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/327/ Capitalism on Edge ft. Albena Azmanova (Patreon)

Published:
2023-03-14 07:00:03
Imported:
2024-07
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On the crisis of crisis.

Bulgarian critical theorist Albena Azmanova joins us to discuss her widely-discussed 2020 book, Capitalism on Edge. We talk critical theory, the paradox of emancipation, her criticisms of Thomas Piketty and why we should be thinking in terms of precarity capitalism, not neoliberalism. 

Albena also discusses her concept of the ‘crisis of the crisis of capitalism’ - how the current crisis of capitalism fails to augur a new type of society. Albena makes the case that concepts like neoliberalism obscure more than they clarify. 

We also discuss how far critical theorists can be drawn into providing practical political advice to leaders and governing institutions. Plus, what was it like coming of age in communist Bulgaria at the End of History?

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Comments

Daniel Kelly

Energy/Discontent should be about Precarity, but here in the USA, it is right wingers complaining about Big Government, and left wingers calling them 'Fascist' and 'Rascist', and that's it. THat's all.

Lee Jones

The idea that we are in a new phase of capitalism, distinct from neoliberalism, defined by precarity, is just silly. Neoliberalism always functioned by making economic actors less secure. If neoliberalism means anything, it is the extension of the market and competition into more areas of economic and social life: removing protections from some areas that mitigated competition and insecurity in the past; extending competition and attendant insecurity into areas previously not governed by such logics, like the provision of public services and interpersonal relations. Market competition *requires* insecurity (fashionably called "precarity") in order to operate. There is no need to struggle for employment, accept worsening conditions, or compete for market share unless you feel a competitor is snapping at your heels. It is particularly silly to suggest that we entered a new phase of capitalism marked by the pursuit of competitiveness in 2000, invoking the EU's Lisbon agenda. A huge part of Reagan's economic agenda was explicitly about restoring US competitiveness against rivals, especially in Europe and Japan (and with respect to the latter, note the various books of the 1980s predicting "the coming war with Japan", presaging the current literature on China). Reagan pursued this through aggressive trade policies designed to curb "unfair" imports and big subsidies, military-linked R&D spending, and public-private partnerships designed to shore up US industrial competitiveness and, secondarily, reduce US unemployment. The pursuit of national "competitiveness" through state intervention in markets (coupled with the aggressive promotion of free trade abroad) was baked into neoliberalism from the very beginning, and as early as 1997 Phil Cerny identified the emergence of the "competition state" from the dismantling of the postwar developmental/ Keynesian state. If this all sounds rather similar to what Biden is up to, it might indicate that we are only experiencing a movement within neoliberalism, rather than its transcendence (cf. #326). What unites the periods is that the big winners will continue to be the dominant, highly competitive fractions of American capital. Workers are being thrown a bone to stave off the populist menace, and geopolitical tensions are back. But echoes of the 1980s (properly understood) suggest less of a departure than we might think.