The Stalin Revolution of 1927–28 coincided with the outbreak of antisemitic violence across the Soviet Union. While frequently treated as incidental, this article argues that the recrudescence of antisemitism offers insight into the structural dynamics that drove the Stalin Revolution and the ensuing breakneck industrialization. Drawing on critical theories of antisemitism from the Frankfurt School, this article reframes Soviet antisemitism within the context of the pan-European antisemitic turn that erupted with the global crisis of the late 1920s. In doing so, it focuses on the relationship between antisemitism and the social rupture engendered by the massive effort to expand, productivize, and rationalize Soviet labor during the Stalin Revolution. Ultimately, the article argues that this eruption of antisemitism points to the persistence of key categories of capitalist social relations—most notably, value and wage labor—that remained at the heart of production within the world’s first “postcapitalist” society.
{"title":"Theorizing Soviet Antisemitism: Value, Crisis, and Stalinist “Modernity”","authors":"Andrew Sloin","doi":"10.1086/688349","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/688349","url":null,"abstract":"The Stalin Revolution of 1927–28 coincided with the outbreak of antisemitic violence across the Soviet Union. While frequently treated as incidental, this article argues that the recrudescence of antisemitism offers insight into the structural dynamics that drove the Stalin Revolution and the ensuing breakneck industrialization. Drawing on critical theories of antisemitism from the Frankfurt School, this article reframes Soviet antisemitism within the context of the pan-European antisemitic turn that erupted with the global crisis of the late 1920s. In doing so, it focuses on the relationship between antisemitism and the social rupture engendered by the massive effort to expand, productivize, and rationalize Soviet labor during the Stalin Revolution. Ultimately, the article argues that this eruption of antisemitism points to the persistence of key categories of capitalist social relations—most notably, value and wage labor—that remained at the heart of production within the world’s first “postcapitalist” society.","PeriodicalId":43410,"journal":{"name":"Critical Historical Studies","volume":"3 1","pages":"249 - 281"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/688349","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60599039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article argues that two distinct concepts of Enlightenment coexist uneasily in Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. According to the first, genealogical concept, Enlightenment is a bewildered form of self-preservation that has existed since the dawn of Western civilization. The second, critical historicist concept views Enlightenment as the critical and anti-authoritarian ideals articulated—most radically in eighteenth-century France—during the uneven development of modern bourgeois society. After examining the origins of these two concepts in Adorno and Horkheimer’s early writings, the article demonstrates why the former became dominant in Dialectic of Enlightenment, while at the same time pointing to significant traces of the latter that remained. The article contends that a reconsideration of the latter concept reveals of a model of early Critical Theory that can still provide a compelling alternative not only to Dialectic of Enlightenment, but also to more recent attempts to place Critical Theory on normative foundations.
{"title":"Genealogy and Critical Historicism: Two Models of Enlightenment in Horkheimer and Adorno’s Writings","authors":"John Abromeit","doi":"10.1086/688404","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/688404","url":null,"abstract":"This article argues that two distinct concepts of Enlightenment coexist uneasily in Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. According to the first, genealogical concept, Enlightenment is a bewildered form of self-preservation that has existed since the dawn of Western civilization. The second, critical historicist concept views Enlightenment as the critical and anti-authoritarian ideals articulated—most radically in eighteenth-century France—during the uneven development of modern bourgeois society. After examining the origins of these two concepts in Adorno and Horkheimer’s early writings, the article demonstrates why the former became dominant in Dialectic of Enlightenment, while at the same time pointing to significant traces of the latter that remained. The article contends that a reconsideration of the latter concept reveals of a model of early Critical Theory that can still provide a compelling alternative not only to Dialectic of Enlightenment, but also to more recent attempts to place Critical Theory on normative foundations.","PeriodicalId":43410,"journal":{"name":"Critical Historical Studies","volume":"3 1","pages":"283 - 308"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/688404","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60599390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the wake of increasing racial violence, new black movements have focused on questions of criminal justice. Yet some have argued that we need to focus more intensely on the deep economic inequality that particularly plagues black communities. The urgency of this issue is heightened by a pervasive sense within black communities of perpetual and rapidly escalating crisis. One way to reframe the question is, what is the relationship between race and this new stage of neoliberal capitalism in the twenty-first century? To what degree can we characterize the period we live in as one of crisis, and, if so, what is the nature of the crisis? I argue that the United States is experiencing a deep crisis—a crisis that is deeply seated in multiple parts of the population—one that will be illegible without understanding the current and historical nature of race and capitalism in the United States.
{"title":"Hidden in Plain Sight: A Note on Legitimation Crises and the Racial Order","authors":"Michael C. Dawson","doi":"10.1086/685540","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/685540","url":null,"abstract":"In the wake of increasing racial violence, new black movements have focused on questions of criminal justice. Yet some have argued that we need to focus more intensely on the deep economic inequality that particularly plagues black communities. The urgency of this issue is heightened by a pervasive sense within black communities of perpetual and rapidly escalating crisis. One way to reframe the question is, what is the relationship between race and this new stage of neoliberal capitalism in the twenty-first century? To what degree can we characterize the period we live in as one of crisis, and, if so, what is the nature of the crisis? I argue that the United States is experiencing a deep crisis—a crisis that is deeply seated in multiple parts of the population—one that will be illegible without understanding the current and historical nature of race and capitalism in the United States.","PeriodicalId":43410,"journal":{"name":"Critical Historical Studies","volume":"3 1","pages":"143 - 161"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/685540","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60502119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article analyzes the trajectory of Brazilian society between the time of populist developmentalism and the emergence of neodevelopmentalism. Challenging mainstream accounts, it argues that the various policy regimes consolidating throughout the period have been forms of realization of the autonomously regulated process of capital accumulation on a global scale. More concretely, it is claimed that Brazilian capitalism has developed under a specific form which sprung from its particular original subsumption in the international division of labor as producer of primary commodities; capital has accumulated there through the recovery of a portion of the local ground rent. This form of capital accumulation has come about through specific developmental patterns, state policies, and political processes. Analysis of the historical development of the Brazilian process of capital accumulation demonstrates the inherent unity among the various policy regimes.
{"title":"From Populist Developmentalism to Liberal Neodevelopmentalism: The Specificity and Historical Development of Brazilian Capital Accumulation","authors":"N. Grinberg","doi":"10.1086/685731","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/685731","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes the trajectory of Brazilian society between the time of populist developmentalism and the emergence of neodevelopmentalism. Challenging mainstream accounts, it argues that the various policy regimes consolidating throughout the period have been forms of realization of the autonomously regulated process of capital accumulation on a global scale. More concretely, it is claimed that Brazilian capitalism has developed under a specific form which sprung from its particular original subsumption in the international division of labor as producer of primary commodities; capital has accumulated there through the recovery of a portion of the local ground rent. This form of capital accumulation has come about through specific developmental patterns, state policies, and political processes. Analysis of the historical development of the Brazilian process of capital accumulation demonstrates the inherent unity among the various policy regimes.","PeriodicalId":43410,"journal":{"name":"Critical Historical Studies","volume":"3 1","pages":"65 - 104"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/685731","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60506156","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Between institutional degradations and structural sources of breakdown, on the one hand, and actions that emerge within times of uncertainty, on the other, lies an essential but undertheorized dimension of political crisis: the struggle over interpretation. This article provides some conceptual tools to think about such struggle and its implications for understanding political crisis. The article examines the Whiskey Rebellion (1794) with reference to the Salem Witch Trials (1692) and, in particular, struggles between interpretations of the events that emerged as they unfolded. A crisis comes to have focus and meaning when interpretations construe the boundaries of a crisis, select certain key elements of social struggle, and develop specific speech genres that actors use to talk about a crisis. These findings suggest a distinction between interpretations of crisis that thematize central structural tensions and interpretations that displace anxieties created by those tensions on to a fetishized interpretation of crisis.
{"title":"Between Structural Breakdown and Crisis Action: Interpretation in the Whiskey Rebellion and the Salem Witch Trials","authors":"I. Reed","doi":"10.1086/685541","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/685541","url":null,"abstract":"Between institutional degradations and structural sources of breakdown, on the one hand, and actions that emerge within times of uncertainty, on the other, lies an essential but undertheorized dimension of political crisis: the struggle over interpretation. This article provides some conceptual tools to think about such struggle and its implications for understanding political crisis. The article examines the Whiskey Rebellion (1794) with reference to the Salem Witch Trials (1692) and, in particular, struggles between interpretations of the events that emerged as they unfolded. A crisis comes to have focus and meaning when interpretations construe the boundaries of a crisis, select certain key elements of social struggle, and develop specific speech genres that actors use to talk about a crisis. These findings suggest a distinction between interpretations of crisis that thematize central structural tensions and interpretations that displace anxieties created by those tensions on to a fetishized interpretation of crisis.","PeriodicalId":43410,"journal":{"name":"Critical Historical Studies","volume":"3 1","pages":"27 - 64"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/685541","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60502156","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The 2008 crisis ended the growth bubble of the 2000s, which Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) governments facilitated through the normative/political-regulatory promotion of household indebtedness. Historically contextualizing this state-citizen relationship, this article maps out four episodes of sovereign fiscalism, namely, debt-taking in the Italian city-states, the making of the absolutist tax/fiscal state, the eighteenth/nineteenth century elaboration of the economic citizen, and the postwar era of managed capitalism. Finally, it applies this framework to the 2008 crisis and the larger post-1970s politico-economic constellation. The crisis can be perceived as a particular articulation of an age-old state-household dynamic—a dialectical alignment of the mode of fiscal state-crafting with the ethos of the state-citizen nexus—characterized by a heightened fiscal attentiveness to ordinary consumer-citizens. By uncovering the sociohistorical conditions governing the dominant precrisis regime, it not only nuances our understanding of the crisis but also of neoliberalism and suggests the implausibility of returning to “Golden Age” democratic capitalism.
{"title":"Fiscal State-Citizen Alignment: Tracing the Sociohistorical Conditions of the Financial Crisis","authors":"T. Celik","doi":"10.1086/685555","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/685555","url":null,"abstract":"The 2008 crisis ended the growth bubble of the 2000s, which Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) governments facilitated through the normative/political-regulatory promotion of household indebtedness. Historically contextualizing this state-citizen relationship, this article maps out four episodes of sovereign fiscalism, namely, debt-taking in the Italian city-states, the making of the absolutist tax/fiscal state, the eighteenth/nineteenth century elaboration of the economic citizen, and the postwar era of managed capitalism. Finally, it applies this framework to the 2008 crisis and the larger post-1970s politico-economic constellation. The crisis can be perceived as a particular articulation of an age-old state-household dynamic—a dialectical alignment of the mode of fiscal state-crafting with the ethos of the state-citizen nexus—characterized by a heightened fiscal attentiveness to ordinary consumer-citizens. By uncovering the sociohistorical conditions governing the dominant precrisis regime, it not only nuances our understanding of the crisis but also of neoliberalism and suggests the implausibility of returning to “Golden Age” democratic capitalism.","PeriodicalId":43410,"journal":{"name":"Critical Historical Studies","volume":"3 1","pages":"105 - 141"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/685555","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60501719","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Neoliberalism is produced on and through the terrain of gendered meanings. Gender naturalizes capitalist relations and addresses and constitutes subjects across economic arenas. As the unmarked side of the pair, masculinity is too often overlooked in these processes, thus obscuring both the masculine character of elite performances and the growing relegation of non-elite men to the margins of the economy. Ethnographic immersion in two pivotal sites of neoliberal emergence at the nexus of the Mexican and global economies—one in production and one in finance—provides a window onto the enactment of the post-Fordist global economy and into the role of gendered subjectifying processes in propelling it forward. This analysis reveals the role of gender in the global dispersal of production and the incitement and legitimation of transnational finance, thus throwing empirical light on the routine functioning of actually existing capitalism.
{"title":"Re-Marking Men: Masculinity as a Terrain of the Neoliberal Economy","authors":"Leslie Salzinger","doi":"10.1086/685553","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/685553","url":null,"abstract":"Neoliberalism is produced on and through the terrain of gendered meanings. Gender naturalizes capitalist relations and addresses and constitutes subjects across economic arenas. As the unmarked side of the pair, masculinity is too often overlooked in these processes, thus obscuring both the masculine character of elite performances and the growing relegation of non-elite men to the margins of the economy. Ethnographic immersion in two pivotal sites of neoliberal emergence at the nexus of the Mexican and global economies—one in production and one in finance—provides a window onto the enactment of the post-Fordist global economy and into the role of gendered subjectifying processes in propelling it forward. This analysis reveals the role of gender in the global dispersal of production and the incitement and legitimation of transnational finance, thus throwing empirical light on the routine functioning of actually existing capitalism.","PeriodicalId":43410,"journal":{"name":"Critical Historical Studies","volume":"3 1","pages":"1 - 25"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/685553","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60502168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
With Michael Dawson, I hold that exploitation-centered conceptions of capitalism cannot explain its persistent entanglement with racial oppression. In their place, I suggest an expanded conception that also encompasses an ongoing but disavowed moment of expropriation. By thematizing that other “ex,” I disclose, first, the crucial role played in capital accumulation by unfree and dependent labor, which is expropriated, as opposed to exploited; and second, the equally indispensable role of politically enforced status distinctions between free, exploitable citizen-workers and dependent, expropriable subjects. Treating such political distinctions as constitutive of capitalist society and as correlated with the “color line,” I demonstrate that the racialized subjection of those whom capital expropriates is a condition of possibility for the freedom of those whom it exploits. After developing this proposition systematically, I historicize it, distinguishing four regimes of racialized accumulation according to how exploitation and expropriation are distinguished, sited, and intertwined in each.
{"title":"Expropriation and Exploitation in Racialized Capitalism: A Reply to Michael Dawson","authors":"Nancy Fraser","doi":"10.1086/685814","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/685814","url":null,"abstract":"With Michael Dawson, I hold that exploitation-centered conceptions of capitalism cannot explain its persistent entanglement with racial oppression. In their place, I suggest an expanded conception that also encompasses an ongoing but disavowed moment of expropriation. By thematizing that other “ex,” I disclose, first, the crucial role played in capital accumulation by unfree and dependent labor, which is expropriated, as opposed to exploited; and second, the equally indispensable role of politically enforced status distinctions between free, exploitable citizen-workers and dependent, expropriable subjects. Treating such political distinctions as constitutive of capitalist society and as correlated with the “color line,” I demonstrate that the racialized subjection of those whom capital expropriates is a condition of possibility for the freedom of those whom it exploits. After developing this proposition systematically, I historicize it, distinguishing four regimes of racialized accumulation according to how exploitation and expropriation are distinguished, sited, and intertwined in each.","PeriodicalId":43410,"journal":{"name":"Critical Historical Studies","volume":"3 1","pages":"163 - 178"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/685814","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60509968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Was slavery capitalist? For today’s historians the question can evoke musty, long-winded debates from the 1970s. Yet in the last year three books by prominent scholars have reopened the question, catching the attention of many outside the historical profession. While they differ in many respects, these books agree that slavery was central to nineteenth-century capitalism and that it enabled the industrialization of Britain and the United States. Walter Johnson’s River of Dark Dreams graphically depicts what Johnson calls the “full throttle capitalism” of the cotton frontier. Edward Baptist’s The Half That Has Never Been Told tells “the making of American capitalism” from the point of view of the slaves who made it. Finally, Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton firmly situates American slavery in the context of capitalism’s global expansion at the gunpoint of an imperial British state. This new development in the historiography of slavery coincides with revived academic interest in capitalism in the wake of the recent financial crisis. Indeed these three authors are all associated with a burgeoning field in American history departments—“the history of capitalism”—in which slavery has become something of a signature topic. It is therefore strange that none of them seem interested in asking what capitalism is. Even Beckert’s field-defining essay neglected to
奴隶制是资本主义的吗?对于今天的历史学家来说，这个问题可能会让人想起20世纪70年代的陈腐、冗长的辩论。然而，在去年，著名学者的三本著作重新讨论了这个问题，引起了历史学专业以外的许多人的注意。尽管这些书在许多方面存在分歧，但它们一致认为，奴隶制是19世纪资本主义的核心，并使英国和美国的工业化成为可能。沃尔特·约翰逊(Walter Johnson)的《黑暗之梦之河》(River of Dark Dreams)生动地描绘了约翰逊所说的棉花边疆的“全速资本主义”。爱德华·浸礼会的《从未被告知的一半》从奴隶的角度讲述了“美国资本主义的形成”。最后，斯文·贝克特(Sven Beckert)的《棉花帝国》(Empire of Cotton)坚定地将美国奴隶制置于资本主义全球扩张的背景下，置于大英帝国的枪口之下。奴隶制史学的这一新发展，与最近的金融危机之后学术界对资本主义重新产生的兴趣是一致的。事实上，这三位作者都与美国历史系的一个新兴领域有关——“资本主义史”——在这个领域，奴隶制已经成为一个标志性的话题。因此，奇怪的是，他们似乎都没有兴趣问什么是资本主义。甚至贝克特的领域界定论文也忽略了
{"title":"Capitalism and Slavery","authors":"John J. Clegg","doi":"10.1086/683036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/683036","url":null,"abstract":"Was slavery capitalist? For today’s historians the question can evoke musty, long-winded debates from the 1970s. Yet in the last year three books by prominent scholars have reopened the question, catching the attention of many outside the historical profession. While they differ in many respects, these books agree that slavery was central to nineteenth-century capitalism and that it enabled the industrialization of Britain and the United States. Walter Johnson’s River of Dark Dreams graphically depicts what Johnson calls the “full throttle capitalism” of the cotton frontier. Edward Baptist’s The Half That Has Never Been Told tells “the making of American capitalism” from the point of view of the slaves who made it. Finally, Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton firmly situates American slavery in the context of capitalism’s global expansion at the gunpoint of an imperial British state. This new development in the historiography of slavery coincides with revived academic interest in capitalism in the wake of the recent financial crisis. Indeed these three authors are all associated with a burgeoning field in American history departments—“the history of capitalism”—in which slavery has become something of a signature topic. It is therefore strange that none of them seem interested in asking what capitalism is. Even Beckert’s field-defining essay neglected to","PeriodicalId":43410,"journal":{"name":"Critical Historical Studies","volume":"26 1","pages":"281 - 304"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/683036","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60425755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Façade democracy. Post-democracy. Zombie democracy. De-democratization. In proliferating such terms, many observers posit that we are living through a “crisis of democracy.” But what exactly is in crisis here? I argue that democracy’s present travails are best understood as expressions, under historically specific contemporary conditions, of a general tendency to political crisis that is intrinsic to capitalist societies. I elaborate this thesis in three steps. First, I propose a general account of “the political contradiction of capitalism” as such, without reference to any particular historical form. Then, I reconstruct Jürgen Habermas’s 1973 book, Legitimation Crisis, as an account of the form this political contradiction assumed in one specific phase of capitalist society, namely, the state-managed capitalism of the post–World War II era. Finally, I sketch an account of democracy’s current ills as expressions of capitalism’s political contradiction in its present, financialized phase.
{"title":"Legitimation Crisis? On the Political Contradictions of Financialized Capitalism","authors":"Nancy Fraser","doi":"10.1086/683054","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/683054","url":null,"abstract":"Façade democracy. Post-democracy. Zombie democracy. De-democratization. In proliferating such terms, many observers posit that we are living through a “crisis of democracy.” But what exactly is in crisis here? I argue that democracy’s present travails are best understood as expressions, under historically specific contemporary conditions, of a general tendency to political crisis that is intrinsic to capitalist societies. I elaborate this thesis in three steps. First, I propose a general account of “the political contradiction of capitalism” as such, without reference to any particular historical form. Then, I reconstruct Jürgen Habermas’s 1973 book, Legitimation Crisis, as an account of the form this political contradiction assumed in one specific phase of capitalist society, namely, the state-managed capitalism of the post–World War II era. Finally, I sketch an account of democracy’s current ills as expressions of capitalism’s political contradiction in its present, financialized phase.","PeriodicalId":43410,"journal":{"name":"Critical Historical Studies","volume":"11 1","pages":"157 - 189"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/683054","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60426426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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