Economy in Crisis? A Radical (?) Perspective

Economy in Crises?A Radical(?) Perspective

Tara van Dijk, PhD CandidateGovernance of Inclusive Development Research [email protected]

Wageningen U, Studium Generale, 23 January 2012

Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) / www.aissr.uva.nl 2

Who are the radicals?

Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) / www.aissr.uva.nl

Distinguished Professor and Public Intellectual David Harvey

• http://davidharvey.org/

• Recommended Video:• MIT Lecture on the Enigma of Capital: http://davidharvey.org/2011/03/video-speaking-on-the-enigma-of-capital-at-mit/ • Co-Evolutionary Social Change: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYQb0fthNfI

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Public Intellectual/Philosopher/Social Theorist Prof. Slavoj Žižek

• http://www.egs.edu/faculty/slavoj-zizek/biography/

• Recommended Video:• http://www.egs.edu/faculty/slavoj-zizek/videos/political-theory-and-the-end-of-times/

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•  David Harvey: ‘We live in a world with huge amounts of capital, high unemployment or underemployment, and large levels of unmet social/human needs—how stupid is that!’��

•  Slavoj Žižek: “The only true question today is: does global capitalism contain antagonisms strong enough to prevent its indefinite reproduction? Four possible antagonisms present themselves: the looming threat of ecological catastrophe; the inappropriateness of private property for so-called intellectual property; the socio-ethical implications of new techno-scientific developments, especially in biogenetics; and last, but not least, new forms of social apartheid—new walls and slums…there is a difference between the last feature, the gap that separates the excluded from the included, and the other three, which designate the domains of the ‘commons’—the shared substance of our social being, whose privatization is a violent act which should be resisted by force, if necessary.”

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Capitalism IS the Problem…

Capitalism

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Many governmental / power issues: Free Enterprise, Entrepreneurship, Capital Mobilization, Labor Force, Technology, Access to means of production (Natural and Otherwise), Markets, Credit, Rights to surplus….


Capitalist Mode of Production

1.  Threats to Development/ QoL/ Social Cohesion■  Low labor absorption, Investment in assets (real and

fictitious), climate change, dispossession, exploitation, alienation, exclusion from means of reproduction/production/live worth living.

2.  Growth requires Creative Destructionà places, livelihoods, environments, cultures, identities & subjectivities…to enable Primitive Accumulation & Accumulation by Dispossession

3.  Growth requires Politics of Externalization

“Capitalism came to the world bathed in blood and fire” Marx

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The Critical Call to Action

“An ethical, non-exploitive and socially just capitalism that eventually benefits all is NOT possible. It contradicts the

very nature of what capital is about” (Enigma 239)��

“The capitalist class [and those that are served well by it] will never willingly surrender its power. It will have to be

dispossessed.” (Enigma 260)��

•  Dispossession of the financial, corporate and political elite requires a Politics of Internalization

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Co-Evolutionary Social Change��

• Dialectal Relations between moments of life that will be interlinked in any ‘transformation’��

• Single Bullet Approaches Bad��

• How do these hang together in Capitalist Societies?��

• How could they possibly hang together in post or non-capitalist societies

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Technologies & Organiza1onal

Forms

Social Rela1ons

Mental Percep1ons/ Ideology

Rela1ons to Nature Produc1on

Daily Life / Reproduc1on

Ins1tu1ons


1.  The contradictions between what we know and don’t know.■  Known Known’s Known Unknowns■  Unknown Known’s Uknown Uknowns

2.  Ideology■  “The situation is serious but not catastrophic; the situation

is catastrophic but not serious”■  I know very well that __________ but I don’t believe it

enough to make serious changes etc so I act like I don’t know….■  Ideologies cover over Inconvenient Truths with

“Fetishistic Disavowal” à

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Slavoj Žižek on Ideological Obstacles


Function of Ideology - Žižek

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Examples: Charity, Empiricism, Cathartic Expression or Knowledge, Development Studies and Practice, Starbucks, Market Fundamentalism, Spiritualized Consumerism, Focus on Self and Private Life--à Don’t worry; ENJOY!


Time for a new Chicken?1.  Ideologies and FDs hard to shift/let go of….■  Requires owning up to our role and to unknown known’s

and unknown unknown’s we’re encouraged to ignore.■  Accepting that we can’t have capitalism with capitalism

and politics without politics….

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“Violence of the oppressed towards that/who is oppressing – is justified—because of the violence being done to them. Why be reasonable about injustice? In spite of our differences we can identify the basic antagonism or antagonistic struggle [Capitalism] in which we are both caught; so let us share our intolerance, and join forces in the same struggle” Slavoj Žižek

Closing Questions:1.  Who are the utopians? Those like popular radical left

theorists Zizek and Harvey and the various "Occupy Movements" or those who think that with some reforms here and there the mainstream economic system can go on indefinitely?

2.  What role can you play in imagining and implementing the ‘co-evolutionary changes” needed to move us to a more secure and just economy and politics…?

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THANK YOU! Don’t be afraid to look back and to begin again

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Economy in Crisis? A Radical (?) Perspective

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