Tomb Raiders of the Postmodern Right: Junger's Anarch, the Neocon, and the Bogus Hermeneutics of Leo Strauss True Power: The End of Dissent, Iran/Iraq, and the War on Terror
American Review of Political Economy, 2004
Choice Reviews Online, 2006
The Ideology of Tyranny, 2007
For the past decade, and especially since the beginning of the presidency of George Bush Jr. (Jan... more For the past decade, and especially since the beginning of the presidency of George Bush Jr. (January 2001), there has been a great deal of talk about the phenomenon of “neoconservatism.” Its critics have portrayed this sub-current of the Republican Party as some sort of revolutionary, unscrupulous populism. They suggested that the U.S. administration has been taken over by an ideologically compact phalanx of megalomaniacal policymakers, who have hijacked the pragmatic tradition of America and manipulated the situation to the advantage of certain Interests (oil, weaponry, etc.), in particular by means of war and fear. In sum, the Neocons, as they’ve come to be labeled, have been seen as the responsible authors of a discrete jump, “a clean break” in the foreign and domestic policy of the United States. Allegedly, this change has been characterized by the exasperation of plutocracy at home (via tax breaks and a myriad of probusiness concessions targeting only the wealthiest) and the undeterred promotion of war abroad relying to a great extent on the raging devoutness of the country’s Christian evangelicals.
New Directions for Catholic Social and Political Research, 2016
The Ideology of Tyranny, 2007
Michel Foucault was not a mere imitator; he clearly developed the Bataillean project—which is fun... more Michel Foucault was not a mere imitator; he clearly developed the Bataillean project—which is fundamentally a discursive blueprint for chthonic religious awakening—in a practical, applied direction. So practical that his re-elaboration of these infernal themes came in the late sixties to be co-opted into the official rhetoric of France’s Liberal regime. After a decade of finessing, his brand of thinking, like a certified strain of red wine from the sunny Midi, was “turned into a major export industry”2 and was thenceforth to be found in all aisles of all academic supermarkets in the United States—always a top-seller. Today, “many if not most of the studies of Foucault to be found in Parisian book shops are translations from the English.”3
New Directions for Catholic Social and Political Research, 2016
The Ideology of Tyranny, 2007
The Ideology of Tyranny, 2007
New Directions for Catholic Social and Political Research, 2016
Is it possible to create a system of production and exchange in which the exigencies of entrepren... more Is it possible to create a system of production and exchange in which the exigencies of entrepreneurship, of the body social, and of a self-contained community are mutually and virtuously satisfied?
Review of Business and Economics Studies, 2021
Poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935), Portugal's literary glory, is also known to have penned ... more Poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935), Portugal's literary glory, is also known to have penned a not inconsiderable corpus of sociological and politological reflections. This essay collates all such original material and glosses it with a view to uncovering Pessoa's religious true colours, and by so doing, goes on to argue that it is no accident, poetics aside, that western cultural intelligentsia finds it expedient to promote the literary output of personages like Pessoa who, in one form or another, preach an ultra-conservative gospel. Though he is not typically recognised as a thinker of the Right at all, the article's thesis is that Pessoa not only cuts a “fascist” figure in the conventional (Leftist) tenor of the epithet, but that the category itself of Fascism ought to be torn off its historical (pro-Liberal) contextualisation and radically reformulated as the default entomological categorisation of modern forms of society, and turned thereby into the norm against whi...
Guido Giacomo Preparata The custom of burning mock-money as a symbolic offering of nutrients and ... more Guido Giacomo Preparata The custom of burning mock-money as a symbolic offering of nutrients and sustenance to one's ancestors in the Afterlife is here analysed in terms of its economic meaning and significance. The theme is treated from two different angles. One is that of the political economy of the gift, which concerns itself with the final uses to which society conveys its economic surplus. The other is that of monetary institutionalism, which seeks to understand what the practice itself actually represents in light of the monetary arrangements that rule the economic exchange within the community itself. The thesis is that, at a first remove, the custom appears to fall into the category of “wasteful expenditure,” in that it is not manifestly conducive to any augmentation of the system's efficiency. But on a subtler level, it is not precisely so for two orders of reasons. First, because the custom is habitually accompanied by subsidiary donations; second, because, in thi...
Austrian mystic Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) devoted significant portions of speculative activity t... more Austrian mystic Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) devoted significant portions of speculative activity to social and economic questions; during the fateful interwar period, he delivered remarkable lectures on the nature of JE
The Ideology of Tyranny, 2007
Review of Business and Economics Studies, 2021
The custom of burning mock-money as a symbolic offering of nutrients and sustenance to one'... more The custom of burning mock-money as a symbolic offering of nutrients and sustenance to one's ancestors in the Afterlife is here analysed in terms of its economic meaning and significance. The theme is treated from two different angles. One is that of the political economy of the gift, which concerns itself with the final uses to which society conveys its economic surplus. The other is that of monetary institutionalism, which seeks to understand what the practice itself actually represents in light of the monetary arrangements that rule the economic exchange within the community itself. The thesis is that, at a first remove, the custom appears to fall into the category of “wasteful expenditure,” in that it is not manifestly conducive to any augmentation of the system's efficiency. But on a subtler level, it is not precisely so for two orders of reasons. First, because the custom is habitually accompanied by subsidiary donations; second, because, in this donative moment, th...
For the past three decades, exponents issued from so-defined under-represented clusters—mostly wo... more For the past three decades, exponents issued from so-defined under-represented clusters—mostly women and variously defined individuals “of color”—have visibly risen to positions of leadership and responsibility in all institutions of the USA. This development has been hailed as a most salubrious improvement in the overall makeup of civic America, and as such it therefore continues to be vigorously encouraged. The move appears to be the natural fruit of progressivism and of a not inconspicuous desire on the part of America’s traditional, White, and male-driven elite to make amends for its brutal past.
The excerpt identifies and summarizes intelligibly an important, if not the most important, drive... more The excerpt identifies and summarizes intelligibly an important, if not the most important, drive of America’s contemporary political economy. The passage is from a 1969 report, titled “Basic Options in International Monetary Affairs,” which was issued by an interdepartmental committee chaired by the then Under-Secretary of the Treasury, Paul Volcker. Initiated at the New York Fed, and later groomed as a protege of David Rockefeller at Chase Manhattan and of Robert Roosa at the US Treasury, Volcker joined the Nixon executive in 1969. Appointed Fed Chairman by Carter in 1979, he would go on to become Reagan’s money czar until 1987. The hagiography celebrates Volcker’s tenure at the Federal Reserve as that of a titanic St. George who rose to technocratic glory for slaying the dragon of America’s “Great Inflation” (1965–1980). From this study’s standpoint, it is of no consequence, however, whether Volcker has indeed been “the greatest chairman the Fed has ever had,”2 as claimed by his ...
Preface A Genealogy of Postmodernism The Great Mother and Dionysus Gnostic Fragments The Marquis ... more Preface A Genealogy of Postmodernism The Great Mother and Dionysus Gnostic Fragments The Marquis de Sade: A Liberal Father to Them All Bataille Michel Foucault and the Social Science-Fiction of Neo-Gnosticism The 'Mocking Varlets' of the Postmodern Left The Tomb Raiders of the Postmodern Right: Junger's Anarch, the Neocon, and the Bogus Hermeneutics of Leo Strauss True Power: The End of Dissent, Iran/Iraq, and the War on Terror
American Review of Political Economy, 2004
Choice Reviews Online, 2006
The Ideology of Tyranny, 2007
For the past decade, and especially since the beginning of the presidency of George Bush Jr. (Jan... more For the past decade, and especially since the beginning of the presidency of George Bush Jr. (January 2001), there has been a great deal of talk about the phenomenon of “neoconservatism.” Its critics have portrayed this sub-current of the Republican Party as some sort of revolutionary, unscrupulous populism. They suggested that the U.S. administration has been taken over by an ideologically compact phalanx of megalomaniacal policymakers, who have hijacked the pragmatic tradition of America and manipulated the situation to the advantage of certain Interests (oil, weaponry, etc.), in particular by means of war and fear. In sum, the Neocons, as they’ve come to be labeled, have been seen as the responsible authors of a discrete jump, “a clean break” in the foreign and domestic policy of the United States. Allegedly, this change has been characterized by the exasperation of plutocracy at home (via tax breaks and a myriad of probusiness concessions targeting only the wealthiest) and the undeterred promotion of war abroad relying to a great extent on the raging devoutness of the country’s Christian evangelicals.
New Directions for Catholic Social and Political Research, 2016
The Ideology of Tyranny, 2007
Michel Foucault was not a mere imitator; he clearly developed the Bataillean project—which is fun... more Michel Foucault was not a mere imitator; he clearly developed the Bataillean project—which is fundamentally a discursive blueprint for chthonic religious awakening—in a practical, applied direction. So practical that his re-elaboration of these infernal themes came in the late sixties to be co-opted into the official rhetoric of France’s Liberal regime. After a decade of finessing, his brand of thinking, like a certified strain of red wine from the sunny Midi, was “turned into a major export industry”2 and was thenceforth to be found in all aisles of all academic supermarkets in the United States—always a top-seller. Today, “many if not most of the studies of Foucault to be found in Parisian book shops are translations from the English.”3
New Directions for Catholic Social and Political Research, 2016
The Ideology of Tyranny, 2007
The Ideology of Tyranny, 2007
New Directions for Catholic Social and Political Research, 2016
Is it possible to create a system of production and exchange in which the exigencies of entrepren... more Is it possible to create a system of production and exchange in which the exigencies of entrepreneurship, of the body social, and of a self-contained community are mutually and virtuously satisfied?