Books by Professor Ana Cecilia Dinerstein
Sensing a world of post-work opportunity lurking in an age of crisis, today ‘postcapitalist’ utop... more Sensing a world of post-work opportunity lurking in an age of crisis, today ‘postcapitalist’ utopias proliferate that see a way out of the present through an escape from work. Using critical theory to unpick the political economy of contemporary work and its futures, this book mounts a forceful critique of fashionable thinking about the possibility of achieving a postcapitalist society through the automation of production, a universal basic income and the reduction of working hours to zero. A World Beyond Work? reveals how these transitional measures break insufficiently with key features of capitalist society: value, money, the class relation and the state. By displacing workers from the sites and relationships through which they struggle and resist as wage labour, Dinerstein and Pitts contend, these measures may even stifle the capacity for transformative social change in, against and beyond capitalism. The authors propose an alternative that navigates the contradictions of social reproduction under capitalism through the construction of ‘concrete utopias’ that shape and anticipate non-capitalist futures.
Open Marxism 4. Against a closing world, 2019
The publication of the first three volumes of Open Marxism in the 1990s has had a transformative ... more The publication of the first three volumes of Open Marxism in the 1990s has had a transformative impact on how we think about Marxism in the twenty-first century.
'Open Marxism' aims to think of Marxism as a theory of struggle, not as an objective analysis of capitalist domination, arguing that money, capital and the state are forms of struggle from above and therefore open to resistance and rebellion. As critical thought is squeezed out of universities and geographical shifts shape the terrain of theoretical discussion, the editors argue now is the time for a new volume that reflects the work that has been carried out during the past decade. Emphasising the contemporary relevance of 'open Marxism' in our moment of political and economic uncertainty, the collection shines a light on its significance for activists and academics today.
Provides a ground-breaking and provocative approach to social and
political change
▶ Critiques ca... more Provides a ground-breaking and provocative approach to social and
political change
▶ Critiques capitalist-colonial-patriarchal society by delineating
alternative realities
▶ Transcends academic boundaries and binary divisions between
knowledge and practice
This book opens up a unique intellectual space where eleven female scholar-activists
explore alternative forms of theorising social reality. These‘Women on the Verge’
demonstrate that a new radical subject– one that is plural, prefigurative, decolonial,
ethical, ecological, communal and democratic- is in the making, but is unrecognisable
with old analytical tools. Of central concern to the book is the resistance of some social
scientists, many of them critical theorists, to learning about this radical subject and to
interrogating the concepts, methodologies and epistemologies used to grasp it. Echoing
the experiential critique of capitalist-colonial society that is taking place at the grassroots,
the authors examine how to create hope, decolonise critique and denaturalise society.
They also address the various dimensions of the social (re)production of life, including
women in development, the commons, and nature. Finally, they discuss the dynamics of
prefiguration by social movements, critiquing social movement theory in the process.This
thought-provoking edited collection will appeal to students and scholars of gender
studies, social, Marxist and Feminist theory, postcolonial studies and politics.
The politics of autonomy in Latin America. The Art of Organising Hope, 2015
Dinerstein offers a much-needed critical review of the concept and practice of autonomy. Defining... more Dinerstein offers a much-needed critical review of the concept and practice of autonomy. Defining autonomy as either revolutionary or ineffective vis-à-vis the state does not fully grasp the commitment of Latin American movements to the creation of alternative practices and horizons beyond capitalism, patriarchy and coloniality. By establishing an elective affinity between autonomy and Bloch’s principle of hope, Dinerstein defines autonomy as ‘the art of organizing hope’, that is, the art of shaping a reality which is not yet but can be anticipated by the movements’ collective actions. Drawing from the experience of four prominent indigenous and non-indigenous urban and rural movements, Dinerstein suggests that the politics of autonomy is a struggle that simultaneously negates, creates, deals with contradictions and, above all, produces an excess beyond demarcation that cannot be translated into the grammar of power. Reading Marx’s method in key of hope, the book offers a prefigurative critique of political economy and emphasises the prefigurative features of indigenous and non indigenous autonomies at a time when utopia can no longer be objected.
The Labour Debate. An investigation into the theory and reality of capitalist work, 2002
In a world dominated by capitalist work (labour), working for a wage is the central unavoidable r... more In a world dominated by capitalist work (labour), working for a wage is the central unavoidable reality of modern social life. And yet, the category of labour remains underdeveloped in social sciences. While waged labour in all its forms, including unemployment and mass poverty, has now invaded all aspects of social life, labour appears to have disappeared as a practice that constitutes modern society. This book revitalises labour as the fundamental constitutive principle of the social world, through a radical reinterpretation of Marx’s social theory. Each chapter develops a central Marxist theme: the continuing centrality of work; class and classification; commodity fetishism and primitive accumulation; labour movements and the way in which labour moves; unemployment, subjectivity and class consciousness, and the new forms of resistance developed in Europe, Latin America and East Asia. In conclusion, the editors give an account of what they consider to be the main critical and practical problems and possibilities confronting the concept and reality of labour in the 21st century.
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
From Here to Utopia: Finding Inspiration for the Labour Debate
Ana C. Dinerstein and Michael Neary 1
1 What Labour Debate?
1.1 Class and Classification: Against, In and Beyond Labour
John Holloway p.27
1.2 Class Struggle and the Working Class: The Problem of Commodity Fetishism
Simon Clarke p.41
1.3 The Narrowing of Marxism: A Comment on Simon Clarke’s Comments
John Holloway p.61
2 Capital, Labour and Primitive Accumulation: On Class and Constitution
Werner Bonefeld p.65
3 Labour and Subjectivity: Rethinking the Limits of Working Class Consciousness
Graham Taylor p. 89
4 Hayek, Bentham and the Global Work Machine: The Emergence of the Fractal-Panopticon Massimo De Angelis p. 108
5 Work is Still the Central Issue! New Words for New Worlds
Harry Cleaver p. 135
6 Labour Moves: A Critique of the Concept of Social Movement Unionism
Michael Neary p . 149
7 Fuel for the Living Fire: Labour-Power!
Glenn Rikowski p. 179
8 Regaining Materiality: Unemployment and the Invisible Subjectivity of Labour
Ana C. Dinerstein p. 203
9 Anti-Value-in-Motion: Labour, Real Subsumption and the Struggles against Capitalism
Ana C. Dinerstein and Michael Neary
v
Movimientos Sociales y Autonomía colectiva La politica de la esperanza en America Latina, 2013
Para analizar la protesta social a partir de los 90 resulta fundamental detenerse en el rol desem... more Para analizar la protesta social a partir de los 90 resulta fundamental detenerse en el rol desempeñado por los piqueteros. El corte de rutas se ha convertido en un renovado símbolo de argentinidad. A tal punto es así que en algunas escuelas primarias los alumnos llegaron a incluirlos junto al dulce de leche, el mate y el tango. La politóloga Ana Cecilia Dinerstein, el sociólogo Daniel Contartese y la estudiante Melina Deledicque arrancan de esa comprobación para esbozar un cuidadoso estudio de las movilizaciones callejeras protagonizadas por desocupados. Los autores subrayan su potencial político y su influencia en las políticas públicas. Antes se pensaba que, al estar excluidos del sistema productivo, los desempleados eran los actores más débiles de la cadena política. Sin embargo, como este libro lo demuestra, los piqueteros desafiaron el escepticismo y, lejos de funcionar como organizaciones temporarias, se consolidaron como actores importantes del escenario político y social argentino.
Emek Tartismasi. Kapitalist Isin Teorisi ve Gerceligine Dair Bir Inceleme , 2006
Kapitalist çalışmanın (emek) egemen olduğu bir dünyada, bir ücret karşılığı çalışmak, modern sosy... more Kapitalist çalışmanın (emek) egemen olduğu bir dünyada, bir ücret karşılığı çalışmak, modern sosyal hayatın kaçınılmaz merkezi gerçeğidir. Ve yine de, emek kategorisi sosyal bilimlerde az da olsa gelişmiştir. Ücretsiz emek, işsizlik ve kitlesel yoksulluk dahil olmak üzere tüm biçimlerinde sosyal yaşamın tüm yönlerini istila etse de, emek modern toplumu oluşturan bir uygulama olarak ortadan kaybolmuş gibi görünmektedir. Bu kitap, emeği, Marx’ın sosyal teorisinin radikal bir yorumuyla toplumsal dünyanın temel kurucu ilkesi olarak canlandırıyor. Her bölüm merkezi bir Marksist tema geliştiriyor: işin devam eden merkezîliği; sınıf ve sınıflandırma; emtia fetişizmi ve ilkel birikim; emek hareketleri ve emeğin hareket tarzı; işsizlik, öznellik ve sınıf bilinci ve Avrupa, Latin Amerika ve Doğu Asya'da geliştirilen yeni direniş biçimleri. Sonuç olarak, editörler, 21. yüzyılda emeğin kavramı ve gerçekliği ile yüzleşmenin temel kritik ve pratik sorunları ve olanakları olarak gördüklerini açıklar.
capitalista Compiladores: Ana C. Dinerstein, Michael Neary | Ediciones Herramienta, Buenos Aires,... more capitalista Compiladores: Ana C. Dinerstein, Michael Neary | Ediciones Herramienta, Buenos Aires, 2009 | 304 páginas | ISBN 978-987-1505-09-8
Book Chapters by Professor Ana Cecilia Dinerstein
Encyclopedia of Critical Political Science, Elgar Online, Edited by Clyde W. Barrow, 2024
Open Marxism (OM) is a variant of Marxist theory, which argues that Marx’s critique of political ... more Open Marxism (OM) is a variant of Marxist theory, which argues that Marx’s critique of political economy should be understood as a subversive critique of the economic categories of bourgeois society, its philosophical concepts, moral values, and political institutions. Contrary to structural Marxism, which conceptualizes social forms as a kind of false appearance overlaid upon material reality, OM conceptualizes them as specific manifestations of how labor is mediated in and against capital at a particular time. The state is central to OM analyses as it is the political form of capitalist social relations. Class struggle is an intrinsic aspect of the analysis of the state, not something external to it, while the last iterations of OM point to critical affirmations as prefigurative struggles for alternative forms of social reproduction.
Decolonising prefiguration: Ernst Bloch’s philosophy of hope and the Multiversum. In Monticelli, L. (Ed.) The Future Is Now: An Introduction to Prefigurative Politics, Bristol University Press, 2022
In this chapter, I aim to contribute to the debate around prefiguration by presenting and discu... more In this chapter, I aim to contribute to the debate around prefiguration by presenting and discussing Ernst Bloch's material praxis philosophy of hope and, in particular, his concept of Multiversum. In the following, I explore three ways in which Bloch's philosophy of hope can enhance our understanding and our prefigurative praxis: first, Bloch's understanding of possibility as a condition grounded in the (utopian) material world; second, Bloch's notion of 'concrete utopia' as praxis and reposition prefiguration within, and not outside, the accumulation of capital, mediated by the state. Third, Bloch's concept of the Multiversum enables us to decolonise prefiguration. It helps to comprehend that prefigurative struggles are non-synchronous spatial temporalities emerging from a multiplicity of situations, oppressions, relations, against and beyond the violent homogenisation process that underpins capital accumulation.
Open Marxism 4. Against a closing world, 2019
We write against a closing of the world. Walls are going up around us. The wall on the USA border... more We write against a closing of the world. Walls are going up around us. The wall on the USA border with Mexico, the walls that UK Brexiteers would build, the walls being constructed by left and right nationalisms all over the world: walls of exclusion, of borders, often walls of hatred, walls of pain. Intellectually and academically too, walls are going up around us. In the universities (where the four of us work), the walls of academic correctness are growing bigger: the pressures of competition, insecurity and the precarity of academic work, combined with quality assurance committees, lists of indexed journals, and quantitative criteria of assessment, make it harder, especially for students and young academics, to write what they want to write. To say what they want to say. The disciplines of the social sciences are becoming just that: disciplines. While resistance struggles continue and expand outside academic walls, critical thought is being squeezed out of the universities, reframed in innocuous forms or simply sidelined. Gradually, often without us noticing it, critical terms become taboo. They become ‘durty words’ (Brunetta and O’Shea 2018). Increasingly, these durty words begin to be whispered, until they fall out of use altogether. ‘Revolution’ is the most obvious one, but also ‘class struggle’, and ‘capital’ too. The more atrocious the barbarity of patriarchal and colonial capitalism becomes, the less we can name it.
Radical thought has not come to an end though. Not at all. The critique of capital exists. But it survives mainly in the shadow of the criticism of the forms of expression of capital: authoritarianism, neoliberalism, the financialisation of the economy, policy failure, the crisis of representative democracy, etc. We write against the closure of the world, then, because we see a danger in some of the present struggles today: that we only demand regulation, job creation, distributive justice, transparent democracy, etc. In our view, these criticisms and demands are necessary and important but they are incomplete without a critique of capital
Open Marxism 4, 2019
In Chapter 2, Ana C. Dinerstein re-evaluates the place of the theoretical in today’s praxis. By p... more In Chapter 2, Ana C. Dinerstein re-evaluates the place of the theoretical in today’s praxis. By pointing to the sphere of social reproduction as the ‘site’ of both new forms of class struggle and the renewal of critical theory, Dinerstein argues that critical theory today should be based on Bloch’s philosophy of hope. Despite the critical theorist’s fear of the positivisation of social struggles, Dinerstein argues that the fight against barbarism is not only possible but already exists in the form of struggles for alternative forms of life. In the context of the crisis of social reproduction, these struggles cannot be regarded as positive: they are critical affirmations that affirm life as a form of negating a totality of destruction in a ‘contradictory’ manner (see Gunn 1994). To her, while Adorno’s negative dialectics (Adorno 1995) remarkably prevents dialectical closure of the capitalist totality from taking place theoretically, negative dialectics cannot open onto a ‘world with Front’ in practice. And this is what is needed today.
S. Kumar and Kumar, R. (Eds.) SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFTS AND TURNING POINTS’ , Routledge: New Delhi: 236-262., 2014
Neary, M. GLOBAL HUMANISATION: STUDIES IN THE MANUFACTURE OF LABOUR, Mansell, London- New York, 1999
In 1995, President Menem was re-elected for a second period by offering the slogan ‘me or chaos’.... more In 1995, President Menem was re-elected for a second period by offering the slogan ‘me or chaos’. His re-election was considered by advocates of his neo-liberal agenda as a sign of popular support for these stabilising policies . However, his second period in office has been characterised by increasing social unrest throughout the country as a result of and in response to corruption, poverty and unemployment. Police repression has increased against the demands and protests of students, workers and the unemployed. As a result the policy of stability has been called into question.
In this essay I aim to highlight a seeming paradox that exists between the policies that are presented as a source of social stability and the actual labour and social conflict that these stabilising policies have generated.
I shall argue that although stability seems to be about economics, it cannot be understood simply in terms of ‘economic theory’, but must be viewed more comprehensively in terms of antagonistic relations of capital and labour. Although the concept of stability seems to indicate the absence of violence, it does, in fact entail a particular form of violence. The key to understanding this relationship is an exposition of the way in which stability is imposed. In the world of money-capital stability is socially constructed through the social power of money. Money is not only a means of exchange: the possibility of abundant consumption, it is also an imposition: the means of productive coercion and, in this way, of a peculiar form of violence.
I shall argue that the inherent violence of money as a social relation has taken different forms such as direct repression and economic crisis in the 1970s, debt crisis and hyperinflation in the 1980s, corruption in the early 1990s and now stability.
My argument is that the current forms of labour and social conflict do not destabilise stability but rather, stability is in itself unstable. The seeming paradox between stability and the instability of labour and social conflict cannot be solved by locating labour conflict and unemployed struggles as external to stabilising policies. Rather, my point is that they have to be located at the core of these policies. The understanding of the contradictory character of money is crucial to the understanding of the struggle that stability entails: whilst economic stability exists as the current form of the real fiction of money attempting to subordinate labour, labour and social conflict is the resistance to it. One does not exist without the other, for both are part of the social construction of money as a form of social relations.
The paradox vanishes when scarcity, uncertainty and repression are regarded as a condition for stability to exist. Having said that, in what follows I will unwrap these forms of the violence of money, particularly when it dresses up as stability, as in the present.
Molly Scott Cato, M. and Peter North (Eds.) TOWARDS JUST AND SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIES. COMPARING SOCIAL AND SOLIDARITY ECONOMY IN THE NORTH AND SOUTH, Policy Press, Bristol: 55-71., 2017
By engaging with the recent experience of Latin American SSE movements, this chapter discusses th... more By engaging with the recent experience of Latin American SSE movements, this chapter discusses three ideas. First, that SSE practices by social movements can be seen as tools for the anticipation of alternative reality/ practices, relationships and horizons—in the present. Second, that the integration of SSE practices into state policy requires the institutionalisation of SSE which renders invisible everything that does not fit in the the ‘parameters of legibility’ of the state’s policy territory. As the state seeks to achieve order and stability, policy reforms are the crystallisation in time of ongoing conflicts. Third, an adequate ‘translation’ of SSE into policy begs for a type of co-construction of policy that engages with the emancipatory call of SSE movements, thus constituting a prefigurative translation. By escaping the contours of the given reality prefigurative translation allows to venture with the SSE movements, this ‘prefigurative translation’ is part of the process of ‘organising hope’ by SSSE movements.
KEY WORDS: Co-construction of policy, hope, Latin America, organising, prefiguration, SSE movements, the state policy territory, ‘translation’.
Chandra, P., A Ghosh and R. Kumar (eds.) Imperialism and Counterstrategies, New Delhi, Aakar Books, pp. 263 301, 2004
The complexity of the events of December 2001 in Argentina makes difficult to achieve a balanced ... more The complexity of the events of December 2001 in Argentina makes difficult to achieve a balanced evaluation between structural, historical and conjunctural issues, between external and domestic, international, regional and local factors that intervened in the crisis. December 2001 can be seen in fact as the final eruption of a series of medium and long term volcanic processes of diverse kind with some short-term loose elements.
Open Marxism 4. Against a Closing World, Chapter 2, 2019
Dinerstein re-evaluates the place of the theoretical and of critical theory in today's praxis. By... more Dinerstein re-evaluates the place of the theoretical and of critical theory in today's praxis. By pointing to the sphere of social reproduction as the 'site' of both new forms of class struggle and the renewal of critical theory, Dinerstein argues that critical theory today should be based on Bloch's philosophy of hope. Despite the critical theorist's fear of the positivisation of social struggles, Dinerstein argues that the fight against Barbarism is not only possible but already exists in the form of struggles for alternative forms of life. In a context of crisis of the social reproduction, these struggles cannot not be regarded as positive: they are critical affirmations that affirm life as a form of negating a totality of destruction in a 'contradictory' manner (see Gun 1994). To her, while Adorno's negative dialectics remarkably prevents dialectical closure of the capitalist totality from taking place theoretically, negative dialectics cannot open onto a 'world with Front' in practice. And this is what is needed today.
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Books by Professor Ana Cecilia Dinerstein
'Open Marxism' aims to think of Marxism as a theory of struggle, not as an objective analysis of capitalist domination, arguing that money, capital and the state are forms of struggle from above and therefore open to resistance and rebellion. As critical thought is squeezed out of universities and geographical shifts shape the terrain of theoretical discussion, the editors argue now is the time for a new volume that reflects the work that has been carried out during the past decade. Emphasising the contemporary relevance of 'open Marxism' in our moment of political and economic uncertainty, the collection shines a light on its significance for activists and academics today.
political change
▶ Critiques capitalist-colonial-patriarchal society by delineating
alternative realities
▶ Transcends academic boundaries and binary divisions between
knowledge and practice
This book opens up a unique intellectual space where eleven female scholar-activists
explore alternative forms of theorising social reality. These‘Women on the Verge’
demonstrate that a new radical subject– one that is plural, prefigurative, decolonial,
ethical, ecological, communal and democratic- is in the making, but is unrecognisable
with old analytical tools. Of central concern to the book is the resistance of some social
scientists, many of them critical theorists, to learning about this radical subject and to
interrogating the concepts, methodologies and epistemologies used to grasp it. Echoing
the experiential critique of capitalist-colonial society that is taking place at the grassroots,
the authors examine how to create hope, decolonise critique and denaturalise society.
They also address the various dimensions of the social (re)production of life, including
women in development, the commons, and nature. Finally, they discuss the dynamics of
prefiguration by social movements, critiquing social movement theory in the process.This
thought-provoking edited collection will appeal to students and scholars of gender
studies, social, Marxist and Feminist theory, postcolonial studies and politics.
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
From Here to Utopia: Finding Inspiration for the Labour Debate
Ana C. Dinerstein and Michael Neary 1
1 What Labour Debate?
1.1 Class and Classification: Against, In and Beyond Labour
John Holloway p.27
1.2 Class Struggle and the Working Class: The Problem of Commodity Fetishism
Simon Clarke p.41
1.3 The Narrowing of Marxism: A Comment on Simon Clarke’s Comments
John Holloway p.61
2 Capital, Labour and Primitive Accumulation: On Class and Constitution
Werner Bonefeld p.65
3 Labour and Subjectivity: Rethinking the Limits of Working Class Consciousness
Graham Taylor p. 89
4 Hayek, Bentham and the Global Work Machine: The Emergence of the Fractal-Panopticon Massimo De Angelis p. 108
5 Work is Still the Central Issue! New Words for New Worlds
Harry Cleaver p. 135
6 Labour Moves: A Critique of the Concept of Social Movement Unionism
Michael Neary p . 149
7 Fuel for the Living Fire: Labour-Power!
Glenn Rikowski p. 179
8 Regaining Materiality: Unemployment and the Invisible Subjectivity of Labour
Ana C. Dinerstein p. 203
9 Anti-Value-in-Motion: Labour, Real Subsumption and the Struggles against Capitalism
Ana C. Dinerstein and Michael Neary
v
Book Chapters by Professor Ana Cecilia Dinerstein
Radical thought has not come to an end though. Not at all. The critique of capital exists. But it survives mainly in the shadow of the criticism of the forms of expression of capital: authoritarianism, neoliberalism, the financialisation of the economy, policy failure, the crisis of representative democracy, etc. We write against the closure of the world, then, because we see a danger in some of the present struggles today: that we only demand regulation, job creation, distributive justice, transparent democracy, etc. In our view, these criticisms and demands are necessary and important but they are incomplete without a critique of capital
In this essay I aim to highlight a seeming paradox that exists between the policies that are presented as a source of social stability and the actual labour and social conflict that these stabilising policies have generated.
I shall argue that although stability seems to be about economics, it cannot be understood simply in terms of ‘economic theory’, but must be viewed more comprehensively in terms of antagonistic relations of capital and labour. Although the concept of stability seems to indicate the absence of violence, it does, in fact entail a particular form of violence. The key to understanding this relationship is an exposition of the way in which stability is imposed. In the world of money-capital stability is socially constructed through the social power of money. Money is not only a means of exchange: the possibility of abundant consumption, it is also an imposition: the means of productive coercion and, in this way, of a peculiar form of violence.
I shall argue that the inherent violence of money as a social relation has taken different forms such as direct repression and economic crisis in the 1970s, debt crisis and hyperinflation in the 1980s, corruption in the early 1990s and now stability.
My argument is that the current forms of labour and social conflict do not destabilise stability but rather, stability is in itself unstable. The seeming paradox between stability and the instability of labour and social conflict cannot be solved by locating labour conflict and unemployed struggles as external to stabilising policies. Rather, my point is that they have to be located at the core of these policies. The understanding of the contradictory character of money is crucial to the understanding of the struggle that stability entails: whilst economic stability exists as the current form of the real fiction of money attempting to subordinate labour, labour and social conflict is the resistance to it. One does not exist without the other, for both are part of the social construction of money as a form of social relations.
The paradox vanishes when scarcity, uncertainty and repression are regarded as a condition for stability to exist. Having said that, in what follows I will unwrap these forms of the violence of money, particularly when it dresses up as stability, as in the present.
KEY WORDS: Co-construction of policy, hope, Latin America, organising, prefiguration, SSE movements, the state policy territory, ‘translation’.
'Open Marxism' aims to think of Marxism as a theory of struggle, not as an objective analysis of capitalist domination, arguing that money, capital and the state are forms of struggle from above and therefore open to resistance and rebellion. As critical thought is squeezed out of universities and geographical shifts shape the terrain of theoretical discussion, the editors argue now is the time for a new volume that reflects the work that has been carried out during the past decade. Emphasising the contemporary relevance of 'open Marxism' in our moment of political and economic uncertainty, the collection shines a light on its significance for activists and academics today.
political change
▶ Critiques capitalist-colonial-patriarchal society by delineating
alternative realities
▶ Transcends academic boundaries and binary divisions between
knowledge and practice
This book opens up a unique intellectual space where eleven female scholar-activists
explore alternative forms of theorising social reality. These‘Women on the Verge’
demonstrate that a new radical subject– one that is plural, prefigurative, decolonial,
ethical, ecological, communal and democratic- is in the making, but is unrecognisable
with old analytical tools. Of central concern to the book is the resistance of some social
scientists, many of them critical theorists, to learning about this radical subject and to
interrogating the concepts, methodologies and epistemologies used to grasp it. Echoing
the experiential critique of capitalist-colonial society that is taking place at the grassroots,
the authors examine how to create hope, decolonise critique and denaturalise society.
They also address the various dimensions of the social (re)production of life, including
women in development, the commons, and nature. Finally, they discuss the dynamics of
prefiguration by social movements, critiquing social movement theory in the process.This
thought-provoking edited collection will appeal to students and scholars of gender
studies, social, Marxist and Feminist theory, postcolonial studies and politics.
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
From Here to Utopia: Finding Inspiration for the Labour Debate
Ana C. Dinerstein and Michael Neary 1
1 What Labour Debate?
1.1 Class and Classification: Against, In and Beyond Labour
John Holloway p.27
1.2 Class Struggle and the Working Class: The Problem of Commodity Fetishism
Simon Clarke p.41
1.3 The Narrowing of Marxism: A Comment on Simon Clarke’s Comments
John Holloway p.61
2 Capital, Labour and Primitive Accumulation: On Class and Constitution
Werner Bonefeld p.65
3 Labour and Subjectivity: Rethinking the Limits of Working Class Consciousness
Graham Taylor p. 89
4 Hayek, Bentham and the Global Work Machine: The Emergence of the Fractal-Panopticon Massimo De Angelis p. 108
5 Work is Still the Central Issue! New Words for New Worlds
Harry Cleaver p. 135
6 Labour Moves: A Critique of the Concept of Social Movement Unionism
Michael Neary p . 149
7 Fuel for the Living Fire: Labour-Power!
Glenn Rikowski p. 179
8 Regaining Materiality: Unemployment and the Invisible Subjectivity of Labour
Ana C. Dinerstein p. 203
9 Anti-Value-in-Motion: Labour, Real Subsumption and the Struggles against Capitalism
Ana C. Dinerstein and Michael Neary
v
Radical thought has not come to an end though. Not at all. The critique of capital exists. But it survives mainly in the shadow of the criticism of the forms of expression of capital: authoritarianism, neoliberalism, the financialisation of the economy, policy failure, the crisis of representative democracy, etc. We write against the closure of the world, then, because we see a danger in some of the present struggles today: that we only demand regulation, job creation, distributive justice, transparent democracy, etc. In our view, these criticisms and demands are necessary and important but they are incomplete without a critique of capital
In this essay I aim to highlight a seeming paradox that exists between the policies that are presented as a source of social stability and the actual labour and social conflict that these stabilising policies have generated.
I shall argue that although stability seems to be about economics, it cannot be understood simply in terms of ‘economic theory’, but must be viewed more comprehensively in terms of antagonistic relations of capital and labour. Although the concept of stability seems to indicate the absence of violence, it does, in fact entail a particular form of violence. The key to understanding this relationship is an exposition of the way in which stability is imposed. In the world of money-capital stability is socially constructed through the social power of money. Money is not only a means of exchange: the possibility of abundant consumption, it is also an imposition: the means of productive coercion and, in this way, of a peculiar form of violence.
I shall argue that the inherent violence of money as a social relation has taken different forms such as direct repression and economic crisis in the 1970s, debt crisis and hyperinflation in the 1980s, corruption in the early 1990s and now stability.
My argument is that the current forms of labour and social conflict do not destabilise stability but rather, stability is in itself unstable. The seeming paradox between stability and the instability of labour and social conflict cannot be solved by locating labour conflict and unemployed struggles as external to stabilising policies. Rather, my point is that they have to be located at the core of these policies. The understanding of the contradictory character of money is crucial to the understanding of the struggle that stability entails: whilst economic stability exists as the current form of the real fiction of money attempting to subordinate labour, labour and social conflict is the resistance to it. One does not exist without the other, for both are part of the social construction of money as a form of social relations.
The paradox vanishes when scarcity, uncertainty and repression are regarded as a condition for stability to exist. Having said that, in what follows I will unwrap these forms of the violence of money, particularly when it dresses up as stability, as in the present.
KEY WORDS: Co-construction of policy, hope, Latin America, organising, prefiguration, SSE movements, the state policy territory, ‘translation’.
Keywords Ernst Bloch Denaturalising capitalism The not yet Karl Marx Prefigurative critique of political economy Concrete utopia
Keywords: Radical subject Critical theory Possibility Affirmation Experiential critique Venturing beyond Hope Theorising
on the 13t of March 2017
The citation for the accepted version should be as follows:
Dinerstein, A. C., 2017. ‘John Holloway. The Theory of Interstitial Revolution’. In The SAGE Handbook of
Frankfurt School Critical Theory, edited by Beverley Best, Werner Bonefeld and Chris O’Kane
(in press)
John Holloway’s work spans over four decades of intellectual development and commitment to radical change. Holloway develops his ideas through ongoing dialogues, conversations, debates and discussions with both Marxists and radical scholars and students, and social movements and activists, worldwide. His work developed within the context of the Conference of Socialist Economists (CSE) and was foundational for the establishment of Open Marxism (OM). The chapter focuses on Holloway’s theory of interstitial revolution which, paraphrasing Holloway,
has produced a ‘crack’ in Marxist praxis. I start with an account of Holloway’s life and intellectual trajectory. Then,
I discuss his theory of interstitial revolution, presented in his two books Change the World Without Taking Power.
The meaning of revolution today (CTWWTP) (2002) and Crack Capitalism
My aim is not to classify the roadblock but, rather, to allow it to speak for itself by reconsidering the categories and forms in which the issue is being approached. I will argue that the sociological assumption that unemployment means the lack of work and the ‘exclusion’ of workers from the process of commodity production leading to social exclusion (see Castel, 1991) does not allow an understanding of the constitution of the subjectivity of unemployment This concept is extremely disempowering as it has become a barrier to the appreciation of the significance of the new forms of resistance led by the so-called marginalised sectors of society. I argue that, although it looks as if it were the opposite, unemployment is a form of labour produced by the intensification and expansion of capitalist work in its most abstract forms: money (or abstract labour in motion). The temporary ‘avoidance’ of labour by capital (M – M′) (Capital, III) implies an apparent jump of capital into the future without labour. While labour is really subsumed and yet becomes ‘invisible’, the subjectivity of unemployment is still a barrier for the expansion of capital. This is not an economic problem, i.e. a result of technical imperfections in the labour market but a political problem based on the actual realisation of human life. In order to make the unemployed visible, I offer, first, the notion of subjectivity as a determinate abstraction, i.e. a transient and contradictory form of being, constituted in and through class struggle. I will suggest that the subjectivity of labour constitutes the site of conjunction of the concrete and abstract aspects of the capital relation within the subject. Secondly, as M – M′ is a disembodied representation of the capitalist transformation into its money form, I offer a equation based on Marx’s formulae for the circuit of capital reproduction which makes the production and transformation of the subjectivity of labour visible as an intrinsic aspect of capital. Finally, through that proposal, I attempt an interpretation of the new form of subjectivity of labour which emerged in and against the invisibility and virtual disappearance of labour produced by the neo-liberal recomposition of capitalist society in Argentina in the 1990s: roadblocks.
This paper addresses another concern resulting from this disposition of international development policy with regards to social movements—namely, the process of translation of SSE practices into state policy. Translation here refers to the processes, mechanisms and dynamics through which the state incorporates into policy the cooperative and solidarity ethos of SSE practised by social movements. The problem that arises is that the state tends to fit SSE into the logic of power rather than enabling the transformative aspects of SSE to flourish.
Drawing on the example of three well-known Latin American movements—the Zapatista Movement in Mexico, the Unemployed Workers Movement in Argentina and Brazil’s Rural Landless Workers Movement—the paper examines the tension underpinning SSE practices and the state, and how the former can be subordinated to the logic of the state with significant implications for emancipatory politics and practice.
Ana Cecilia Dinerstein is Reader in Sociology in the Department of Social and Policy Sciences and a Member of the Centre for Development Studies at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom.
Argentina. The global capitalist crisis of the 1970s produced a unique recomposition of
capitalist social relations worldwide. For the first time capital asserted itself as a global social imagery in which it was seen as free and detached from labour. This 'disconnection' between capital and labour is deeply disempowering, for it denies the source of social transformation (labour) in favour of the reification of an abstraction (capital). In Argentina this was manifested during the 1990s through the exaltation of 'Stability' as the solution to Argentine's chronic political and economic crisis, as well as the belief in the defeat of labour altogether. Although stability was considered the main achievement of President Menem's period in power (1989-1999), persistent social and labour conflict evoked a re examination of
widely shared assumptions regarding both the crisis of labour and the triumph of neoliberalism in Argentina. Analyses of what Menemism meant in political, economic, social and legal terms are abundant. Yet, missing has been an adequate interrogation and questioning of the theoretical categories and methods used to grasp the new reality of labour. The thesis aims to contribute to an understanding of the current forms of resistance in Argentina by means of a theoretical proposal and an historical and empirical analysis. The thesis is divided into three parts and a theoretical introduction. Chapter one considers Marx's writing and recent developments in Marxist theory of the state, value, money and subjectivity. The chapter discusses the significance of Marx's method of determinate abstraction for an understanding
of the subjectivity of labour in capitalist social relations. Going beyond the formulation that the state, money and the law are real illusions which mediate the capital relation (Clarke, 1991, Holloway and Picciotto 1977), I offer the notion of subjectivity of labour as a determinate abstraction, i. e. as a transient and contradictory form of being which emerges vis-ä-vis a particular- and contradictory-articulation of the subjective aspects (identity, organisations and resistance) and the social forms (political, economic and social) which mediate labour as a social activity. Subjectivity is a 'site of conjunction' which articulates the concrete and abstract aspects of labour within the subject. This theoretical framework constitutes the analytical and methodological bases for my research. Part I explores five historical forms of subjectivity which emerged as dramatic expressions of the social relation of capital: the Anarchist (1920s), the Peronist (1940s), the Anti-imperialist (1960s), the Revolutionary (1970s) and the Democratic (1980s). The historical journey aims to show how labour made history by taking dramatic forms which encapsulated crisis, deconstruction and renewed integration into another form. The three chapters which comprise Part II offer a detailed analysis of the transformation of the subjectivity of labour in the 1990s, by looking at the recomposition of the state, labour reform and stabilisation policies, and employment and
social policy. Although stabilisation policies led to the halt of hyperinflation, they became the lynchpin for the deep social, economic and political recomposition of social relations, leading to the decentralisation of labour, the reorganisation of trade union activity into business and opposition unionism, the expansion of social conflict, the casualisation and flexibilisation of labour, social insecurity, unemployment and poverty. The notion of subjectivity as determinate abstraction allows us to understand the paradoxical disjunction between the policies presented as the source of stability and the unstable, insecure and unhappy forms of private and social life. Moving beyond the debate of 'stability vs. instability', this paradox is explored through a detailed study of one of the main forms of social protest in 1990s Argentina: the roadblocks organised by casual and state workers, the unemployed and the socalled marginal social layers. As a determinate abstraction, the roadblock appears as an
embodiment of the subjective, political, economic and social transformation within stability. Thus, roadblocks do not destabilise stability, as some scholars suggest, but rather stability destabilises human lives, since, as a form of class antagonism, it legalises, legitimises and celebrates uncertainty - the end of labour as the source of power in society and the end of politics. The roadblock stands against the violence of stability which causes labour to virtually disappear through poverty and unemployment.
AUTHORS: Paul CHATTERTON - Ana Cecilia DINERSTEIN - Peter NORTH - F. Harry PITTS
In this paper, we suggest that not enough attention is being paid to the place of political contestation and antagonism in terms of how SDGs are being rolled out as part of a broader consensual, liberal geo-politics under conditions of contemporary neoliberal capitalism. In particular, we argue for more consideration of the significance of the SSE as way to achieve the SDGs through responding to a broader crisis of social reproduction and work where millions of people cannot live with dignity, and looming climate crisis is not addressed. We want to foreground that the SSE is offering novel and tangible alternative forms of social production, useful work and means of the social reproduction of life beyond the current capitalist crisis that are being developed from the grassroots up, and which represent a challenge to conceptions of the SDGs as a policy prescription or mobilising utopia within an overall framework of neoliberal globalism. Consequently, we argue for policy in support of the SSEs that facilitates, rather than tames, these radical grassroots critiques and for the development of an autonomous, meso-civil society SSE sector.
Paper prepared for the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on the Social and Solidarity Economy (UNTFSSE) Call for Papers 2018
Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals: What Role for Social and Solidarity Economy?
and the rule of value under the auspices of a national state, postcapitalist and post-work vistas represent abstract ‘bad utopias’ that break insufficiently with the present, and in some ways make it worse, replacing a wage over which workers can lawfully struggle with a state administered monetary payment that creates a direct relationship of power between citizen and state. This is highlighted in the potential adoption of basic income as part of authoritarian nationalist policy platforms including that of Nerendra Modi in India. Suggesting that struggles over the contradictory forms assumed by social reproduction in capitalist society are themselves labour struggles and not external to them, we pose a ‘concrete utopian’ alternative that creates the capacity to reshape the relationship between individuals, society and the rule of money, value and the state rather than reinforce it. To illustrate this we examine the Unemployed Workers Organisations instituted in Argentina. This poses one potential means of devolving monetary and non monetary resources and power rather than centralising them in the hands of an all-powerful ‘postcapitalist’ state that would carry all the scars of the society it sets out to surpass. Such a 'concrete utopia' would create space for, and not liquidate or falsely resolve, class struggle in, against and beyond capitalist development.
the radical aspects of workers’ actions in exchange for financial and
technical assistance in pursuit of workers’ objectives of job preservation and
self-managed work. The paper presents (i) preliminary findings from ongoing ESRC research project on ‘The Movement of the Unemployed in Argentina’ (RES-155 -25-0007) NGPA,
LSE and (ii) findings from a previous research on social mobilisation and policy change in Argentina (2002-03).
rasch akademische, aktivistische und künstlerische Bereiche
und Diskurse erobert – und er hat dabei neue Bedeutungen er-
halten, die sich von der traditionellen Verwendung des Aus-
drucks in antikolonialen Befreiungskämpfen unterscheidet. Wäh-
rend radikale Befreiungskämpfe auf eine Dekolonisierung abzie-
len, ist das marxistische Denken allerdings weit entfernt von
der Praxis von ^Basisbewegungen^^. Eine typische Antwort auf
dieses Dilemma versteht Marx und den Marxismus als eurozent-
risch und unberührt von der Dekolonisierung. Aber stimmt das?
Oder ist es nicht vielmehr an der Zeit, Marx und den Marxismus
aus dem >eurozentrischen Käfig< (Tansel 2014) zu befreien?
Over the past decade, the term decolonising rapidly conquered academic, activist, and artistic domains, and discourses, acquiring new meanings that depart from the traditional uses of the term to designate the anti-colonial political struggles for liberation. While radical struggles gesture towards decolonisation, Marxist thinking is removed from grassroots movements’ praxis. A typical response to this quandary would be that Marx/ism is Eurocentric and has nothing to do with decolonising. But is it? Or is it the right time to take Marx/ism out of the ‘Eurocentric cage’ (Tansel 2014)?
--https://peripherie.budrich-journals.de/
--https://shop.budrich.de/produkt/peripherie-3-2021-heft-164-covid-19-globale-kontroversen/
ranza. Si bien el sistema es propenso a la crisis por naturaleza, la poli-crisis actual
ha tocado el núcleo de la modernidad. Nos encontramos en un nuevo momento
donde por un lado observamos el avance del autoritarismo y el éxito de partidos
políticos de derecha radical extrema, muchos de ellos con acceso a gobiernos de-
mocráticos; y por el otro lado, el fortalecimiento de los movimientos urbanos y
rurales, sociales, indígenas, de mujeres, de trabajadores precarios, territoriales, de
base en el sur y también en el Norte globales. En esta conversación con Beat Diet-
schy, filósofo, teólogo y el último asistente del filósofo Ernst Bloch en Tubinga,
reflexionamos acerca del potencial de los análisis de Bloch sobre el fascismo y el
nazismo en su época para entender el momento político peligroso de expansión
casi planetaria del autoritarismo y de la extrema derecha en diferentes contextos y
grados por un lado, y sobre la fuerza de los movimientos territoriales, sociales, de
hoy para frenar la crisis ecológica y crear nuevos mundos movidos por la esperanza,
por el otro lado. En este diálogo, exploramos las nociones blochianas de ‘no con-
temporaneidad’, no-simultaneidad, ‘Multiversum’ y ‘trans-simultaneidad’, ‘dialéc-tica múltiple’, para elaborar sobre las contradicciones plurales de las relaciones so-
ciales y de las luchas de clase hoy (en sentido amplio) contra y más allá del capitalis-
mo global. Finalmente, nos preguntamos qué tipo de Marxismo se requiere para
descolonizar la praxis y la teoría críticas actuales y navegar la penumbra del presen-
te. Es decir, nos preguntamos cómo podemos agudizar nuestros análisis y luchas
contra situaciones políticas donde las (viejas y nuevas) derechas extremas institucio-
nalizadas intentan sacar partido de la crisis de los pilares de la modernidad (progre-
so, desarrollo, crecimiento económico, cohesión social, democracia liberal, repre-
sentación política, igualdad universal) y de la izquierda (lucha de clases, trabajo
versus capital, emancipación, feminismo y revolución).
ABSTRACT John Holloway's work spans over four decades of intellectual development and commitment to radical change. Holloway develops his ideas through ongoing dialogues, conversations, debates and discussions with both Marxists and radical scholars and students, and social movements and activists, worldwide. His work developed within the context of the xism. The chapter focuses on Holloway’s theory of interstitial revolution which, paraphrasing Holloway, has produced a ‘crack’ in Marxist praxis. I start with an account of Holloway’s life and intellectual trajectory. Then, I discuss his theory of interstitial revolution. I conclude that for critical theory as a critique of capital, Holloway’s work is groundbreaking.
Keywords: critical theory, revolution, Holloway.
have a more radical, social movement history; and (3) regimes of development, which today often emphasize local practices, participation and self-determination. This capturing of autonomy
reminds us that autonomy can never be fixed. Instead, social movements’ demands for autonomy are embedded in specific social, economic, political and cultural contexts, giving rise to possibilities as well as impossibilities of autonomous practices."
Palabras clave: re-espacialización, reproducción social, sociología del trabajo, sub- jetividad, trabajo, utopía concreta.
Labour in transition. Social reproduction, re-spatialisation and the sociology of work
Abstract: In this work, I explore the importance of the sphere of social reproduction to rethink the centrality of work. New labour actors are emerging and engaging in collective activities that are considered part of the process of ‘social reproduction’ in a broad sense, that is, the reproduction of society as a totality. The struggles around housing, health, education, work, facilitates the emergence of ‘labor’ identities and organiza- tions in communities, districts and global North and South streets. The concept of social reproduction (expanded) can serve to recognize the creation of alternative forms of work around social reproduction for the understanding of new forms of capitalist work in the present, and the renewal of the sociology of work.
Keywords: concrete utopia, re-espacialization, social reproduction, subjectivity, work, sociology of work.
Con esta cita, ubico mi ponencia en el marco de la filosofía social y política la qué considero absolutamente necesaria para poder afrontar los desafíos de la geopolítica regional y mundial, y acompañar las luchas e innovaciones que están emergiendo en los barrios y territorios de nuestra ciudades y zonas rurales y poder así armarnos de fuerza colectiva para rechazar y elevarnos mas allá la mediocridad a la que nos empujan los gobiernos y las ideologías, y una academia cada vez más pragmática, mas limitada, más privatizada.
https://www.globalproject.info/it/in_movimento/larte-di-organizzare-la-speranza-movimenti-e-critica-sociale/21967
How can we understand the diversity of forms of radical counter hegemonic resistances within current processes of accumulation of capital, from a non-Eurocentric perspective? In this paper, I anticipate a conversation between two approaches: Decolonial School and Open Marxisms. By constructing the imaginary dialogue between these two perspectives I identify their theoretical strategies, limitations and mutual misrecognitions that prevent fruitful cross-fertilisation, in order to delineate a new direction in the study of counterhegemonic politics and social emancipation. To DS it is indispensable not only to recognise particular trajectories of experience of power, oppression and domination but also to overcome ‘both Eurocentric and Third World "fundamentalisms"' (Grosfoguel 2008). Marxists and political economists reproduce the ‘coloniality of power’ that movements in the South are struggling against. However, a DS fails to consider the material processes of emergence of counterhegemonic pluriversal resistance within and against new forms of accumulation of global capital. (Open) Marxists and radical political economists offer an adequate critique of global capital. They explain how current forms of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ (Harvey 2003) and ‘crisis’ have changed the experience of oppression, exploitation and resistance. Yet, are they aware of the epistemic distortion implied in the (North-centric) character of their critique of capital? I offer the term ‘Decolonial Marxism’ to designate a form of critique that bridges diverse forms of counter hegemonic resistance within current processes of accumulation of capital from a non-North centric perspective. ‘Decolonial Marxism’ offers a new understanding of pluriversal forms of resistance against and beyond global. I also contend that Neozapatismo constitutes the practical and political embodiment of Decolonial MArxism for it bridges the struggles of indigenous, rural, urban counter hegemonic struggles, in the North and South, thus challenging in practice, the theoretical divide and allowing the incorporation of movements’ own theorising into the critique of capital.
Despite this presence of hope as an emerging field of inquiry and orienting concept for political mobilization, however, competing discourses of hopelessness, despair and paralysis pervade everyday life in capitalist societies and are particularly oppressive in contemporary states of autocracy and austerity. Many people experience the distance between the extant conditions of their lives and the alternative future that they would like to build as an unbridgeable chasm, or regard their futures as relatively closed. Their fears about the nature and extent of work that is required to change this situation are exacerbated by common-sense understandings of hope as wishful thinking for a demonstrable result within existing rhythms and parameters of possibility, rather than as a critical and active relation to what Paulo Freire (1970) called ‘untested feasibility’. This generates backlash against the politics of hope in favour of adaptive or pragmatic agency – which, in situations where sustained radical change is needed to ensure future and better possibilities, only reinforces the experience of impossibility. Such untheorised politics of hope do not, in other words, underpin critical forms of anticipatory consciousness or action. In this paper, we translate recent research into conceptual tools which can be used to unblock this impasse and activate the power of hope for sustaining emancipatory movements, and argue that ours is a dialectically auspicious moment for what Ernst Bloch (1959) once called ‘learning hope’. Drawing on epistemological and political insights from autonomous movements and critical pedagogies, we demonstrate how hope can be theorized as an epistemological relationship to human and social change, a ‘directing act of a cognitive type’ and a method of critical thinking and action, and illustrate how these theorizations can inform pedagogies of hope that facilitate ‘possibility-enabling practices’ and ‘alternative-creating capacities’ (Amsler 2015, Dinerstein 2014). While methods and pedagogies of hope are multifaceted, in this paper we focus on elucidating the character of hope-time (in comparison with domination-time) and theoretical and empirical methods for recognizing and intervening in hope-time. From this theoretical work, we finally introduce some concrete tools for educating and organizing hope to activate and sustain radical being in both social movements and everyday political life. These tools can be used to make ourselves aware of the unfinished and open nature of the world and the necessity of daydreaming individually and collectively. Above all, they enable us to design a new approach to reality that does not take it for granted and rely on ‘facts’ but that engages with the other realities, the realities of the not yet that already lurks in the present and required to be imagined.
The process of creation of alternatives brought back the depreciated idea of utopia in a new light without becoming 'utopianist'. Grassroot movements, collectives, and communities have freed utopia from the heavy ideological prison and party politics burden and embrace, instead, a concrete utopia based on a praxis-oriented activity. Concrete utopias have left behind the abstract project of a dreamed society by the political Avant guard to be realised in the future. Instead, they are opening spaces (pockets) from where to enunciate and articulate new concrete realities in the present. They are utopian because their praxis denaturalise capitalist society by operating within the dimension of the not yet reality that awaits in the interstices of the present reality to be anticipated. This process is driven by hope as political praxis and resistance, rather than wish, passive expectation, religion, or fantasy.
Every political party of the Left that hopes to become the government faces a key problem: how to shape a nourishing relationship with civil society and engage with grassroots political activism from a position of power. Feeling very close and grateful to those who campaigned and worked hard to get them into power, the leaders of the Party will promise to keep encouraging social mobilisation and to become humble servants of the people, the citizens, expecting to be held to account by them. Nevertheless, collective initiatives, ideas and demands that once were central to the political campaign must straightaway be decoded into the institutional language of the law and policy, for any government-left or right-needs to maintain order and stability. I call this the problem of translation.
Universal basic income claims to be a radical and emancipatory way forward, but it only confirms the domination of money over our lives. There is nothing subversive about that.
Ana Cecilia Dinerstein
The debate over whether universal basic income (UBI) should be a central project of the left is intensifying. Regarded as a transitional demand, advocates suggest that UBI is the solution to the crisis of waged labour as well as a good, realistic utopia. Opponents disagree, myself included. I laid out the reasons why we should regard UBI as a bad utopia in and in an article published in the journal Development & Change, and later in a piece for The Conversation several years ago. Here I will limit myself to pointing out – once again – the elephant in the room: the problem with money. We know that the imperative of money for human survival creates all sorts of problems and misery in this world. My question is simple: will the ‘universal’ distribution of money solve or reinforce these problems?
read more: https://www.globalproject.info/it/in_movimento/larte-di-organizzare-la-speranza-movimenti-e-critica-sociale/21967
These movements are not just part of the everyday turnover of domestic politics. They are a real rejection of the insidious politics of austerity, and the beginning of the end of the politics of fear.
Austerity politics, after all, depends on fear. It relies on worries about the future to justify swingeing cuts and sacrifices in the present. Creating a sense of hopelessness is a very efficient way to quickly implement irreversible structural economic changes, even if they degrade living standards, worsen working conditions, and generally spread fear and unhappiness.
And as it goes in Europe today, so it went in Latin America in the 1990s.
Read More: https://theconversation.com/what-europes-hopeful-left-can-learn-from-latin-america-37422
Read more: https://theconversation.com/rosa-luxemburg-revolutionary-warned-of-environmental-destruction-and-resurgent-far-right-109783
https://theconversation.com/argentina-votes-to-legalise-abortion-in-latest-victory-for-global-feminism-98299
read more: https://roarmag.org/essays/women-on-the-verge/
Professor Ana Cecilia Dinerstein unterrichtet Politische Soziologie am Department of Social and Policy Sciences der Universität von Bath, Vereinigtes Königreich. Sie hat einen Doktortitel in Soziologie (Warwick), einen Abschluss in Politikwissenschaften (Universität Buenos Aires) sowie einen Master in Comparative Labour Studies (Warwick). Bevor sie sich der Wissenschaft gewidmet hat, war Ana Schauspielerin und Gewerkschaftsaktivistin. Ana ist bekannt für ihre Arbeit zum Offenen Marxismus, und ihre Veröffentlichungen über argentinische und lateinamerikanische Politik, Subjektivität der Arbeit, Arbeitslosigkeit, soziale, populäre und indigene Bewegungen, Kämpfe der Emanzipation, kollektive Autonomie, die Politik der Sozialpolitiken und der öffentlichen Ordnung, Staatlichkeit, die Philosophie von Ernst Bloch und neue Formen der Utopie und Hoffnung.
Interview published in Malmoe 103, p. 10, https://www.malmoe.org/ translated from Spanish by Tilo Hase and Britta Matthes. Original Interview Reorganizar la Esperanza: Por un marxismo abierto y decolonial. Entrevista with Ana Cecilia Dinerstein, by Alejandro Mantilla, La Siniestra, 2017
Werner Bonefeld è professore alla University of York, autore di Critical Theory and the Critique of Political Economy e The Strong State and the Free Economy e tra i curatori del SAGE Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory. Ana Cecilia Dinerstein insegna sociologia alla University of Bath. Tra le sue pubblicazioni ci sono The Labour Debate (curato insieme a Mike Neary), The Politics of Autonomy in Latin America: The Art of Organising Hope e Social Sciences for an Other Politics: Women Theorising without Parachutes. Ana sta lavorando a un programma di ricerca chiamato “politica globale della speranza”, che si propone di collegare la teoria critica con le pratiche autonome dei movimenti sociali. John Holloway è professore in sociologia alla Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Messico. I suoi libri più noti sono Cambiare il mondo senza prendere il poteree Crack Capitalism.
Non tutti i punti di vista espressi nell’intervista riflettono quello della redazione di Globalproject.info, in particolare per quanto riguarda le valutazioni sul reddito universale. Traduzione a cura di Lorenzo Feltrin.
Hoop is geen wens of fantasie maar een uitnodiging om de handen in elkaar te slaan en alternatieven uit te werken, zegt Ana Cecilia Dinerstein
https://lavamedia.be/de-kunst-van-het-organiseren-van-hoop/
Interview d’ Ana Cecilia Dinerstein
L’espérance n’est pas une fantaisie, mais une invitation à travailler ensemble, à développer des alternatives, à traverser les contradictions et à affronter les oppressions qui viendront du pouvoir.
https://lavamedia.be/fr/l-art-dorganiser-lespoir/
Hoop is geen wens of fantasie maar een uitnodiging om de handen in elkaar te slaan en alternatieven uit te werken, zegt Ana Cecilia Dinerstein.
https://lavamedia.be/de-kunst-van-het-organiseren-van-hoop/
Traduccuion al frances por Denis Amutio
http://keywordsforradicals.net/keywords.html
Having said that, and after reflecting on the comradely criticism pointing to the shortcomings of that article, I do believe that full reference to this other work, including that of Kathi Weeks, would have enriched the article immensely, but it would not have affected the essence of our critique for the latter is directed to the general principle of demanding the implementation of the Universal Basic Income (UBI) by the capitalist state for a project of the left. The question stands all the same: What does it mean politically to demand the distribution of money via UBI to sustain the social reproduction of labour as a transitional demand for an hegemonic project of the Left, when money is the most abstract expression of capitalist property, and therefore the real problem that needs to be addressed if we were to fight for dignified forms of life?
The focus of this piece, which contains a partial (and individual) response to Stronge and Hester’s critique, but is not limited to it, is twofold. First, I point to the notorious absence of a discussion of money in the debate about work, social reproduction and post-work utopias. Inextricably connected to this is my second aim: to discuss in what ways the overestimation of the UBI as a key element of a hegemonic project of the Left makes the PWP’s advocates neglect or diminish present serious attempts to create what can be broadly defined as alternatives forms of social reproduction at the grassroots and world-wide or, what Srnicek and Williams call ‘folk politics’.
Estos momentos de rebelión y movilización popular encarnan y ponen en movimiento complejas y profundas transformaciones en las relaciones sociales del período a considerar. La virtud de una movilización popular como la de di- ciembre de 2001 en Argentina no reside en su capacidad para “alterar el orden social establecido”, sino primordialmente en su capacidad de revelar y poner en evidencia la violencia intrínseca a la imposición del (des)orden capitalista.
Con este marco de análisis, el trabajo sugiere que la profunda crisis institu- cional donde predominaron aspectos financieros inició un movimiento hacia la recomposición de la subjetividad y la recuperación de la política que pusieron un límite a la violencia del capitalismo. Se inició así un proceso de lucha por “transformar a la sociedad civil en sujeto” (Tischler, 2001), es decir un proceso de crítica fundamental no sólo a la democracia excluyente y a las políticas económicas neoliberales sino, principalmente, a las formas mismas de la de- mocracia y la política subordinadas al nuevo orden impuesto por el capital glo-
246 Revista Venezolana de Economía y Ciencias Sociales
bal, los organismos internacionales y el imperialismo norteamericano durante los años 90. Esta crítica se expresó en una recuperación de la capacidad de acción política colectiva y la reinvención de la subjetividad política de ciertos sectores de la sociedad. Si bien las características mismas de la movilización (formas antiinstitucionales, directas, territoriales) no coadyuvaron a una disputa en el plano institucional, constituyen sin embargo la base fundamental para un cambio cualitativo de mayores dimensiones, cuya forma todavía no puede pre- verse pero que, sin duda, formará parte de un cambio político regional en el largo plazo.
La siguiente sección analiza los hechos de diciembre de 2001 y el signifi- cado político de la insurrección popular. La segunda sección explora la rela- ción entre la crisis y la forma de la movilización popular en diciembre de 2001. La tercera presenta las características comunes de los nuevos territorios para la acción colectiva que emergieron o se fortalecieron a partir de diciembre de 2001. La cuarta sección presenta la recomposición del poder político y econó- mico posdiciembre. La quinta sección evalúa la naturaleza y el significado del cambio político operado en Argentina en relación con la forma de la crisis y la recomposición del poder estatal político y económico.