Tag: Politics

Review of Value and Crisis by Alfredo Saad-Filho

Link to a review by Fabian Van Onzen of the book Value and Crisis: Essays on Labour, Money and Contemporary Capitalism (2019) by Alfredo Saad-Filho:

Review of Value and Crisis

 

Bonus links: Review of Making Money and “How Decades of Neoliberalism Led to the Era of Right-Wing Populism” (this article reviews another book on the same topic but is rather questionably historicist, though it is absolutely correct to note that “all policies — whether statist or neoliberal — are normative”) and “When Socialist Hungary Went Neoliberal” (“neoliberalism represents a class project, aiming not so much to ‘restore’ the power of economic elites . . . but instead to re-establish the conditions for capital accumulation following the global crisis of capital accumulation (1968-75).  . . . as neoliberalism gradually gained traction amongst ruling classes across the world it has come to represent the current phase of global capitalism. In this regard, neoliberalism is, among others, characterized by a structural reorientation of the state towards export-oriented, financialized capital, open-ended commitments to market-like governance systems, privatization and corporate expansion, a deep aversion to social collectives and the progressive redistribution of wealth on the part of ruling classes, etc.”) (note that this interviewee makes much-contested if not outright dubious claims about “Soviet-style state capitalism” and “the Stalinist myth that the Soviet bloc regimes were somehow ‘post-capitalist’ societies”, that is, he calls the former USSR “state capitalist” rather than communist/socialist)

Julian Paul Merrill – The Fresh Prince of Wakanda

Link to an article by Julian Paul Merrill:

“The Fresh Prince of Wakanda – a Žižekian Analysis of Black America and Identity Politics”

 

This is a great analysis of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air!

 

Bonus links: “Quasi Duo Fantasias: A Straussian Reading of ‘Black Panther'” and Review of Black Panther

Edgar Cabanas & Eva Illouz – Against Happiness

Link to an interview with Edgar Cabanas & Eva Illouz, conducted by David Broder, regarding their book Manufacturing Happy Citizens: How the Science and Industry of Happiness Control our Lives (2019):

“Against Happiness”

 

Bonus link: “In the Name of Love” and “Žižek!” and “Why Be Happy When You Could Be Interesting?”

Christine MacDonald – I Went to a Climate Change Denial Conference

Link to an article by Christine MacDonald:

“I Went to a Climate Change Denial Conference. It Made Even Less Sense Than You’d Think.”

 

This article was published on the magazine In These Times’ web site.  The publication is populist, meaning that it constantly strives to demonize its political opponents and construct an enemy.  Aside from that, what the article explains about climate change deniers is that they are engaged in what Jacques Lacan called “university discourse” in order to defend a particular social structure.  Bruce Fink explained this concept of “university discourse” in his book The Lacanian Subject (1995):

“the university is an arm of capitalist production (or of the ‘military-industrial complex,’ as it was called . . . ), suggesting that the truth hidden behind the university discourse is, after all, the master signifier.  Knowledge here interrogates surplus value (the product of capitalist economies, which takes the form of a loss or subtraction of value from the worker) and rationalizes or justifies it.”  (p. 132).

 

“Working in the service of the master signifier, more or less any kind of argument will do, as long as it takes on the guise of reason and rationality.” (p. 133).

 

See also Peter Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason (1983):

“What counts today is not the spectacular effects but the solid facades, respectability.  What was earlier called swindle today is called expert advice.  ***  Today, without an academic education one cannot even become a swindler anymore.”  (p. 488).

 

Populists generally avoid getting into these issues, because to do so would tend to reveal the large degree of agreement between them and the political far right.  But this article is still a good example of how the right doesn’t care about making “good” arguments as long as they serve their desired (if unstated) social arrangement.