Monday, October 31, 2011

The Social Individual: Collectivity and Individuality in Capitalism (and Marx)



This is the video of a talk I gave at Utah Valley University in September. It was aimed at an audience of undergraduates, so it is very pedagogical and unfortunately a bit dry.

Text of the talk, which I did not exactly stick to, is after the break (for whatever reason the endnote links do not work).

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Getting to 99: Between #OccupyWallStreet and Mic Check!

Signs I made for my local Occupation

The potentials and contradictions of the OccupyWallStreet movement are far too many to enumerate. They are nothing other than the potentials and contradictions of the current historical conjuncture. We should not be surprised that is has shown itself to be racist and patriarchal in places, after all we live in a racist and patriarchal society. Moreover, we should not be surprised that its anti-capitalism is highly ambiguous if not out an out contradictory, with cries of “capitalism not corporatism” coexisting alongside “Abolish capitalism.” We perhaps should be surprised that it exists at all. 

Sunday, October 09, 2011

The Politics of Composition: A Few Thoughts on Occupy Wall Street

Photo from Maximum RocknRoll's Facebook feed 

Franco “Bifo” Berardi’s After the Future opens with a question, a question that defines the current political moment. As he writes: