Can Dialectics Break BRICS
TL;DR: The currency of communism confronts us with two not-yetsynchronous sequences as discussed by the authors : the idea of communism and the currency of modernism, the so-called "Vortex".
Abstract: The currency of communism confronts us with two not-yetsynchronous sequences. One is “The Idea of Communism.” This eponymous sequence began well before the conference at Birkbeck Institute and the following “Pocket Communism” texts from Verso. A committed band of thinkers have labored to preserve communist thought in the anglophone and western european world during communism’s version of what modernism named “the vortex” — a disorienting break in historical tradition following the collapse of the communist bloc. If this preservation has occurred largely within the various formalizations available to philosophy and political theory, this can be understood as an artifact of its own conditions, developing in a period largely lacking avowedly anti-capitalist antagonism within the Anglo-European sphere.
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TL;DR: The Situationist International (SI) has been one of the main reference points within social movement organizing, cultural studies, social theory and philosophy as mentioned in this paper, but little attention has been paid to the specifically strategic dimension of their thought and practice.
Abstract: The Situationist International (SI) has been one of the main reference points during the past 40 or more years within social movement organizing, cultural studies, social theory and philosophy. While the SI has been understood in many ways as inheritors and elaborators of an unorthodox Marxist politics drawing heavily from the history of the avant-garde, relatively little attention has been paid to the specifically strategic dimension of their thought and practice. This is surprising, especially in Debord's case, given how much his work also draws from the history of military strategy. This paper will particularly examine the strategic aspects of Debord and the SI's thought and politics and how they rethink the nature of strategy through collective forms of aesthetic–political practice.
16 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the reformulation of the value-labour relation misrepresents the mediated capacities of capital as the immediate capacities of labour and questions the explanatory efficacy of the category "labour" in this context.
Abstract: Critical analysis of the biotechnological reproduction of biological life increasingly emphasises the role of value-producing labour in biotechnologically reproductive processes, while also arguing that Marx’s use of the terms ‘labour’ and ‘value’ is inadequate to the critical scrutiny of these processes. Focusing especially on the reformulation of the value-labour relation in recent work in this area by Melinda Cooper and Catherine Waldby, this paper both critiques this reformulation and questions the explanatory efficacy of the category ‘labour’ in this context. Emphasising the contemporary global expansion of capital relative to value-producing labour – specifically, the expansion of fictitious capital and debt on the one hand, and of global surplus populations on the other – it argues that this reformulation misrepresents the mediated capacities of capital as the immediate capacities of labour. This reformulation, moreover, is indicative of broader tendencies in the contemporary theorisation of labour, tendencies exemplified by autonomist Marxism.
15 citations
07 Jul 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the contemporary transformation of critical and cultural theory, with special emphasis on the way debates in the field have changed in recent decades, is discussed, with a focus on the challenges of living and laboring, being and knowing.
Abstract: This Companion addresses the contemporary transformation of critical and cultural theory, with special emphasis on the way debates in the field have changed in recent decades.
Features original essays from an international team of cultural theorists which offer fresh and compelling perspectives and sketch out exciting new areas of theoretical inquiry Thoughtfully organized into two sections – lineages and problematics – that facilitate its use both by students new to the field and
advanced scholars and researchers
Explains key schools and movements clearly and succinctly, situating them in relation to broader developments in culture, society, and politics
Tackles issues that have shaped and energized the field since the Second World War, with discussion of familiar and under-theorized topics related to living and laboring, being and knowing, and agency and belonging
1 citations
TL;DR: Workers find themselves wandering in an immense infrastructure, that of modern life, which reflects back to them not their growing power, but rather, their impotence as mentioned in this paper, a world beyond their control, perhaps beyond anyone's control.
Abstract: The development of large-scale industry expresses itself, finally, in the extrusion of workers from the factory—deindustrialisation. Beyond the factory gates, workers find themselves wandering in an immense infrastructure, that of modern life, which reflects back to them not their growing power, but rather, their impotence. They see not a world of their making, but rather a runaway world, a world beyond their control, perhaps beyond anyone’s control. —Endnotes, “A History of Separation”
1 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the fan-driven metamorphosis of the US sitcom The Big Bang Theory in the Chinese online space, focusing on the fanremix “Meeting Sheldon”, produced by the China-based fandubbing group Y Show Club amidst online protests against the original show's official ban in China.
Abstract: ABSTRACT
Despite growing scholarly interest in fan audiovisual translation, how fan translators exploit fictional content for online protests of real-world issues has not been thoroughly explored in the literature. This article examines the fan-driven metamorphosis of the US sitcom The Big Bang Theory in the Chinese online space, focusing on the fan-remix “Meeting Sheldon”, produced by the China-based fandubbing group Y Show Club amidst online protests against the original show’s official ban in China. Y Show Club paired audiovisual clips from the original series with newly dubbed tracks and subtitles in Mandarin and English. In doing so, they combined new content and the original sitcom characters at the intersection between fiction and reality to reimagine the present and future within the state apparatus of political enchantments.
1 citations
References
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Book•
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01 Jan 1932
TL;DR: The authors made easily accessible the most important parts of Marx's and Engels's major early philosophical work, The German Ideology, a text of key importance for students, making it easily accessible.
Abstract: This edition makes easily accessible the most important parts of Marx's and Engels's major early philosophical work, The German Ideology, a text of key importance for students.
4,492 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1852
TL;DR: The first issue of Die Revolution, 1852, New York; Online Version: Marx/Engels Internet Archive (marxists.org) 1995, 1999; Transcription/Markup: Zodiac and Brian Basgen Proofed: and corrected by Alek Blain, 2006 as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Written: December 1851 March 1852; Source: Chapters 1 & 7 are translated by Saul K. Padover from the German edition of 1869; Chapters 2 through 6 are based on the third edition, prepared by Engels (1885), as translated and published by Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1937; First Published: First issue of Die Revolution, 1852, New York; Online Version: Marx/Engels Internet Archive (marxists.org) 1995, 1999; Transcription/Markup: Zodiac and Brian Basgen Proofed: and corrected by Alek Blain, 2006.
2,802 citations
TL;DR: Arrighi argues that the history of capitalism has unfolded as a succession of "long centuries" - ages during which a hegemonic power deploying a novel combination of economic and political networks secured control over an expanding world-economic space as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: This work traces the epochal shifts in the relatiohsip between capital accumulation and state formation over a 700-year period The author synthesizes social theory, comparative history and historical narrative in this account of the structures and agencies which have shaped the course of world history over the millennium Borrowing from Braudel, Giovanni Arrighi argues that the history of capitalism has unfolded as a succession of "long centuries" - ages during which a hegemonic power deploying a novel combination of economic and political networks secured control over an expanding world-economic space But this is not simply history confined to the "longue duree" The modest beginnings, rise and violent unravelling of the links forged between capital, state power and geopolitics by hegemonic classes and states are explored Arrighi argues that a specific logic governed the concentration of power and eventual surrender of control over the strategic sites of commercial, financial and political power From this perspective, he explains the changing fortunes of Florentine, Venetian, Genoese, Dutch, English and, finally, American capitalism The book concludes with an examination of the forces which have shaped and are now poised to undermine America's world power Giovanni Arrighi is the author of "The Geometry of Imperialism", and the co-author of "Antisystemic Movements" and "Dynamics of Global Crisis"
1,861 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1973
TL;DR: The Grundrisse as discussed by the authors is a collection of seven notebooks on capital and money written by Marx during the winter of 1857-8, and was considered by Marx to be the first scientific elaboration of communist theory.
Abstract: Written during the winter of 1857-8, the "Grundrisse" was considered by Marx to be the first scientific elaboration of communist theory. A collection of seven notebooks on capital and money, it both develops the arguments outlined in the Communist Manifesto (1848) and explores the themes and theses that were to dominate his great later work "Capital". Here, for the first time, Marx set out his own version of Hegel's dialectics and developed his mature views on labour, surplus value and profit, offering many fresh insights into alienation, automation and the dangers of capitalist society. Yet while the theories in "Grundrisse" make it a vital precursor to "Capital", it also provides invaluable descriptions of Marx's wider-ranging philosophy, making it a unique insight into his beliefs and hopes for the foundation of a communist state.
1,734 citations
[...]
TL;DR: In the last century, incomes in the less developed countries have fallen far behind those in the "developed" countries, both proportionately and absolutely as discussed by the authors, and this divergence is the result of very different patterns in the long-run economic performance of two sets of countries.
Abstract: ivergence in relative productivity levels and living standards is the dominant feature of modern economic history. In the last century, incomes in the "less developed" (or euphemistically, the "developing") countries have fallen far behind those in the "developed" countries, both proportionately and absolutely. I estimate that from 1870 to 1990 the ratio of per capita incomes between the richest and the poorest countries increased by roughly a factor of five and that the difference in income between the richest country and all others has increased by an order of magnitude.' This divergence is the result of the very different patterns in the long-run economic performance of two sets of countries. One set of countries-call them the "developed" or the "advanced capitalist" (Maddison, 1995) or the "high income OECD" (World Bank, 1995) -is easily, if awkwardly, identified as European countries and their offshoots plus Japan. Since 1870, the long-run growth rates of these countries have been rapid (by previous historical standards), their growth rates have been remarkably similar, and the poorer members of the group grew sufficiently faster to produce considerable convergence in absolute income levels. The other set of countries, called the "developing" or "less developed" or "nonindustrialized," can be easily, if still awkwardly, defined only as "the other set of countries," as they have nothing else in common. The growth rates of this set of countries have been, on average, slower than the richer countries, producing divergence in ' To put it another way, the standard deviation of (natural log) GDP per capita across all countries has increased between 60 percent and 100 percent since 1870, in spite of the convergence amongst the richest.
1,269 citations