Political Economies of Capitalism, Imperialism/Colonialism, Racism, and Patriarchy

Lingualism: Changing the names of the game

by Thorsten Pattberg

Published in Asia Times: May 24, 2012

It's hard to imagine the President of the United State saying: "Allah Bless America!" or the Pope calling... more It's hard to imagine the President of the United State saying: "Allah Bless America!" or the Pope calling Jesus Christ and St Nikolas "a Buddha" and "a Shengren". Yet we demand at all times that Muslims have a God and that Confucius is a saint. The destruction of non-Western ideas with Western concepts of philosophy, religion, and science was hardly ever challenged, yet this could now change.

2012, « The Historicity of the Neoliberal State », in Social Anthropology, volume 20, n° 1, pp. 80-94

by Mathieu Hilgers

Debate with Loic Wacquant “Three Steps to a Historical Anthropology of Actually Existing Neoliberalism." Social Anthropology, 20, 1, with responses in the next issue: Jamie Peck, Nick Theodore, and Neil Brenner, Stephen Collier, Daniel Goldstein, Johanna Bockman, Don Kalb...

2011 The three anthropological approaches to neoliberalism, in International Social Science Journal, Vol 61 (202) : 351–364.

by Mathieu Hilgers

International Social Science Journal, Volume 61, Issue 202, 2011: 351–364.

For around fifteen years now, anthropology has been engaged in the study of neoliberalism. What contribution does the... more For around fifteen years now, anthropology has been engaged in the study of neoliberalism. What contribution does the discipline have to make to a debate largely monopolized by economics and political science? To answer this question, the present article returns to the major texts and highlights the three perspectives from which anthropology has approached neoliberal expansion: culturalist, systemic and the approach based on governmentality. Each has its own epistemological presuppositions and a specific conception of anthropology, globalization and neoliberalism. The article highlights the relevance and limitations of these approaches.

2011, Autochthony as Capital in a Global Age, in Theory, Culture & Society , vol. 28 no. 1 34-54

by Mathieu Hilgers

For a little over a decade we have been witnessing a profusion of discourses on autochthony — that is, an original... more For a little over a decade we have been witnessing a profusion of discourses on autochthony — that is, an original belonging to a group or territory — in many parts of the world. A global approach to this question first requires a look at the principle of autochthony and its genealogy. Starting from African examples, places of prolific expression of the phenomenon, this article shows how autochthony plays the role of capital that can be invested, valued and profited from. The structure of this capital carries within itself the seeds of conflict. The article analyses how the stabilization of its value requires the execution of specific strategies. Among these strategies, I will focus in greater depth on voting. The relationship between capital, autochthony and elections will thus bring us back to debates that animate political science: in new municipalities, autochthony as capital is at the heart of candidate selection, suffrage, political participation and citizenship.

Diamonds aren't for Ever

by Nathan Marcus

A Book Review of David De Vries: Diamonds and War: State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine (European Review of History: Revue europeenne d'histoire, Volume 19, Issue 2, 2012).

China's Comprador Capitalism is Coming Home

by James Heartfield

Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol. 37, No. 2, 196-214 (2005)

Market reforms in China have transformed relations between the mainland and its expatriate capitalist class, which is... more Market reforms in China have transformed relations between the mainland and its expatriate capitalist class, which is returning to participate in the country's economic resurgence. The "comprador" capitalism that China exported throughout East Asia is coming to an end, and with it the subservience of Chinese business to foreign capital. The transformation of China's relationship to its expatriate trading class is changing even the geography of the country. China has assimilated the foreign-ruled outposts on its borders—Hong Kong and Macao—and shifted the center of economic gravity to the southeastern coastal regions.

American Exceptionalism: Theocracy, Empire, and Capitalist Teleology

by James C. Vlisides

China in Theory: The Orientalist Production of Knowledge in the Global Economy

by Daniel Vukovich

https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/cultural_critique/toc/cul.76.html

If your library does not sub to Cultural Critique (it should!) please ask them to do, and then email me for an advance copy of this piece.

The place and use of "China" or 'the China reference' in current, humanities/social/cultural theory about... more The place and use of "China" or 'the China reference' in current, humanities/social/cultural theory about globalization and the new 'state of the world.' Zizek, Hardt-Negri, Agamben, and the "Sinography" of Haun Saussy and Eric Hayot are interrogated in terms of how they represent China and how they represent 'theory' or theoretical practice as well as intellectual labor. Each critiqued as a type of Cold War orientalist thought and 'positional superiority' about the PRC, esp. of the Mao era and Tiananmen, 1989. China, in short, is the "new" object of orientalism in intellectual political culture in the US-West.

This reflects not bad faith on the part of the otherwise heterodox and accomplished theorists, but a change in intellectual labor and the pactice of theory. By this I mean increasing commodification and 'real abstraction' as a by product of corporatization of the university. Theory has become a labor-saving operation. The increasing presence of this Cold War-orientalized "China" in Western minds reflects the rise of the PRC as something that one cannot not think about. It reflects as well these global economic changes within the realm and forms of thought.

“Capitalism Reorganised: Social Justice after Neo-liberalism”, Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, vol. 17, issue 3 (Sept. 2010), pp. 390-406.

by Albena Azmanova

The article traces the emergence of “reorganized” capitalism as consecutively the fourth modality of capitalism –... more The article traces the emergence of “reorganized” capitalism as consecutively the fourth modality of capitalism – after the 19th century entrepreneurial form, the post-liberal “organized” capitalism of the welfare state, and the “disorganized” neo-liberal model of the late 20th century. The features of the fourth modality emerge from an analysis of (1) the key dynamics of social stratification, (2) the matrix of state-society relations, and (3) the structure of electoral mobilization in advanced industrial democracies.

"Globalized Philomels: State Patriarchy, Transnational Capital, and the Femicides on the US-Mexican Border in Roberto Bolaño’s 2666" South Atlantic Review: The Journal of the Modern Language Association 75.4 (Fall 2010): 51-72.

by Laura Barberan Reinares

South Atlantic Review: The Journal of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association 75.4 (Fall 2010): 51-72.

Empires

by József Böröcz

co-authored with Mahua Sarkar. Published in the Sage Encyclopedia of Global Studies, 2012.

Burqas in Back Alleys: Street Art, hijab, and the Reterritorialization of Public Space

by John A. Sweeney

Vol. 2, No. 2, 2011 (English): Governmentality – Neoliberalism – Education: the Risk Perspective

by Journal of Pedagogy

Themed Issue: Governmentality – Neoliberalism – Education: the Risk Perspective
Ondrej Kaščák & Branislav Pupala (eds.)

Era necessario il capitalismo? Di Hosea Jaffe. Un libro per chi?

by Pietro Piro

Recensione a H. Jaffe, Era necessario il capitalismo? Jaka Boook, Milano 2010, p.154, ISBN 978-88-6-40938-5.

La tesi centrale del libro di Hosea Jaffe, Era necessario il capitalismo? È tanto chiara, quanto difficile da... more La tesi centrale del libro di Hosea Jaffe, Era necessario il capitalismo? È tanto chiara, quanto difficile da accettare. Per l’autore, infatti, il capitalismo fu e resta il modo di produzione più distruttivo della storia umana. Ricostruendo la storia dell’umanità, l’autore smonta pezzo per pezzo, l’idea che il capitalismo sia la fase necessaria e inevitabile, di una storia umana sempre più improntata al miglioramento e al benessere degli individui.

La tesis central del libro de Hosea Jaffe, Era necesario el capitalismo? Es tan clara, aunque difícil de aceptar. Para el autor, de hecho, el capitalismo fue y sigue siendo el modo de producción más destructivo en la historia de la humanidad.  El autor analiza la historia de la humanidad y destruyes la idea que el capitalismo es la parte necesaria e inevitable de una historia marcada por la mejora humana en crecimiento y en el bienestar de los individuos.

Endogenous Needs, Values and Technology

by Hardy Hanappi

On the Eve of Global Financial Collapse

by Hardy Hanappi

Occupy Wall Street: Carnival Against Capital? Carnivalesque as Protest Sensibility

by Claire Tancons

Short version published in The Indypendent (October)
Long version published in e-flux no. 30 (December)

Carnivalesque protest practices meet resistant carnival traditions in a sweeping historical overview of the... more Carnivalesque protest practices meet resistant carnival traditions in a sweeping historical overview of the relationship between carnival and capital as the opposite sides of the same coin.

La publicidad como vía de acceso a las contradicciones de la vigente sociedad capitalista

by Antonio Caro

Texto inédito elaborado como conclusión de los seminarios de doctorado "Publicidad audiovisual e imaginario social" (cursos 2001-02 a 2004-2005) y "¿Qué teoría para la publicidad? Hacia un programa de investigación científica"(cursos 2003-04 a 2005-06) impartidos por el autor en la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias de la Información. 

Inseparable juxtaposition of Illusion and Gravity in Campaign Politics: Analysis of the movie “Wag the Dog” Based on the Novel American Hero by Larry Beinhart

by Judy Villeneuve

The foregoing analysis is a comparative critique of political campaign strategies conceived by the late, influential... more The foregoing analysis is a comparative critique of political campaign strategies conceived by the late, influential Publicist, Edward Bernays, whose revolutionary ideas about psychology used to manipulate the American public, are humorously depicted in the movie “Wag the Dog” featuring actors Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro.

Cheliotis, L. K. and S. Xenakis (2011) ‘Crime, Fear of Crime and Punitiveness’, in L. K. Cheliotis and S. Xenakis (eds) Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Greece: International Comparative Perspectives, pp. 1-43. Bern: Peter Lang AG. (With a response by Jonathan Jackson, Monica Gerber and Carolyn Côté-Lussier, pp. 45-64).

by Leonidas Cheliotis

Over the last the three decades, punitiveness on the part of the state in Greece in the field of law and order has... more Over the last the three decades, punitiveness on the part of the state in Greece in the field of law and order has been on the ascent. The most obvious indicator of this has been the steeply rising use of imprisonment. A striking accompaniment of state punitiveness has been punitive public opinion. As soon as one broaches the question of why this is the case, however, one is confronted with at least two puzzling findings. First, the prevalence of crime has only risen modestly, in sharp disproportion to the high recorded levels of fear of criminal victimisation, of distrust in the police and judicial authorities, and of public punitiveness. And second, fear of criminal victimisation itself does not axiomatically bear a positive correlation with expressed public support for state punitiveness, though it does predict lack of confidence in criminal justice authorities. This chapter sets out to review these contradictions and the limits of available explanations. We begin by outlining the different ways in which Greece’s authoritarian past and the dictatorship of 1967-1974 in particular are thought to have influenced state and public punitiveness in the years that have followed. The next section summarises scholarly and commercial research on the levels and patterns of fear of crime and public punitiveness in contemporary Greece, as both distinct and interrelated themes. Attention is then drawn to the disconnect between crime and imprisonment rates as an illustrative example of the irrational foundations of state punitiveness and its degree of public support; a disconnect that is all the more prominent when examined with reference to the nationality of prisoners. Taking inspiration from political economies of punishment in jurisdictions elsewhere, the remainder of the chapter points to state deployment of a law-and-order discourse and the use of punishment as symbolic devices by which social insecurities, generated in large part by the state itself, are displaced and discharged onto suitably weak subsections of the population.