Postcapitalist Futures

Political Economy Beyond Crisis and Hope

Adam Fishwick, Nicholas Kiersey, Adam Fishwick, Nicholas Kiersey

• Éditeur: Pluto Press
• Année: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781786807243
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Politics & International Relations
• Sous-sujet: Globalisation

This book critically engages with the proliferation of literature on postcapitalism, which is rapidly becoming an urgent area of inquiry, both in academic scholarship and in public life. It collects the insights from scholars working across the field of Critical International Political Economy to interrogate how we might begin to envisage a political economy of postcapitalism.

The authors foreground the agency of workers and other capitalist subjects, and their desire to engage in a range of radical experiments in decommodification and democratisation both in the workplace and in their daily lives. It includes a broad range of ideas including the future of social reproduction, human capital circulation, political Islam, the political economy of exclusion and eco-communities.

Rather than focusing on the ending of capitalism as an implosion of the value-money form, this book focuses on the dream of equal participation in the determination of people's shared collective destiny.

1
Critical IPE and the End of History

Owen Worth

The origins of what we understand to be critical International Political Economy (IPE) are contested. Increasingly, they appear to have contrasting points of departure and conjure up a contrasting collection of historical narratives that often are contained within disciplinary and generational boundaries. However, from the spirit of Kant and the various criticisms of political economy of Marx, the central objective of ‘critique and transform’ has been – at least tentatively – the primary objective of those who look to label themselves as working within ‘critical IPE’. Commitments towards these twin notions of critique and emancipation, however, are also subjective. While it might be acknowledged that the concept of emancipation itself is subjective and is used for different purposes and towards different ends (Farrands 2002; Farrands and Worth 2005), the ontological reasoning that binds the different forms of critique are nevertheless methodologically geared towards transforming the present system towards their respective forms of enlightenment. This form of emancipation might be one that is geared towards ending or transforming capitalism in its various guises, yet it might also be used within the context of an academic exercise. It is one thus geared to academic emancipation through the pursuit of critical knowledge, as opposed to towards concrete visions of future utopias (Farrands 2002; Germain 2007).

Rather than debate what might or might not be understood as emancipation within forms of critical IPE, this chapter will suggest that a framework for emancipation needs to be more adequately spelt out in order to examine strategies to transform neoliberalism. To an extent, it looks to seek out how critical IPE might seek to reach its ‘end of history’. While the term ‘end of history’ might be associated with Fukuyama’s much maligned victory of liberalism at the end of the cold war, the term nevertheless provides a useful metaphor for reasoning within historical transformation (Fukuyama 1992). As critical IPE looks towards transforming neoliberalism, by its very essence its commitment towards emancipation must be one that contains within it a desire to inspire its own ‘end of history’ (in terms of an end to its historical struggle), no matter how subjective this might collectively appear. In this sense, an ‘end of history’ represents a metaphorical commitment towards an emancipatory strategy in a manner which, while it has not always been lacking, has certainly been inconsistent and ambiguous within IPE.

Notions of post-capitalism and the ability to utilise technological advancements in order to transcend capitalist models of production have in recent years provided us with useful models for further development (Srnicek and Williams 2015; Mason 2015). Yet, the era of neoliberalism has seen a lack of strategic ways of looking at methods by which such a transformation can be achieved. Indeed, it remains a symptom of the era of neoliberalism that, for all the material provided on critiquing its existence, little has been provided on how it can be challenged. The dearth of ideas has been prominent within traditional social democratic entities that have struggled to compete with the rise in forms of right-wing populism (Worth 2013). As a response, this chapter will suggest that by returning to the notions of Gramsci’s ‘war of position’ and Luxemburg’s understanding of ‘dialectical materialism’ – which, it will suggest, are not competing notions but are indeed compatible – we can provide strategic foundations that look to accompany such recent arguments and allow for their future understanding and development. Both Gramsci and Luxemburg are rightly heralded as stalwart pioneers of Western Marxism, yet it is their understandings of strategic transformation that I would like to develop here. In taking on the strategic mantle of the ‘war of position’, and of the logistics behind the method implicit within Luxemburg’s framework of dialectical materialism, the chapter seeks to show how emancipation might be employed. By doing so, it suggests a route to strategising and imagining an emancipatory ‘end of history’, based upon a standard critical Marxist methodological framework of ‘critique and transformation’ that allows us to be much more explicit in outlining the transformative commitment that is central to any account that claims to be ‘critical’.

CRITICAL IPE AND EMANCIPATION

The question of how we should understand critical IPE is one that is both much discussed and remains underdeveloped. The focal points of how it appeared and where it is drawn from is often dependent on the type of research undertaken and (often) the geographical areas where such work is being undertaken (Murphy and Tooze 1991; Murphy and Nelson 2001; Abbott and Worth 2002; Shields et al. 2010; Belfrage and Worth 2012; Cafruny et al. 2016). As the recent histories of Benjamin Cohen reveal, IPE was developed as a geographically specific discipline, with different parts of the world favouring different philosophies of study (Cohen 2008, 2014). In addition to this, as other studies have shown, IPE has had a tendency to create certain networks, and as a result has created different narratives and contrasting focal points of study (Shields and Nunn 2018; Seabrooke and Young 2017). This has also been the case with critical IPE. For, while critical IPE might have been united in its desire to locate and critique the development of neoliberal capitalism, its development has different starting points.

In the same way that IPE tended to emerge out of the British development of the subject, much current IPE scholarship can lay claim to the influence of Susan Strange and the emerge of the International Political Economic Group (IPEG) in the early 1970s. As a result ‘new’ IPE, the precursor of ‘critical’ IPE, emerged towards the end of the 1980s and in the early 1990s as the Thatcher–Reagan doctrine began to gain prominence and the collapse of the USSR and the Marxist-Leninist form of state socialism became imminent (Cohen 2008: 164–172). The term ‘critical IPE’ was developed and used throughout the 1990s in BISA (British International Studies Association) circles, with perhaps the most significant academic breakthrough being with a group of scholars based largely at Newcastle University and led by Barry Gills, who looked to form a collaborative project on the nature of contestation and resistance (Amoore 1997; Gills 2000). Yet many of those involved were to move to other fields, such as Geography and Development Studies, where opportunities to contribute towards a more developed critical community are encouraged within the academy. Outside of the British dominated form of IPE that originated with BISA, ‘Critical Political Economy’ (CPE; as opposed to critical IPE) has perhaps managed to attract a wider multidisciplinary following. While initially taking its cue from the Amsterdam School project, it has produced a number of diverse projects that cut across the lines of the academy and activism. Those within the remit might situate CPE within a wider IPE framework (Jäger 2020; van Apeldoorn et al. 2010), it should nevertheless be stressed that it emerged from a different point of origin and largely from the remit of European Studies (that can include Comparative Political Economy, European Politics, European Sociology and European Political Economy).

While such academic differences often appear pedantic, especially when concerned with looking at the importance of emancipation within critical social science, the epistemological origins of narratives within critical IPE remain important when looking to understand the ways in which critical knowledge has been developed within IPE. For example, despite the minor differences in the origins and focus of study, many still see Robert Cox’s distinctions between problem-solving and critical historicism as being the significant departure point in the emergence of contemporary critical IPE (Farrands and Worth 2005; Berry 2007; Germain 2007, 2016; Bruff and Tepe 2009). Robert Cox’s now acclaimed piece from 1981 illustrated how logistical claims within the study of International Relations (IR) appeared from the point of view of the ‘problem-solver’ rather than from those who can see the faults of the workings of the order/system as a whole. The latter took on the form of the ‘critical’ as they looked to place IR within a wider lens in order to point out its inadequacies (Cox 1981). Part of this, as Randall Germain argues, was due to the historical framework in which Cox positioned himself. Despite Cox often being considered as the central figure in developing Gramsci’s work for an IPE audience, his use of E.H. Carr and R.G. Collingwood was as important to his work as critical Marxists such as Gramsci (Germain 2016).

Others have tended to ignore the disciplinary developments of critical IPE/PE and looked to rely on more traditional inspirations. Alex Callinicos, for example, uses Marx as the ultimate source in order to understand both critique and emancipation. For him, the building of socialism through class struggle remains the main purpose for any form of critical application when looking at the international/global political economy (Callinicos 2009, 2016). Werner Bonefeld also sees Marx’s ‘critique of political economy’ as the ultimate departure point but then looks to unravel the work of the Frankfurt School in order to provide a basis for ontological critique rooted within the conditions of contemporary open Marxism (Bonefeld 2014). The work of the Frankfurt School might have been absent in Cox, but it has been used within IPE as a means of strengthening his distinction between critical and problem-solving theory (Farrands and Worth 2005). Of particular interest here is Horkheimer’s understanding of the differences between traditional theory and critical theory, with the latter having a central commitment towards emancipation (Shields 2011; Ryner 2015).

The separation of problem-solving or traditional theory and critical theory remains perhaps the fulcrum for critical IPE. The necessity for emancipation and for transformation that is enshrined within the critical method provides a methodological basis for ends of history to be imagined and understood. While the various forms of critical IPE have utilised different post-positivist forms of emancipatory strategies, like Bonefeld and Callinicos, I feel that the most effective form of understanding transformation is through the building of socialist transformation (Shields et al. 2011). Rather than extending this by building upon the critical ontology developed by the Frankfurt School, as others have done, I feel that the practical and strategic models provided by both Gramsci and Luxemburg appear more useful and less abstract in the contemporary era of neoliberalism. In addition, both look at ways of how to form such strategies which take their departure from capitalist crisis. As the wider purpose of this collection is to look at what alternatives might emerge from the contemporary crisis of neoliberalism, it is thus essential that critical IPE should seize this conjuncture in order to look at strategic ways to move beyond neoliberal capitalism.

WAR OF POSITION

Gramsci’s entry to critical IPE has been central to its growth in its various guises. Cox’s own constructions of critical theory placed Gramsci at its heart. Largely in reply to concepts that had been used in conventional IPE regarding the notion of hegemony and leadership, Cox substituted the notion of hegemonic stability theory, which understood leadership from economic and political data (indicators such as GDP and military capability), with Gramsci’s idea of hegemony, which was geared around world orders being materially and ideologically forged over time (Cox 1983). Through this, the idea of countering the ideological composition of a hegemonic order by contesting its legitimacy emerged within the discipline. As such, the pursuit and study of forms of ‘counter-hegemony’ and of counter-hegemonic ideologies and discourse that look to construct ideological frameworks that oppose the prevailing order can be located (Chin and Mittelman 1997). Studies that look at the nature of resistance have thus been used to assess the strength of particular counter-hegemonic strategies in order to assess their potential for sustained opposition (Gill 2000; Gills 2000; Steger 2005; Worth 2013).

Yet ‘counter-hegemony’, as a concept, was not one that Gramsci himself used when referring to his own understanding of hegemony. His own understanding of challenging a hegemonic order was geared around the construction of an alternative socialist hegemony that could develop and sustain itself over time. While Lenin’s understanding of hegemony was largely geared around how a state would build an order across society through a combination of the vanguard party, trade union activity and intellectual endeavour, Gramsci argued that it was through the mediums of popular culture, popular and traditional religion, national and local ‘folklore’ and the avenue of ‘common-sense’ that such hegemony was constructed (Williams 1980). Likewise, it is through the contestation of every facet within civil society that a hegemonic order must be challenged if there is a possibility for it to be defeated or transformed. From such assumptions, Gramsci developed his understanding of the war of movement and the war of position.

A war of movement or of manoeuvre represents a form of direct confrontation or insurgency against the state that not only includes revolt, a coup, the seizing of power but also general strike action and mass protests that affect the workings of the state (Gramsci 1971: 230–1). A war of movement can be thus understood as a frontal assault on the state and its institutions of power. Gramsci refers both to Trotsky’s idea of ‘total victory’ of the revolutionary process within the Soviet Union and also to the process of the mass strike, suggested much earlier by Rosa Luxemburg (Gramsci 1971: 233–4 and 2007: 209). In contrast, a war of position refers to the battle of the ‘hearts and minds’ in society and where the key assumptions, principles and ‘common-sense’ of a particular order are contested, challenged and ultimately replaced (Gramsci 1971: 229–30). For Gramsci, the war of position was the more difficult to sustain as it required the building of a different form of hegemonic order so that a new set of values could be developed. The process is where the basis of an alternative hegemonic project is presented within civil and political society at large. As a result, a prolonged historical struggle can occur in order for norms and ideas to be built, challenged and debated. For Gramsci, the war of position was the real challenge in the building of socialism and one that both Bolshevik and other socialist leaders have often underestimated in their own perception of revolutionary strategy. Hence, any success of a socialist society depended upon the building of a hegemonic project that could win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the public at large through a prolonged war of position (Brodkin and Strathmann 2004).

For critical IPE, the notion of the war of position provides a mechanism where the contestation of neoliberalism can be both realised and also measured through academic enquiry. In this way, focal points of study are widened to include the political economy of every facet of hegemonic construction. Thus studies focusing upon culture, folklore and religion at the local, national and global level are necessary in order for a consistent framework of a war of position to be maintained. Critical IPE indeed has looked at many such studies and, by its very essence, is geared towards reaching out towards fresh dimensions (Belfrage and Worth 2012). Yet, more importantly, the notion of the war of position provides an ethical dimension. Gramsci placed considerable emphasis on the role of intellectuals when understanding how hegemony is maintained and contested. While part of this was to show how orga...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: The Endings of Capitalism beyond Crisis and Hope
• 1 Critical IPE and the End of History
• 2 Dialectical Ends and Beginnings: Why Barbarism at the End of Capitalism Means Barbarism beyond Capitalism
• 3 A New Wheel to Keep Capitalism Moving? The Artificial Womb in Feminist Futures and the Capitalist Present
• 4 Development Alternatives: Old Challenges and New Hybridities in China and Latin America
• 5 ‘Property Belongs to Allah, Capital, Get Out!’ Turkey’s Anti-capitalist Muslims and the Concept of Alternatives to Capitalism
• 6 Socialist Governmentality and the Problem of the Capital Strike, or, a Defence of Fully Automated Luxury Communism
• 7 Belaboured Markets: Imagining a More Democratic Global Economic Order
• 8 Post-capitalism and Associated Reactions: Mapping Alternative Routes and Transcending Strategic Certainty
• 9 Mapping Post-capitalist Futures in Dark Times
• 10 The Distance Between Two Dreams: Post-neoliberalism and the Politics of Awakening
• Afterword: Living in the Catastrophe
• Notes on Contributors
• Index