Showing papers by "Larry Ray published in 2022"
TL;DR: Chibber as discussed by the authors argues that cultural influence is a self-reinforcing consequence of the system's stabilisation, allowing workers and capitalists to rationalise their place in it.
Abstract: to it in the absence of viable alternatives. Chibber’s theory does not dismiss the importance of ideology and culture in capitalism, but redefines it: rather than its essential endurance mechanism, ideology is the self-reinforcing consequence of the system’s stabilisation, allowing workers (and capitalists) to rationalise their place in it (p. 112). Neither does this framework entail, as Chibber successfully argues in Chapter IV, ‘Agency, Contingency and All That’, embracing a sort of functionalist structuralism turning culture into a complete determination or expression of political economy. So, how does capitalism manage to endure in spite of its antagonistic nature? Chapter V sums up Chibber’s answer: capitalism endures not on account of the cultural or ideological indoctrination of the subordinated groups at the expense of which the dominant class advances its own interests, but on account of the differentiated allocation of power, pressures, risks and costs imposed upon each social class: ‘The system locks the classes into an antagonistic relationship, but the unequal distribution of capacities ensures that the conflict, where it occurs, tends to be resolved in the employers’ favor’ (p. 160). In other words, capitalism manages to endure above all due to the working class’s precarity and limited political power, which in turn are a direct consequence of the class structure itself. In the latter, therefore, lies both the cause of the system’s conflictive nature and its self-stabilising mechanism. Chibber’s book provides consequential insights into political agency and class structure under capitalism. Its jargon-minimum style, together with its admirable argumentative clarity, makes it quite accessible for non-specialists and young students of culture and society – and for activists and organisers as well. While Chibber’s theory will probably be dismissed by many as ‘economicist’ or ‘class reductive’, it successfully evinces that ascribing explicative priority to class in order to understand capitalism’s endurance is not only justified, but that cultural theory can hugely benefit from a revival of materialism, provided, of course, it does not gloss over the theoretical headways of culturalism in the recent past.
14 Feb 2022
TL;DR: Bauman's Modernity and the Holocaust has been hugely influential but, among sociologists at least, received without extensive critical analysis as discussed by the authors , which might paradoxically have been a consequence of the problem it set out to address - the inadequate attention theocaust has received in mainstream sociology.
Abstract: Bauman’s Modernity and the Holocaust has been hugely influential but, among sociologists at least, received without extensive critical analysis. This might paradoxically have been a consequence of the problem it set out to address - the inadequate attention the Holocaust has received in mainstream sociology. Though bold and innovative in some ways, Bauman’s thesis drew on existing critiques of modernity, including critical theory and post-Holocaust theology, although these diverse strands were eclectically drawn into a partial and fragmented, rather than comprehensive critique of modernity’s culpability. Further, there is a curious sense of an absent object of critique, in that despite passing reference to the ‘myth of the civilising process’ Nobert Elias is never identified as an interlocutor. Examination of this ‘debate’ highlights critical issues in Bauman’s concept of modernity, which anyway significantly shifted in his later work. Subsequent to Bauman’s thesis, extensive new research on the Holocaust (and other genocides) could be seen to question the claim that this was in essence a calculated and bureaucratic process. Two important issues here are, firstly, the involvement of local populations in mass murder, and secondly, the extent of corporate and individual financial gain from the Holocaust. This discussion will draw out these issues, critically address Bauman’s understanding of modernity, but also look beyond this to assess the significance of the Holocaust for social theory.