Capital and Class最新文献

{"title":"From solidarity to self-promotion? Neoliberalism and left politics in the age of the social media influencer","authors":"Jonathan Dean","doi":"10.1177/03098168231199907","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03098168231199907","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this article is to map the contested intersections of influencer culture and left/progressive politics within the current conjuncture. Furthermore, drawing on a combination of Gramscian and Foucaultian insights, the article considers the implications of these intersections for how we theorise the relationship between neoliberalism and left politics. In so doing, my argument is threefold. First, I suggest that social media influencers and influencer activists have turned to various forms of left politics as a means of establishing a distinctive personal brand, and heightening their social media clout. Second, I suggest that these developments have been met with something of a backlash among some left commentators, wary of the superficiality – and privileging of self-promotion over solidarity – that influencer activism entails, in keeping with a broader disaffection with what some consider to be the excessively individualistic flavour of contemporary forms of online ‘identity politics’. Third, I note that left critics of influencer activism often posit a distinction between ‘proper’ – that is, materialist, solidaristic – left politics, on one hand, and superficial, individualistic influencer activism, on the other. But, drawing on a conception of neoliberalism inspired by Foucault’s 1979 lectures, I suggest that, in a neoliberal digital capitalist context, this distinction becomes hard to sustain. This argument has two further implications. First, it becomes very difficult to extricate oneself from the imperatives of neoliberal digital culture, even if one is politically opposed to neoliberalism; and, second, the figure of the social media influencer, far from being exceptional or anomalous, is merely a more overt or extreme manifestation of logics that are already endemic in contemporary cultural and political life.","PeriodicalId":46258,"journal":{"name":"Capital and Class","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136112307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Marx’s <i>Capital</i> and the concept of super-exploitation","authors":"Tony Burns","doi":"10.1177/03098168231199913","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03098168231199913","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the theory of exploitation which Marx sets out in Capital. It argues that Marx assumes that there are five modes of extraction of surplus value. These are associated with the following principles: (1) extended duration of the working day; (2) enhanced productivity (due to the introduction of new technology); (3) efficient organization of the process of production; (4) increased intensity of labour and (5) depressed consumption of the labourer. The article argues that Marx’s theory of exploitation is not as systematic as it could have been. For this reason it is ripe for a theoretical reconstruction. The article also discusses the views of recent commentators who have developed the idea of ‘super-exploitation’, which is taken from Marx’s writings. There is a tendency in this literature to associate this notion with the principle of depressed consumption and to argue that it is especially relevant for understanding of what is happening in the societies of the Global South. Those concerned identify this as a third mode of extracting surplus value, in addition to the principle of extended duration (absolute surplus value) and enhanced productivity (relative surplus value). The article argues that this procedure overlooks certain aspects of Marx’s theory of exploitation, especially those having to do with the efficient organization or rational administration of labour within the process of production.","PeriodicalId":46258,"journal":{"name":"Capital and Class","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135967772","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Judging automation: Towards a normative critical theory","authors":"Andrius Bielskis","doi":"10.1177/03098168231199905","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03098168231199905","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses automation from the point of view of the intersection between Aristotle and Marx. First, it was Aristotle’s notion of automatous – self-moving tools – that gave rise to the contemporary concept of automation. Marx’s historical materialism is important as it puts the ongoing process of automation into a historical perspective. The development of self-moving machines should free us from the slavery of hard work, yet the legal and political superstructure of capitalism means that the growth of automation produces new forms of precarious wage-slavery. Alasdair MacIntyre’s Aristotelian notion of practice is discussed vis-à-vis the Marxian notion of alienated labour. Given the conceptual structure – alienated labour (which prevents us from flourishing) versus non-alienated labour (as essential for human flourishing) – the article poses the question of whether we can apply this in our attempt to assess the ongoing process of automation.","PeriodicalId":46258,"journal":{"name":"Capital and Class","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135590695","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"‘Good morning Metro shoppers!’ Food insecurity, COVID-19 and the emergence of roll-call neoliberalism","authors":"Michael Classens, Mary Anne Martin","doi":"10.1177/03098168231199912","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03098168231199912","url":null,"abstract":"From April 2020 to December 2021, the Canadian federal government earmarked $330,000,000 through the Emergency Food Security Fund to address food insecurity during the COVID-19 global pandemic. These funds were disbursed through a handful of national and regional emergency food and food justice agencies to smaller front-line organizations for the purchase of emergency food provisions and personal protective equipment, and to hire additional workers. We theorize these dynamics within the broader processes of neoliberalization and argue that the Canadian federal government was conscripting food justice and community development organizations into its efforts to address dramatically increasing rates of food insecurity across the country through charity emergency food provisioning. Within Peck and Tickell’s stylized conceptions of the destructive (roll-back) and creative (roll-out) moments of the process of neoliberalization, we frame the crisis of COVID-19 as exposing a form of recalibration (roll-call) neoliberalism. We focus on this dynamic specifically within the context of household food insecurity in Canadian communities and argue that the federal government’s funding regime during the global pandemic effectively directed food justice organizations (and by extension, the populace in general) away from a more ambitious social change agenda towards the more acceptable strategy (in neoliberal terms) of emergency food provisioning services.","PeriodicalId":46258,"journal":{"name":"Capital and Class","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135958003","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Book review: Squalor","authors":"Nathan Sands","doi":"10.1177/03098168231190166a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03098168231190166a","url":null,"abstract":"writing and understanding that can be seen manifesting throughout Macroeconomics: An Introduction. This therefore makes the reading of this textbook a unique and intellectual journey of varied ‘being and becoming’. Also because of the above, this book comes as an exception to the mainstream understanding of macroeconomics. It is this understanding which is precisely what is needed to be called for in this 21st century too – a brushing away from mainstream economic science, to a pluralistic macro way of understanding economics. This is precisely what makes this textbook more social and not really a textbook for anybody to just study and get good marks. Such particular characteristic hence also naturally make this book worthwhile in considering for inclusion in university syllabi, without any geographical boundaries established. Hence, this perfection of antagonism well mastered is what makes this textbook a lively read, as it allows one to learn and unlearn the mythical and normative establishments that have been injected on to us from time immemorial.","PeriodicalId":46258,"journal":{"name":"Capital and Class","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88701399","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Book review: Hope in Hopeless Times","authors":"Stefano Ba","doi":"10.1177/03098168231190166b","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03098168231190166b","url":null,"abstract":"of writing this review. Renwick and Shilliam conclude Squalor by pointing to ‘the enormity of the struggle’ (155). Perhaps unexpectedly they do not call for a praxis-informed action or recommendations to reduce the inequality. Instead, they reflect on the land, resources, relationship and values relating to property (Renwick & Shilliam 2022: 155). Squalor is a foundational history of housing policy and development within the United Kingdom. Renwick and Shilliam’s writing is critically efficient and to the point for the reader. Certainly, Squalor is a thought-provoking and significantly beneficial book for any reader to enjoy. Squalor is also a must in the academic arsenal of an undergraduate or postgraduate student studying this specific phenomenon of interest.","PeriodicalId":46258,"journal":{"name":"Capital and Class","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82667054","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A traditional intellectual for the populist right?","authors":"Owen Worth","doi":"10.1177/03098168231187251","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03098168231187251","url":null,"abstract":"While incarcerated, Gramsci spent a great deal of time discussing and categorising intellectuals in his notebooks. Most markedly was his categorisation of ‘traditional’ and ‘organic’ intellectuals, which distinguish between influencers within popular culture/ religion and the media and those in traditional roles within formal institutions (Gramsci 1971: 3–14). These serve to provide moral and intellectual leadership for emerging political ideologies and principles. The rise of right-wing populism in the last few decades has seen no end of organic intellectuals emerge to offer such leadership but a relevant lack of traditional ones. This is particularly the case in Britain, which has lacked the historical populist environment found in the artistic and intellectual traditions in France and Italy and where the new right associated with Thatcherism in the 1970s and 1980s was so embroiled in right-wing politics that there was no room for manoeuvre. Out of this, it appears Matthew Goodwin is looking to emerge from the shadows. To provide a rational voice for the conservative White working class left behinds that have been marginalised by decades of cosmopolitanism, ‘hyper’ liberalism and globalisation. In doing so, he looks to give an ‘intellectual’ overview that appeals to the populist rightwing of the Conservative Party, Reform UK and to the many prominent media commentators that fill the pages of the Daily Mail, Telegraph and The Sun and dominate the airwaves of TalkTV and GB News. His book, Values, Voice and Virtue certainly appears to do this. It has gained immediate coverage in the mainstream British press with its academic distractors being balanced out by enthusiasm it has received from right-wing columnists in the manner that was intended. To a degree the book succeeds in doing what it appears to. It does provide a polished prose written in a manner which eludes a form of respectability, adding formal titles to academics that befits a style from a bygone era which no doubt gives an impressionable learned appearance to Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph readers. The book also follows and repeats the same contradictions inherent within the ideologies of right-wing populist movements. In addition, despite its promise to provide a scholarly explanation to the divisions in British society and an alternative explanation to the post-Brexit Empire-nostalgia of Brexit or the fall-out from austerity favoured by left-leaning academia, the book does not really offer anything new. Goodwin 1187251 CNC0010.1177/03098168231187251Capital & ClassExtended Book Review book-review2023","PeriodicalId":46258,"journal":{"name":"Capital and Class","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84796257","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Book Review: Caste Matters","authors":"Sharanya Bhattacharya","doi":"10.1177/03098168231182197a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03098168231182197a","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46258,"journal":{"name":"Capital and Class","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72469262","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Book Review: Rethinking Development: Marxist Perspectives","authors":"Andrea Taborri","doi":"10.1177/03098168231182197i","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03098168231182197i","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46258,"journal":{"name":"Capital and Class","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82234430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Book Review: Can Global Capitalism Endure?","authors":"Fatih Kırşanlı","doi":"10.1177/03098168231182197j","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03098168231182197j","url":null,"abstract":"Escobar A (2015) Territorios de diferencia: la ontología política de los ‘territories’. Cuadernos de Antropología Social 35: 25–38. Sanahuja JA (2018) Crisis de globalización, crisis de hegemonía: un escenario de cambio estructural para América Latina y el Caribe. In: Serbin A (ed.) América Latina y el Caribe frente a un Nuevo Orden Mundial: Poder, globalización y respuestas regionales. Barcelona: Icaria Editorial – Ediciones CRIES, pp. 37–68.","PeriodicalId":46258,"journal":{"name":"Capital and Class","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75824885","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}