Crisis and Contradiction

Crisis and Contradiction PDF

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2014-12-11

Total Pages: 399

ISBN-13: 9004271074

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Since the late-1990s much of Latin America has experienced an uneven and contradictory turn to the Left in the electoral arena. At the same time, there has been a rejuvenation of Marxist critiques of political economy. Drawing on the expertise of Latin American, North American, and European scholars, this volume offers cutting-edge theoretical explorations of trends in the region, as well as in-depth case studies of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Venezuela. Essays in the volume focus on changes to class formation in Latin America and offer new insights into the state-form, exploring the complex relationship between state and market in contexts of late capitalist development, particularly in countries endowed with incredible natural resource wealth. Contributors are: Dario Azzellini, Emilia Castorina, Mariano Féliz, Juan Grigera, Nicolas Grinberg, Gabriel Hetland, Claudio Katz, Thomas Purcell, Ben Selwyn, Susan J. Spronk, Guido Starosta, Leandro Vergara-Camus, and Jeffery R. Webber.

Feminism, Capitalism, and Critique

Feminism, Capitalism, and Critique PDF

Author: Banu Bargu

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-07-24

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 3319523864

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This edited collection examines the relationship between three central terms—capitalism, feminism, and critique—while critically celebrating the work and life of a thinker who has done the most to address this nexus: Nancy Fraser. In honor of her seventieth birthday, and in the spirit of her work in the tradition of critical theory, this collection brings together scholars from different disciplines and theoretical approaches to address this conjunction and evaluate Fraser’s lifelong contributions to theorizing it. Scholars from philosophy, political science, sociology, gender studies, race theory and economics come together to think through the vicissitudes of capitalism and feminism while also responding to different elements of Nancy Fraser’s work, which weaves together a strong feminist standpoint with a vibrant and complex critique of capitalism. Going beyond conventional disciplinary distinctions and narrow debates, all the contributors to this project share a commitment to critically understanding the connection between capitalism, exploitation, and the viable roads for emancipation. They recover insights provided by classical traditions of political and social thought, but they also open new research directions adapted to the global challenges of our time.

Contradictions of the Welfare State

Contradictions of the Welfare State PDF

Author: Claus Offe

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-07-20

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 0429876785

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Originally published in 1984, Contradictions of the Welfare State is the first collection of Claus Offe’s essays to appear in a single volume in English. The political writings in this volume are primarily concerned with the origins of the present difficulties of welfare capitalist states, and he indicates why in the present period, these states are no longer capable of fully managing the socio-political problems and conflicts generated by late capitalist societies. Offe discusses the viability of New Right, corporatist and democratic socialist proposals for restructuring the welfare state. He also offers fresh and penetrating insights into a range of other subjects, including social movements, political parties, law, social policy, and labour markets.

A World of Contradictions

A World of Contradictions PDF

Author: Colin Leys

Publisher: London : Merlin Press ; Halifax, N.S. : Fernwood

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13:

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The Socialist Register has consistently focused on the processes driving globalization, as well as its costs-from our much-cited 1994 volume, Between Globalism and Nationalism, to our 1999 volume, Global Capitalism versus Democracy. In the present volume we have sought to take this a step further. The task of resubordinating the market forces that now control the world depends not only on understanding them, but on understanding them in their contradictoriness: seeing how they depend on structural relationships that produce problems and vulnerabilities, incoherence and conflict. The energy and commitment that brought so many tens of thousands of people to Seattle and Quebec City-not to mention the thousands of movements evolving in every city and many rural areas of the world, from Soweto to Chiapas-need to be backed by careful analysis of the way that capitalism's contradictions are now manifested on a global terrain. This task is the primary focus of the 38th annual volume of the Register now in your hands. Our concept of contradiction has not been mechanical or theological. We were not looking for 'primary contradictions', let alone the primary contradiction. Still less do we mean to suggest that there are contradictions that will bring down capitalism of their own accord. On the other hand, we have been concerned with systemic contradictions as opposed to just tensions, conflicts, mere paradoxes, 'ironies' and the like; i.e., our focus is on structural relations inherent in capitalism which at the same time constitute or give rise to obstacles to its smooth or even continued expansion, and which offer opportunities for effective socialist practice.

Climate Change Solutions

Climate Change Solutions PDF

Author: Diana Stuart

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2020-07-17

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 0472038478

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Climate Change Solutions represents an application of critical theory to examine proposed solutions to climate change. Drawing from Marx’s negative conception of ideology, the authors illustrate how ideology continues to conceal the capital-climate contradiction or the fundamental incompatibility between growth-dependent capitalism and effectively and justly mitigating climate change. Dominant solutions to climate change that offer minor changes to the current system fail to address this contradiction. However, alternatives like degrowth involve a shift in priorities and power relations and can offer new systemic arrangements that confront and move beyond the capital-climate contradiction. While there are clear barriers to a systemic transition that prioritizes social and ecological well-being, such a transition is possible and desirable.

Legitimation Crisis

Legitimation Crisis PDF

Author: Juergen Habermas

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 1975-08-25

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780807015216

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Critical Theory originated in the perception by a group of German Marxists after the First World War that the Marxist analysis of capitalism had become deficient both empirically and with regard to its consequences for emancipation, and much of their work has attempted to deepen and extend it in new circumstances. Yet much of this revision has been in the form of piecemeal modification. In his latest work, Habermas has returned to the study of capitalism, incorporating the distinctive modifications of the Frankfurt School into the foundations of the critique of capitalism. Drawing on both systems theory and phenomenological sociology as well as Marxism, the author distinguishes four levels of capitalist crisis - economic, rationality, legitimation, and motivational crises. In his analysis, all the Frankfurt focus on cultural, personality, and authority structures finds its place, but in a systematic framework. At the same time, in his sketch of communicative ethics as the highest stage in the internal logic of the evolution of ethical systems, the author hints at the source of a new political practice that incorporates the imperatives of evolutionary rationality.

Performative Contradiction and the Romanian Revolution

Performative Contradiction and the Romanian Revolution PDF

Author: Jolan Bogdan

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2017-03-29

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 1783488743

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The Romanian Revolution of 1989 ended 42 years of Communist rule. It was the bloodiest revolution in a Warsaw Pact country, culminating in the overthrow and execution of Nicolae Ceaușescu. However, there was no major democratic reform and power remained in the hands of key figures from the old regime. This has led many theorists to question the authenticity of the entire revolution. Performative Contradiction and the Romanian Revolution focuses-in on the circumstances which led to these accusations. It argues that the notion of an authentic revolution, as a conceptual paradigm, is neither a sufficient, appropriate, nor useful tool for an analysis of the events in Romania. Engaging with the work of theorists including Stieglar, Agamben, Baudrillard, Badiou, Spinoza and Derrida it argues that performative contradiction is a more useful theoretical model for exploring this event. Applying the concept to specific cases within the revolution, the book demonstrates the power of performative contradiction as an analytic tool.