Varieties of Alternatives to Capitalism in Systemic Crisis (original) (raw)
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Capitalist Crisis or the Crisis of Capitalism?
Critical Perspectives on the World Bank and the IMF, edited by E. Ahmet Tonak, İstanbul Bilgi University Press, 2011
T he aim of this article is to bring to attention a theoretical proposition of immense importance that has become pertinent once again with the onset of the world economic crisis raging since 2007. The proposition in question is that, despite the façade of success in recent decades, capitalism cannot at present manage the productive forces that it has historically given rise to. Put differently, that the productive forces created by capitalism itself tend to overflow this system based on private property has become apparent once again forcefully and strikingly through this worldwide crisis of the system. Hence, the world crisis that we are witnessing today is not merely a capitalist crisis. It is also the reappearance on the stage of history of the crisis of capitalism at a very advanced level. An analysis of the current crisis that does not characterise this crisis as an aspect of the crisis of capitalist civilisation should therefore be regarded as structurally wanting. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK One of the fundamental tenets of Marxism, beginning with the work of Marx and Engels themselves, has been that, in the area of developing new productive forces, capitalism has a much more revolutionary nature relative to all other modes of production in history, but that at a certain stage of its development, it will no longer be possible for capitalism to contain the productive forces that it has given rise to. At the basis of this second claim lies the progressive socialisation that production undergoes in the specific conditions of
The European Crisis and a Political Critique of Capitalism
17(3), 2014
The European crisis has provoked wide-spread critique of capitalist arrangements in most if not all countries in Europe. But to what extent do contemporary social protest and critique indicate a revival of critical capacity? The range of criticisms against the existing capitalist system raised by various social movements is seen as ineffectual and fragmented. Such observations are mirrored in sociological analyses of the critique of capitalism. A distinct type of critique of capitalism has, however, not been explicitly conceptualized. This political critique, denouncing the depoliticization and the erosion of autonomy resulting from capitalist arrangements, indicates the crucial role of the political in formulating common projects. I will, first, briefly discuss Boltanski and Chiapello's historical identification of forms of critique of capitalism as well as the contemporary relevance of these. In a second step, I will conceptualize and in a way recuperate a political critique of capitalism. In a third step, I will show that the contours of a critique that explicitly refers to the political is available in the contemporary European context, not least in claims made by movements that pursue a 'Europe of the Commons' and an 'alternative Europe'.
Critical Social Analysis of Crisis
Praktyka Teoretyczna, 2021
In this article, we offer a critical social analysis of crisis in light of capitalist development and, above all, in the post-2008 world. We discuss five approaches in the social sciences that deal with the problem of crisis and develop some theoretical lines for a critical approach to the theme. We argue that precarity can be an important topic for grasping the current crises via critical approaches. The text also presents the six articles that are part of the issue we edited for Praktyka Teoretyczna entitled “Latency of the crisis.”
After the crisis: global capitalism and the critique of international political economy
Since the global financial crisis of 2008-9, neoliberalism has proved to be remarkably resilient. Alternatives in economic policy and political philosophy alike have found little resonance, despite street protests and insurgent parties of left and right in countries hit hardest by austerity. This essay focuses on Marxist and related analyses. It is argued first that Marxism has suffered from a separation between its analysis of capitalism as an economic system, and contemporary critiques of the political and social order, notably over the question of class. Marxist analyses of class have thus far failed to reconcile the traditional view of a two-class society with the complex social differentiations evident in capitalism. It is suggested that the unity of the working class arises not from its subordination to capital as such, but from the directly social character of the labour process in its material (use-value) aspect. In order to challenge capitalism, its critics need to explicitly propose an alternative social order based on equality, social justice, collective action and internationalism.
Routledge , 2021
Capitalism’s proneness to crises was apparent from its earliest days. Marx’s analysis identified the key reason: capitalism was a system aiming to produce not the goods and services people needed, but value itself. Such value or capital accumulation was a quixotic and contradictory enterprise, involving unjust exploitation and anarchic competition, contradictions that led to crises. However, Marx’s work remained incomplete. He did not fully develop another point: capitalism required practically impossible social arrangements that were perpetually close to failing or breaking down and burdened sociality itself to breaking point while also involving societies in competition and conflict. This essay outlines how the contradictions of value production were analysed by Marx and later critics of capitalism such as Keynes. It then discusses the additional mechanisms of crises inhering in its impossible demands on society and nature to outline the sheer variety of crises that arise from capitalist value production and the social fragility it requires.
The Crisis of the Crisis of Capitalism
public talk, unpublished
Where is the coveted, prophesied, dreaded crisis of capitalism? Why has the economic and social turmoil that recently afflicted Western democracies triggered such faint attempts to replace the apparently moribund socio-economic model? The alleged crisis of capitalism, I claim, has been a catalyst in the metamorphosis of neoliberal capitalism – a transmutation that began well before the recent economic meltdown and in many ways triggered it. This has led to the emergence of a fourth historical modality of capitalism, which I call ‘aggregative capitalism’ (after the entrepreneurial nineteenth-century capitalism, the ‘organized’ capitalism of the post-WWII welfare state, and the neoliberal, ‘disorganized’ capitalism of the late twentieth century). In this essay, I trace the features of this new form of capitalism and the dynamics that activate it.
A Political Economy of Contemporary Capitalism and its Crisis
Since the great financial debacle of 2008, a blizzard of analyses has buried critical understanding beneath drifts of moral righteousness and pleas for regulatory rescue. This book clears a crucial path toward a comprehensive framework. It provides an incisive mapping of the conceptual foundations for the prevailing heterodox approaches that treat finance as merely parasitical rent. It also advances a radical Marxist understanding of the intrinsic role that finance plays in contemporary capitalism. Sotiropoulos, Milios, and Lapatsioras plow a technically nuanced opening to the deeper significance of derivatives as a form of abstract risk that embodies productive social relations. As storms continue to gather on the horizon, you'll want to have this book with you.