{"id":127,"date":"2012-03-23T13:59:19","date_gmt":"2012-03-23T13:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/?p=127"},"modified":"2016-03-30T15:20:37","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T15:20:37","slug":"ingerid-s-straume-and-j-f-humphrey-eds-depoliticization-the-political-imaginary-of-global-capitalism-malmoe-nsu-press-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/07-1\/c37-book-review\/ingerid-s-straume-and-j-f-humphrey-eds-depoliticization-the-political-imaginary-of-global-capitalism-malmoe-nsu-press-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Ingerid S Straume and J F Humphrey (eds.), Depoliticization: The Political Imaginary of Global Capitalism (Malm\u00f6: NSU Press, 2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\t
\n\n\t\t<\/i><\/span> <\/a>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n

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This split, so the thesis goes, aims to stifle any truly creative political critique of our institutions, thereby avoiding genuine structural changes that might hurt private capital\u2019s interests. In this view, \u2018depoliticization\u2019 is the diminishing of any public capacity to imagine, create or deploy new forms, such that the depoliticizing political-economy split is an inherently anti-democratic defence of capitalism.<\/p>\n

For example, discussion on who should bear the cost of the economic crisis is depoliticised. In business, transnational corporations wriggle out of any democratic scrutiny exercised in national interests. In law, institutions and rights become fixed in a way that can tend to immobilise political thought and action. In the symbolic field, undermining everything, the capacity to think or posit new institutional forms is deadened by fear and indifference.<\/p>\n

In this way, runs the thesis, global capitalism feeds on depoliticization, so capitalists promulgate it until the freedom and autonomy of a political life is no longer possible. This authoritarian state is, the book suggests, the inevitable and imminent outcome. However, this is not so much a warning about fascism\u2019s resurgence. Rather it is an intricate, provocative and mostly quite convincing theoretical elucidation of the subtle, sub-conscious architecture on which the current drift towards authoritarianism is constructed. The benefit of this work lies in the way it points out opportunities for a redesign: reconnecting politics with economy \u2013 politicising the debate, imagining and implementing new forms \u2013 becomes a key objective with a new and significant value.<\/p>\n

Depoliticization<\/em> assembles its tally of authors from five countries, representing over a dozen disciplines spanning economics, history and philosophy as well as political and social theory. There is a preponderance of Scandinavian contributors, but nevertheless the stated intention is to urge more transnational debate on our (perhaps Western) political fate and legacy.<\/p>\n

In accordance with its central theme, the essays are organised in two parts: Economy<\/em> and Politics<\/em>. Opening with Straume\u2019s more in-depth look at how the depoliticizing political-economy split leads to personal suffering (principally, it detaches us from reality and creativity), part one goes on to dissect capitalism\u2019s \u2018economic logic\u2019. Arnason cites Baechler, Wallerstein, Boltanski and Chiapello to expose not only the irrational \u2018spirit\u2019 that underpins its multiple manifestations, but also and critically, the social-historical context that spawns it all. D T Cochrane\u2019s \u2018power theory\u2019 harmonises Thorstein Veblen and Castoriadis in order to critique Marx\u2019s Labour Theory of Value and pin down capitalism as \u2018the valuation of control\u2019. According to Lundkvist, this control commodity is used unaccountably by an oligarchy of transnational corporations to choke off market competition. Their strategically managed alliances and mergers give the lie to any notion of a \u2018global free market\u2019. Instead they spiral inexorably towards a \u2018capitalist planned economy\u2019. J F Humphrey rounds off part one by connecting the discussion to the current economic crisis. He draws out from Marx how money transforms from a means of exchange to become the ultimate commodity: production determines distribution, exchange and consumption, such that what is produced has no (social) value other than to satisfy the need for accumulation; or as Cochrane might say, control.<\/p>\n

Blinkenberg builds on this in part two, working from Jacques Ranci\u00e8re\u2019s argument that money as power requires the exclusion of \u2018virtue\u2019 (or perhaps \u2018social value\u2019). Rather, an \u2018authoritative allocation of values\u2019 ascribes virtue in order to legitimise acceptable political actors. Here depoliticization is a method of \u2018value-neutral\u2019 policing that safeguards the hierarchical distribution of power against democratic egalitarianism. Changing the hierarchy\u2019s regimes for \u2018truth-production\u2019 by disclosing the function of truth, is what Foucault sees as the purpose of intellectual and political action, according to Jacobsen. Yet relativism, Foucault\u2019s \u2018tyranny of perspectives\u2019, means that any claim to objective truth always proceeds from an infinite regression of fundamental hegemonic discourses, dissolving objectivity. Such impotence is perhaps made manifest in Europe\u2019s Kafkaesque language shift from \u2018pedagogy\u2019 and \u2018education\u2019 to \u2018learning\u2019, as argued by Straume. Commodified and assessed by endlessly uncertain tribunals, \u2018learning\u2019 comes packed with a capitalist payload of quantitative, computable subtexts: competition, employment, product and again control are deemed virtuous for the \u2018entrepreneurial citizen\u2019. The lost ethos of autonomous critique, inspired by love in Castoriadis\u2019 pedagogic scheme, is de-valued, de-personalised and effectively de-commissioned. Finally, Nilsen\u2019s analysis of Stanley Kubrick\u2019s Eyes Wide Shut<\/em> illustrates the outcome of extreme wealth inequality and a switch from \u2018productive capitalism\u2019 (growth) to \u2018finance capitalism\u2019 (no growth). This is demonstrably a grand repetition of deteriorating trust, consciousness and intelligence that sets up the apparently imminent, unavoidable descent into despotism and dictatorship.<\/p>\n

But democracy\u2019s shallow grave may not be dug yet. If you\u2019re prepared to bury your head in the text and not the ground, you can find some genuinely useful arguments here. \u00a0For example, Cochrane\u2019s frankly excellent reading of capitalism as \u2018the valuation of control\u2019 provides a strong theoretical case for competing to command assets socially. Similarly Straume\u2019s first essay shows that depoliticization rests on the inability to provide \u2018sufficiently robust meaning\u2019, such that teaching critical thinking to every citizen becomes a political as well as an educational mission.<\/p>\n

\u2018Depoliticization\u2019 is not directly addressed in every essay; for some it remains at the side. However, the papers overlap each other well enough to be stitched together with a good narrative, and so the eight authors cover the theme well. Collectively, they delve deep into capitalism\u2019s depoliticizing traits, often working at the level of language and meaning. There are some quite fascinating technical constructions offered in explanation of unconscious or unobvious shifts, such as: controlled \u2018free markets\u2019; consumption determined by production; or money, power and control commodified for accumulation. There are also references to more popular economics (Stiglitz and Soros for example) and the odd graph (not listed in the contents) to explain relevant numeric data.<\/p>\n

Given their intensity and density, some of the essays are wonderfully clear although in at least two, the author\u2019s purpose or line of thought becomes obscured; whether by poor writing or poor translation is unclear. More of a practical problem was the lack of an index; while the use of footnotes rather than endnotes means locating a cited source requires endless flicking.<\/p>\n

But the only real issue was in terms of a personal take on ideas. For me the capitalist paradigm of \u2018growth\u2019 appears to be accepted without question, despite its physical impossibility. Moreover, there was a tendency to dismiss \u2018logic\u2019 or \u2018evidence\u2019 too readily, while quantity always seemed subordinate to quality. I would have liked to have seen these points more clearly and fully discussed, not lost in the background as \u2018value-neutral\u2019 givens. But then, this is not so much a criticism of the work as a rejoinder to the discussion; which the authors would surely welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Capitalism\u2019s constancy, despite the global economic crisis, prompts this topical nine essay volume to examine the present status of politics and its relation to the economy. It follows the analytical line of theorists like Hannah Arendt, J\u00fcrgen Habermas and especially Cornelius Castoriadis, arguing that since the seventies, a separation of politics and economy has been nurtured by a neoliberal agenda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":301,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[315,288,403,404,405,221,231,406,161,162,235,407,214],"coauthors":[1118],"class_list":["post-127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c37-book-review","tag-arendt","tag-castoriadis","tag-consumption","tag-control","tag-depoliticisation","tag-economics","tag-habermas","tag-kubrick","tag-marx","tag-money","tag-politics","tag-ranciere","tag-value"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/301"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1183,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions\/1183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}