"Capitalism [?] is approaching an apocalyptic zero-point?"

Doesn't seem so to me, compared to the 1930s, 1950s-1980.

Barry Wellman

S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC              NetLab Director
Department of Sociology                  725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388
University of Toronto  Toronto Canada M5S 2J4  twitter:barrywellman
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman            fax:+1-416-978-3963
Updating history:      http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php

But are you anti capitalist Barry?

This seems like a typical Marxist statement IMHO

Peter

Peter Timusk B.Math statistics. BA legal studies
Legal studies of the Information Age
Vice President Computers for Communites
School work blog http://notebook.webpagex.org
Some papers www.webpagex.org

-----Original Message-----
From: citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org [mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org]
On Behalf Of Barry Wellman
Sent: August-29-10 4:41 PM
To: communication and information technology section asa
Subject: [CITASA] oh really?

"Capitalism [?] is approaching an apocalyptic zero-point?"

Doesn't seem so to me, compared to the 1930s, 1950s-1980.

Barry Wellman

S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC              NetLab Director
Department of Sociology                  725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388
University of Toronto  Toronto Canada M5S 2J4  twitter:barrywellman
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman            fax:+1-416-978-3963
Updating history:      http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php

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"Capitalist zero-point"?

In his new book "Living in the end times", Slavoj Zizek is saying that capitalism is approaching an apocalyptic zero-point. What this exactly means, depends on how we understand the notion of the capitalist "zero-point". Zizek uses Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's five stages of grief to understand this capitalist zero-point, but I suggest another interpretation:

Me, Matthias Schafranek, David Hakken and Marcus Breen have interpreted this notion of the zero point in the introduction to the tripleC special issue on capitalist crisis+communication in the following way (see: http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/228)

Žižek does not outline what it exactly means that capitalism has reached a zero-point. At the zero-point, water reaches a critical point in its structural development, a threshold of one of its parameters is reached so that quantity turns into the emergence of a new quality: reaching a quantitative value of zero degree temperature, the aggregate condition of water turns from the quality of water into the quality of ice. Or as Hegel put it: “Thus the temperature of water is, in the first place, a point of no consequence in respect of its liquidity: still with the increase of diminution of the temperature of the liquid water, there comes a point where this state of cohesion suffers a qualitative change, and the water is converted into steam or ice“ (Hegel, 1874, §108).
Dialectical development is development by contradictions, in the realm of society a dialectic is never automatically exploded into participatory humanity through structural antagonisms, but requires active political struggles to do so (Fuchs, 2010b, chapter 2). We should therefore interpret the zero-point of capitalism not as meaning the automatic breakdown of capitalism, but one should add to Žižek’s analysis that the capitalist zero-point reached in the crisis signifies in a more modest dialectical sense that the system will change its quality at a certain organizational level: 1) it could be the emergence of a qualitatively new form of neoliberal capitalism, 2) the emergence of a more regulated, neo-Keynesian form of capitalism, 3) the rise of fascist forms of capitalism, 4) a long time of conflict and global wars, or 5) the emergence of a participatory society and economy. The results are not predetermined, but depend on conditions, i.e. if social struggles are organized and if so, what their results are. “We may think of this period of systemic crisis as an arena of struggle for the succesor system“ (Wallerstein, 2010, p. 140). Whereas the resurgence of neoliberal capitalism or Keynesianism does not bring about change at a systemic level, but mainly at the policy level, and the fascist and the global war alternatives mainly mean change as the rise of new forms of brutal direct violence, the fifth option means a deeper emancipatory change that establishes non-dominative structures. The meaning of the zero-point of capitalism is that there are different development options in the crisis that are not pre-determined, but decided by class struggles. This meaning is not pointed out by Žižek (2010) in Living in the end times, but was hinted at in a BBC interview, where he said that the zero-point means that we are “approaching some terminal point, […] where something will have to change” (interview with Slavoj Žižek on BBC Newsnight, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb50-117dQQ&feature=related, accessed on August 1, 2010). Žižek (2009a, 2010) reminds us that the crisis means that capitalism ever and ever again produced, produces, and will produce misery (for workers losing their jobs, capitalists losing their firms, people dying or living deprived of a humane existence, etc), and that therefore it is right now the right time for thinking about alternatives to capitalism and for acting according to this insight.

=> Capitalist zero point? Yes, really.

Best, Christian

Am 8/29/10 10:40 PM, schrieb Barry Wellman: > "Capitalism [?] is approaching an apocalyptic zero-point?"

Doesn't seem so to me, compared to the 1930s, 1950s-1980.

Barry Wellman
_______________________________________________________________________

S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director
Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388
University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963
Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- 
- - -
Priv.-Doz. Dr. Christian Fuchs
Unified Theory of Information Research Group
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:christian.fuchs@uti.at">christian.fuchs@uti.at</a>
Personal Website: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://fuchs.uti.at">http://fuchs.uti.at</a>
NetPolitics Blog: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://fuchs.uti.at/blog">http://fuchs.uti.at/blog</a>
Research Group: http;//www.uti.at
Editor of 
tripleC - Cognition, Communication, Co-Operation | Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.triple-c.at">http://www.triple-c.at</a>
Fuchs, Christian. 2008. Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age. New York: Routledge. 
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://fuchs.uti.at/?page_id=40">http://fuchs.uti.at/?page_id=40</a>

Žižek is a Marxist (critical theorist), which means he is always going to be
eager to trumpet the end of capitalism. A more nuanced analysis comes from
the work of Joseph Stiglitz, who, as an economist offers some course of
action. In my new book, Fallen Walls and Fallen Towers: The Fate of the
Nation in a Global World (Nimble, LLC), I write:

Stiglitz [in Making Globalization Work (2006)] ... describes the problem of
globalization as the growth of an increasingly "informal" economy without
formal rules to control it. "Formal" in this analysis means codified, based
on a negotiated agreement such as a constitution. Stiglitz in both works
(2003, 2006) says that globalization has great potential to enrich people
and that he favors capitalism and competition in a free market. What he
calls for is a "free" global economy in which wealthy countries are not
protecting their own interests while forcing open the markets of poorer
countries and in which there are not controls on short-term, profit-driven
commercial activities that can ravage local commerce, agriculture, and
ecosystems.

What is needed, Stiglitz says, is to attain a balance between market forces
and governmental services, particularly economic ones, such as public
pension programs, incentives for innovation and sustainable technologies,
and protections for workers.
Stiglitz advances a number of concerns and recommendations. As he argued in
Globalization and its Discontents (2003), the rules must be the same for
advanced industrial countries so as not to further disadvantage people just
entering the world economy. This is an argument for greater transparency on
the part of metanational economic entities in their dealings with
nation-states and was the point, if a single point can be drawn, of the
W.T.O. protests in Seattle in December 1999.

Stiglitz asserts that there is a need for better measurement of values that
are currently not monetized very well, such as social cohesion, traditional
cultural patterns, and long-term prosperity. The analogy to ecosystems in
nature is an apt one. If unfair competition drives traditional economic
activities into extinction, entire communities can be destabilized, as we
have already seen where cash crops set up by outsiders have driven out
established crops and trades, and then family and unrest have followed.
Similarly, Zygmunt Bauman has raised the concern that, as economic
globalization increases, community, meaning, and human connections become
road kill in the quest for a better bottom line (2004).

Bauman, Zygmunt. 2004. Wasted Lives: Modernity and its Outcasts. Cambridge:
Polity Press.
Stiglitz, Joseph. 2003. Globalization and Its Discontents. New York: W.W.
Norton and Co.
Stiglitz. Joseph. 2006. Making Globalization Work. New York: W.W. Norton and
Co.

For my money, this sort of measured, practical analysis is much more
valuable than announcing the end of days. Let's keep in mind how very silly
Fukuyama (arguing from the other end of the ideological spectrum) looked
when he announced that time was over and that history had stopped. Time has
only stopped in the sense that both Žižek, Fukuyama and anyone else announce
the culmination or crash of human development is having a failure of
imagination and can't anticipate the next development.

As for China practicing "capitalism," I disagree with that too. State
control of and manipulation of currency, manufacturing and export conditions
is much closer to national socialism in China than any other recognizable
system. It's very, very stimulating to the economy for a while and then it
too crashes.

I discuss more about how to approach the global economy as a world system in
my new book. The Kindle version is out and the hardback will be available
September 11.

Thanks for including me in the discussion.

Adrienne Redd

Adrienne Redd, Ph.D. | author of Fallen Walls and Fallen Towers: The Fate of
the Nation in a Global World, Nimble Books, LLC
www.fallenwallsfallentowers.com http://www.fallenwallsfallentowers.com
http://adrienneredd.wordpress.com http://adrienneredd.wordpress.com
adjunct professor Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice | Arcadia
University |215-778-3784 cell | 267-295-1179 fax | adrienne@redd.com

well, let's take a bit of Annales school in hand and follow Braudel that noted.... institutionally, we have never had capitalism, nor, markets.  We have had anti-markets, that is, we have had small groups of people exchanging goods in private.  Markets, to be markets, must be public.  Adrienne hits Stiglitz's idea perfectly, states/corporations, create uneven playing fields that are not free or open, which is braudel's idea from many years ago.

Capitalism, in the idea that it is good to collect capital and everyone should do that, never really existed, what we ended up with was corporatism, which again is about private exchanges and usually fixed prices.  It never existed because immediately we created underclasses that could not participate.  It existed for some, perhaps for a while, until they found better ways to produce what they wanted.  Ohhh, I think we are doing pretty well saying that capitalism is in 'crisis' too, and reaching its 'end times' or 'zero sum'  as the only place you are likely to find something like capitalism is amongst children or at swap meets... capitalism and markets... are too inefficient, i'd guess in the end, for people that want to make money.

Here's the big question how can you have a regime of permanent growth.... in a world with limit resources and thus limited population support?  if you can resolve that... without science fiction, then you are a better political economist of capitalism than i... granted many are.

Jeremy Hunsinger
Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
Political Science
Virginia Tech

Everything you can imagine is real.
--Pablo Picasso

I empathize with the urge not to be inundated with messages. That said, this
(capitalism and where it's going) discussion was the best I've read at this
forum. We ought to do more discussion of the impact of communications and
other technologies on capitalism and social structure. Ultimately, our
collective fascination with Internet-based and other instantaneous
communications will be subsumed under: What is happening to global and
social order? This is as it should be. I can imagine that there might have
been an equivalent to our group 120 years ago entitled, "The Typewriter
Discussion." Ultimately, the tools of social change are less important that
understanding the character of the social change itself. So, good for us.
That was worthwhile.

If you email me two suggestions of forums that might be interested in
discussing my new book, I¹ll send you a PDF of it for free.

Adrienne

Adrienne Redd, Ph.D. | author of Fallen Walls and Fallen Towers: The Fate of
the Nation in a Global World, Nimble Books, LLC
www.fallenwallsfallentowers.com
http://adrienneredd.wordpress.com
adjunct professor Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice | Arcadia
University |215-778-3784 cell | 267-295-1179 fax | adrienne@redd.com