DOCSLIB.ORG

Adorno on Late Capitalism Totalitarianism and the Welfare State

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Adorno on Late Capitalism Totalitarianism and the Welfare State Adorno on late capitalism Totalitarianism and the welfare state Deborah Cook In his appraisal of mass societies, Theodor W. Adorno shall assess Adornoʼs position in light of contemporary briefly discussed those changes in Western economies criticisms that have been levelled against his work. that had helped to transform the earlier liberal phase This evaluation of Adornoʼs work is not only necessary of ʻfree marketʼ capitalism at the turn of the twen- to correct the secondary literature; it will also provide tieth century. Responding in part to these changes, the opportunity to flesh out Adornoʼs ideas about governments legislated into existence social welfare the relationship between the state and the economy institutions and agencies that quickly became more – ideas which, though sketchy, nonetheless implicitly or less permanent fixtures in their liberal democratic occupied an important place in his work as a whole. states. Even as he recognized that the welfare state In addition, these ideas may help to reframe histori- had alleviated some of the inequities caused by capi- cal and theoretical considerations about the role that talism, Adorno was also concerned about the loss of democratic political systems have played, and might individual autonomy and spontaneity that seemed to yet play, in capitalist economies. accompany its emergence. He was very critical of the increasingly oppressive extension of bureaucratic Pollock and Neumann on the Third Reich state agencies into the private lives of individuals, During the 1930s and 1940s, Pollock tried to account warning that state control might reach totalitarian for what was being viewed as a new development proportions, even in purportedly democratic countries. within the capitalist economies of the West. With Observing that individuals were growing more and the command economy of the Third Reich, and the more dependent on the state as its powers increased, mixed economy of the United States (represented by and noting their often servile deference to the rule of the New Deal), a qualitative shift had taken place such ʻexpertsʼ and technocrats, Adorno feared that individu- that the earlier liberal phase of capitalism had been als would relinquish the independence which serves as superseded by either totalitarian or non-totalitarian a necessary condition for resistance to repression and (formal democratic) variants of state capitalism. Prod- economic exploitation. uction and distribution in the economies of these and A number of commentators have misleadingly other countries were increasingly being taken under maintained that Adorno viewed the welfare state as direct political or state control. Acknowledging that a variant of what an associate and co-worker at the industrial and business managers continue to play an Institute for Social Research was calling ʻstate capi- important role in the newer phase, Pollock nonetheless talismʼ. Simply put, with his state capitalism thesis, maintained that the profit motive had been supplanted Friedrich Pollock alleged that the command and mixed by the power motive in command or mixed economies. economies of the 1920s and 1930s marked the ʻtransi- Of course, profits still accrue to producers under state tion from a predominantly economic to an essentially capitalism, but they can now often be made only when political eraʼ.1 Initially, this state capitalism thesis will goods are produced in accordance with the ʻgeneral be contrasted with Adornoʼs own view of twentieth- planʼ of a state or political party. Pollock further century liberal democracies. Later in the article, I believed that by establishing wage and price controls, 16 Radical Philosophy 89 (May/June 1998) the state also succeeded in controlling distribution economicsʼ.5 On Neumannʼs assessment, the National either through direct allocation to consumers or via a Socialist economy had two general characteristics: ʻpseudo-marketʼ that served to regulate consumption. it was ʻa monopolistic economy – and a command Pollock recognized that his thesis was not new; economyʼ, a conjunction for which Neumann coined a number of writers had already studied the ways the term ʻtotalitarian monopoly capitalismʼ. In other in which liberal economies had increasingly come words, the German economy under the Third Reich under the control of the state. At the same time, he was ʻa private monopolistic economy, regimented by also admitted that his state capitalism thesis could the totalitarian stateʼ.6 Recognizing, then, that aspects not be verified empirically in every respect. Con- of a command economy had been put into place, structed ʻfrom elements long visible in Europe and, Neumann proceeded to examine the extent of the to a certain degree in Americaʼ, the thesis was meant German stateʼs intervention in the economy, taking to serve only as a model, a Weberian ʻideal typeʼ.2 into account the stateʼs direct economic activities, its Moreover, although ʻthe trend toward state capital- control over prices, investments, profits, foreign trade ism was growing … in the non-totalitarian statesʼ, and labour, and the role of the National Socialist Party.7 Pollock thought that relatively little work had been He concluded that economic activity in the Third devoted to understanding the democratic form of state Reich had preserved much of its former autonomy. capitalism; a more comprehensive model still needed However, owing to the way in which the economy to be constructed for it.3 Additional research was had been monopolized by large industrial and business also required to determine whether democracy could concerns, profits could not be ʻmade and retained survive under state capitalism. While control over the without totalitarian political powerʼ.8 This is allegedly economy might remain in the hands of a small political what distinguished Nazi Germany from other Western group or faction, Pollock speculated that, in the long states (though, given the growing monopoly on capital run, economic planning could be carried out more or in these other states, one has to wonder why totalitarian less democratically. political power arose only in Nazi Germany). Pollockʼs thesis generated some controversy among Commentators on this debate between Pollock and his co-workers at the Institute for Social Research. Neumann often maintain that Adorno simply adopted One of these was Franz Neumann, a lawyer and Pollockʼs state capitalism thesis in his own analyses of administrator for the Institute who later worked as an developments in the West. For example, Helmut Dubiel economist for the United States government during believes that both Adorno and Max Horkheimer sided World War II. In his Behemoth – which offers a with Pollock, adapting his argument to their assess- detailed analysis of economic conditions under the ment of changes in the development of capitalism.9 Third Reich – Neumann launched a qualified attack David Held agrees with Dubiel; and like Dubiel, Held on Pollockʼs view that Germany could be described as also refers to Dialectic of Enlightenment by way of state capitalist. He argued that Pollockʼs state capital- substantiation without quoting relevant passages from ism thesis actually amounted to the claim that there this work in order to support his view.10 Nevertheless, was no longer any freedom of trade, contract, or Held also points out that Horkheimer and Adorno investment under National Socialism; that Germanyʼs expressed ambivalence about this thesis in their later market had been abolished; that the German state had work. Referring to Adorno, Held notes that, ʻThough complete control over wages and prices, eliminating the main principles which underpin his view of capital- exchange value; and that labour was now appropriated ism are compatible with Pollockʼs position, a reading by a ʻpolitical actʼ.4 Neumann called this thesis into of essays like ʻGesellschaftʼ [Society] (1966) and question, showing that the National Socialists had no ʻSpätkapitalismus oder Industriegesellschaft?ʼ [Late economic theory of their own, and rejecting the idea Capitalism or Industrial Society?] (1968) suggest … that Nazi Germany was organized along corporat- that while Adorno thought that class conflict and crisis ist lines. He also demonstrated that private property can potentially be managed, he did not think that they and private control over capital had been retained in would necessarily be managed successfully.ʼ11 Hitlerʼs regime. In his recent work on Neumannʼs and Otto Kirch- At the same time, however, Neumann did concede heimerʼs critique of the liberal rule of law under that, in Nazi Germany, ʻpossession of the state machin- the welfare state, William Scheuerman also refers to ery … is the pivotal question around which every- Dialectic of Enlightenment (again without quoting it thing else revolvesʼ. And, for Neumann, this was ʻthe directly) to substantiate his claim that Horkheimer and only possible meaning of the primacy of politics over Adorno adopted Pollockʼs state capitalism thesis in Radical Philosophy 89 (May/June 1998) 17 order to explain both the ʻtotally administered worldʼ capitalism thesis – even as an ideal type. Although the in non-totalitarian countries and ʻthe Nazisʼ success authors write in their introduction that individuals have in overcoming all the tensions that had plagued earlier become ʻtotally devalued in relation to the economic forms of capitalismʼ.12 Theoretical and political differ- powers, which at the same time press the control of ences subsequently emerged between Neumann and society
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Critique of Real Abstraction: from the Critical Theory of Society to the Critique of Political Economy and Back Again
    The Critique of Real Abstraction: from the Critical Theory of Society to the Critique of Political Economy and Back Again Chris O’Kane John Jay, CUNY [email protected] There has been a renewed engagement with the idea of real abstraction in recent years. Scholars associated with the New Reading of Marx, such as Moishe Postone, Chris Arthur, Michael Heinrich, Patrick Murray, Riccardo Bellofiore and others,1 have employed the idea in their important reconstructions of Marx’s critique of political economy. Alberto Toscano, Endnotes, Jason W. Moore and others have utilized and extended these theorizations to concieve of race, gender, and nature as real abstractions. Both the New Reading and these new theories of real abstraction have provided invaluable work; the former in systematizing Marx’s inconsistent and unfinished theory of value as a theory of the abstract social domination of capital accumulation and reproduction; the latter in supplementing such a theory. Yet their exclusive focus on real abstraction in relation to the critique of political economy means that the critical marxian theories of real abstraction -- developed by Alfred Sohn- Rethel, Theodor W. Adorno and Henri Lefebvre -- have been mostly bypassed by the latter and have largely served as the object of trenchant criticism for their insufficient grasp of Marx’s theory of value by the former. Consequently these new readings and new theories of real abstraction elide important aspects of Sohn-Rethel, Adorno and Lefebvre’s critiques of real abstraction; which sought to develop Marx’s critique of political economy into objective-subjective critical theories of the reproduction of capitalist society.2 However, two recent works by 1 Moishe Postone’s interpretation of real abstraction will be discussed below.
    [Show full text]
  • Indigenous Peoples, Marxism and Late Capitalism
    New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry Vol. 5, No. 1 (November 2011) Pp. 6-9 Introduction Indigenous Peoples, Marxism and Late Capitalism Scott Simon University of Ottawa he relationship between indigenous peoples and proletariat. The expansion of this system alters indig- Marxism has long been ambiguous. Marx him- enous communities, creating elite groups and new Tself, as a 19th century philosopher influenced by social identities in its wake, with the result of accelerat- Darwinism, assumed that “tribal” peoples represented ing the entire process of capitalist incorporation. simple forms of productive relations and were des- Canadian geographer and ecological philosopher tined to disappear (Marx 1887:51). For him, tribal William T. Hipwell argues that socialism and capi- peoples represented the beginning of social evolution, talism alike destroy the environment and the human as expressed in The German Ideology: “The first form spirit in an overarching system he calls “Industria” of ownership is tribal [Stammeigentum] ownership. (Hipwell 2004:370). Regardless of what one may It corresponds to the undeveloped stage of produc- think of Marxism as a political project, however, the tion, at which a people lives by hunting and fishing, intellectual contribution of Marxism to the anthro- by the rearing of beasts or, in the highest stage, agri- pological study of capitalism remains relevant. If we culture” (Marx and Engels 1965:33). Indigenous use Marxist concepts as part of a larger set of meth- people have sometimes been equally dismissive of odological tools, rather than Marxism as a blueprint Marx. Native American author Leslie Marmon Silko, to yet another form of industrial society, our studies for example, thought that Marxism and indigenous may contribute to even wider goals of social justice.
    [Show full text]
  • A Sense of Unending: Apocalypse and Post-Apocalypse in Novels of Late Capitalism" (2019)
    University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 8-2019 A Sense of Unending: Apocalypse and Post- Apocalypse in Novels of Late Capitalism Brent Linsley University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the American Literature Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, and the Modern Literature Commons Recommended Citation Linsley, Brent, "A Sense of Unending: Apocalypse and Post-Apocalypse in Novels of Late Capitalism" (2019). Theses and Dissertations. 3341. https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/3341 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Sense of Unending: Apocalypse and Post-Apocalypse in Novels of Late Capitalism A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English by Brent Linsley Henderson State University Bachelor of Arts in English, 2000 Henderson State University Master of Liberal Arts in English, 2005 August 2019 University of Arkansas This dissertation is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. _____________________________________ M. Keith Booker, Ph.D. Dissertation Director _____________________________________ ______________________________________ Robert Cochran, Ph.D. Susan Marren, Ph.D. Committee Member Committee Member Abstract From Frank Kermode to Norman Cohn to John Hall, scholars agree that apocalypse historically has represented times of radical change to social and political systems as older orders are wiped away and replaced by a realignment of respective norms. This paradigm is predicated upon an understanding of apocalypse that emphasizes the rebuilding of communities after catastrophe has occurred.
    [Show full text]
  • Wage Labour and the Transition to Capitalism a Critique of Pentland Allan Greer
    Document generated on 09/28/2021 10:15 p.m. Labour/Le Travailleur Wage Labour and the Transition to Capitalism A Critique of Pentland Allan Greer Volume 15, 1985 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/llt15art01 See table of contents Publisher(s) Canadian Committee on Labour History ISSN 0700-3862 (print) 1911-4842 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Greer, A. (1985). Wage Labour and the Transition to Capitalism: A Critique of Pentland. Labour/Le Travailleur, 15, 7–14. All rights reserved © Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1985 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ ARTICLES Wage Labour and the Transition to Capitalism: A Critique of Pentland Allan Greer THE GROWTH OF Canadian labour history in the last decade has been truly phenomenal. Researchers have uncovered a great deal about the experiences and struggles of working women and men in the factory, at home, in the political arena, and on the baseball diamond. Most of this work has naturally focused on the period since about the middle of the nineteenth century when Canada entered the capitalist age and waged labour came to dominate society. When turning to earlier times however, labour historians have been ill-served by a historiography preoccupied with politics, conquests, and agricultural crises, and that seemed to have little to say about the predecessors of the industrial proletariat.
    [Show full text]
  • Zombies, Robots, Race, and Modern Labour
    SASCHA MORRELL Zombies, Robots, Race, and Modern Labour The myth of the zombie, of the living dead, is a work myth.1 [Slavery] reduces man to a mere machine.2 In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, the unnamed protagonist is denounced by an African American war veteran as “a walking zombie! … a walking personification of the Negative … ! The mechanical man!” As a black man subservient to white controllers, the protagonist is a non-human “thing” who does the “bidding” of his masters.3 The image recalls the stage of Hegel’s master-slave dialectic at which the slave seems to exist solely for the master, possessing no independent consciousness.4 Ellison’s equation of zombies and robots as emblems of such “negation” was not new. Mechanical men and the living dead had long been working together in U.S. literature of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries to embody the dehumanizing effects of racial oppression and (relatedly) labour exploitation. Conceived as soulless bodies or mindless matter, undead and mechanical figures emblematized how slavery and wage-labour relations reduced persons to things. They also registered the mind- numbing effects of repetitive, alienated labour, and of racial ideologies that denied black interiority. These were not their only symbolic functions, of course: in different ways, each figure had been linked variously with anxieties about colonial dispossession, the subordination and objectification of women, ideological indoctrination, market expansion, techno-scientific progress, and the 1 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (New York and London: Continuum, 2004), 470. 2 Frederick Douglass, “The Nature of Slavery” (1855): http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/45/my-bondage-and- my-freedom/1512/the-nature-of-slavery-extract-from-a-lecture-on-slavery-at-rochester-december-1- 1850/ (accessed 14 September 2015).
    [Show full text]
  • Changing Anarchism.Pdf
    Changing anarchism Changing anarchism Anarchist theory and practice in a global age edited by Jonathan Purkis and James Bowen Manchester University Press Manchester and New York distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave Copyright © Manchester University Press 2004 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors. This electronic version has been made freely available under a Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC- ND) licence, which permits non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction provided the author(s) and Manchester University Press are fully cited and no modifications or adaptations are made. Details of the licence can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 0 7190 6694 8 hardback First published 2004 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Typeset in Sabon with Gill Sans display by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester Printed in Great Britain by CPI, Bath Dedicated to the memory of John Moore, who died suddenly while this book was in production. His lively, innovative and pioneering contributions to anarchist theory and practice will be greatly missed.
    [Show full text]
  • Late Capitalism and Neo-Liberalism. a Perspective on the Current Phase of the Long Wave Of
    Late Capitalism and Neo-Liberalism A Perspective on the Current Phase of the Long Wave of Capitalist Development Michel Husson and Francisco Louçã*, january 2012. * Michel Husson is a researcher at IRES, France. Francisco Louçã is Professor of Economics at ISEG, UTL, Lisbon. 8 Late Capitalism and Neo-Liberalism – A Perspective on the Current Phase of the Long Wave of Capitalist Development Michel Husson and Francisco Louçã Abstract The world is plunging into the second great depression of its modern history. The financial crisis provoked by the subprime market ignited a global recession in 2009 and then a new recession emerges in 2012 in Europe. Through this proc- ess, a major recomposition of the social regime of accumulation is under way. Although the concept of ‘crisis’ is certainly confused, three different mean- ings use to be attached to it: a periodical crisis, a regulation crisis and a sys- temic crisis. The current period can be described by a regulation crisis but it is also a systemic crisis. The present paper discusses the current phase of the long wave in late capitalism. Keywords: crises, Kondratieff waves, late capitalism, accumulation, finan- cial capital. The Long Time of Capital The concept of regulation crisis has been discussed for a while as part of a vi- sion of self-structuring and balancing capitalism. Instead, we refer to the con- cept proposed by Dockès and Rosier (1983), namely that of a neoliberal ‘pro- ductive order’, considering that capitalism periodically refines its mode of func- tioning in order to respond to its contradictions. Indeed, capitalism is based upon a social mechanism of exploitation and accumulation of capital, but its mode of functioning evolves through time.
    [Show full text]
  • Libertarian Marxism's Relation to Anarchism - Wayne Price
    Libertarian Marxism's Relation to Anarchism - Wayne Price The current world-wide revival of anarchism is premised on the decline of Marxism. Yet there remains a strand of Marxism (libertarian or autonomist Marxism) to which anarchists often feel close and whose followers often express a closeness to anarchism. Its libertarian-democratic, humanist, and anti-statist qualities permit anarchists to use valuable aspects of Marxism (such as the economic analysis or the theory of class struggle). Yet it still contains the main weaknesses of Marxism. And in certain ways it has the same weaknesses of much of anarchism, rather than being an alternative. ...I found, again and again, that the conclusions I slowly and imperfectly arrived at were already fully and demonstrably (and I may say, beautifully) expressed by Karl Marx. So I too was a Marxist! I decided with pleasure, for it is excellent to belong to a tradition and have wise friends. This was Marx as a social psychologist. But as regards political action...it never seemed to me that the slogans of the Marxians, nor even of Marx, led to fraternal socialism (that... requires the absence of state or other coercive power); rather they led away from it. Bakunin was better. Kropotkin I agree with. (Paul Goodman, 1962; p. 34) The current world-wide revival of anarchism is premised on the decline of Marxism. Yet there remains a strand of Marxism (libertarian or autonomist Marxism) to which anarchists often feel close and whose followers often express a closeness to anarchism. Its libertarian-democratic, humanist, and anti-statist qualities permit anarchists to use valuable aspects of Marxism (such as the economic analysis or the theory of class struggle).
    [Show full text]
  • Affect and Belonging in Late Capitalism: a Speculative Narrative on Reality TV
    International Journal of Communication 5 (2011), 1–20 1932–8036/20110001 Affect and Belonging in Late Capitalism: A Speculative Narrative on Reality TV CATHERINE CHAPUT University of Nevada, Reno . experience has no assignable beginning or end, it does pass thresholds, arriving unbidden into a context, then settling in and no sooner slipping out to seek ingress elsewhere. Its traveling across thresholds from situation to situation may prove to have a periodicity that, if followed, provides a more ample expression of its self-activity. Upon that expression a speculative narrative can be built. ~ Brian Massumi, Parables for the Virtual, 2006 This essay puts forward a theory of communication apart from the dominant practices of ideology analysis and political economic inquiry. To do so, it connects affect to the Marxist theory of value production and tracks its circulation throughout activities inspired by reality TV participation. It follows the transmissions of affect through its cultural, political, and economic expressions and studies the habituated practices engendered from this television form, exploring the contradictions within different moments, some of which produce cultural and political values and others of which produce economic value. Lawrence Grossberg (1992) has long advocated a critical method that follows affective forces and draws “links between points, events, or practices” (p. 284) within a multilayered and multidirectional field. While Grossberg’s affective model and its focus on the processes of becoming helpfully correct tendencies toward economic and cultural determinism, it tends to view the cultural and political economic as separate realms requiring different entry points and methodologies.1 Contrary to this divided landscape, Brian Massumi (2002b) believes affect creates an ecological “coming-together or belonging-together of processually unique and divergent forms of life” (p.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Late Capitalism, Consumerism and Individualism in Martin Amis's Money: a Suicidal Note Abstract Martin Amis's Novel Money
    1 Late Capitalism, Consumerism and Individualism in Martin Amis’s Money: A Suicidal Note Abstract Martin Amis’s novel Money: A Suicidal Note (1984) was published in crucial period when England was experiencing the socio-economic changes. In this novel Amis presents a story of an English man who is very passionate about money and American life style. Amis’s employs a character named John Self who is passionate for America and materialistic luxury there but finally he returns his homeland with the realization that thirst for money destroys everything. In this response, this research paper tries to analyze novel from the perspective of Fredrick Jameson’s notion of Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. The researcher attempts to show how late capitalistic value of consumption leads people towards selfish and individualistic world. Amis in his novel presents the consequences of late capitalistic over emphasis on consumption of goods which alienates people from fellow human beings and makes them self centered individuals. This research is also based on Adorno and Horkheimer’s idea of Mass Deception and argues that people in late capitalistic world always try to deceive others as John Self does in this novel but it is not easy as it used to be. Jameson’s theorization of The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism and Adorno and Horkheimer’s notion of Mass Deception as its theoretical tool, the researcher concludes that the novel Money: A Suicidal Note, is Amis’s neo-Marxist critic on late-capitalistic values of consumerism which leads to individualist world. Keywords: Late Capitalism, Consumerism, Individualism, Materialistic, alienation Americanization.
    [Show full text]
  • The Silicon Ideology
    The Silicon Ideology Josephine Armistead May 18, 2016 Abstract Out of the technological cenes of the world has come a new, strange variant of fascism– namely, neo-reaion, or “NRx”. I shall here proⅵde a critique of this ideology and an aempt at understanding of its origins, its taics, and how it may be defeated. Content Warnings This article contains discussions of fascism, Nazism, white supremacy, and the Holocaust among other topics. Keywords 1 Introduction A king? You want a king? Boy, nobody wants a king! Ignatius, are you sure you’re OK? A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole When one learns I am studying a new emergence of fascism in Europe and North America, one might be tempted to believe I am referring to the larger end of the rise of right-wing populist parties and candidacies that may be considered “fascist”, such as the candidacy of Donald Trump and the rise of the United Kingdom Independence Par (UKIP), Le Pen’s Front national (FN), Alternatⅳe für Deutschland (AfD), and Golden Dawn among others. However, in this essay, I discuss a more narrow group: specifically, an ideology that has emerged in the past decade or so inside the capitals of the tech world and which is growing at an alarming rate, often (but not always) allied with those parties and candidacies I have mentioned above: neo-reaionaries and what is known as the “alt- right”. Largely, this group has escaped serious criticism by radicals for its nature as a small, internet-based ideology–not enough people, it seems, take it seriously.
    [Show full text]
  • Autumn of the System: Poetry and Financial Capital Joshua Clover
    Autumn of the System: Poetry and Financial Capital Joshua Clover Part I If the reign of finance in the cycle of capital accumulation is always a “sign of Autumn,” we seem finally to have arrived at the onset of Winter (Braudel 246). Or so one must suspect from the collapse of the global economy that began its run-up around 2006 and manifested itself in full over the course of 2007–2008. Whether this crisis is terminal remains a matter of open debate.1 Certainly if this is indeed the end of a cycle of ac- cumulation, in some way like the end of the British Empire (or that of the United Provinces or the Italian city-states), each such conclusion is always different in its particulars. It would be presumptuous to propose what the shape or meaning of this finale might be, much less the nature of the tran- sition to some next cycle or the nature of the next cycle itself. The prob- lem of imagining this sequence, we might say, is the fundamental narrative problem of our historical moment. But this is quite different from saying that the fundamental problematic of the historical moment is necessarily narrative in nature. In beginning to develop a mind of Winter, it does not seem too early to wonder: what then may we say about Autumnal literature? By which I mean to ask, what form will prove to have been best suited to grasp the contours of that still mystifying and elusive regime which rode American hegemony downward JNT: Journal of Narrative Theory 41.1 (Spring 2011): 34–52.
    [Show full text]