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Theory

ephemera writes:

"The Forum and the Market:
The Complexity of the Social and the Struggle for Democracy"

Jeremy Gilbert

This paper starts from the observation that the very concept ‘social forum’ is to some extent predicated on a distinction between the market – the primary organisational model of neo-liberalism – and the forum, conceived as a different kind of model.

It explores the different logics of social organisation implied by the competing concepts of the forum and the market, taking off from Arendt’s assertion that the transformation of the former into the latter was always the project of the tyrants of ancient Greece.

It explores the complex political logics by which the collectivism and partial homogeneity required by any democratic situation have increasingly been undermined by the socio-economic processes of liberalisation and marketisation typical of post-modern capitalist societies. It goes on to explore different ways of understanding human collectivity in the light of the ‘democratic paradox’ by which individualism and egalitarianism are, at a certain level, logically incompatible.

It ultimately takes issue with any attempt, such as that exhibited by Hardt and Negri, to resolve this dilemma by willing the social into a more ‘simplified’ state than that it has always hitherto existed in, but argues that by contrast the very strength of the social forum project has been its willingness to experiment with the creation of multiple and overlapping new sites of democratic representation and deliberation. It finally suggests that if this project is to have useful correlates in the UK context, it must be understood in relatively abstract terms, as the lack of a history of radical democratic invention in the UK renders any direct public critique of representative democracy unlikely to win popular support.

[This article first appeared in 'ephemera: theory & politics in organization', Vol. 5, Iss. 2 (May 2005). The full-text pdf version can be downloaded at http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal]

Marx and Philosophy Society
Second Annual Conference

Saturday 10th September 2005, 9.30am - 5.30pm

Room 728, Institute of Education,

University of London

20 Bedford Way, London WC1

Speakers:

Moishe Postone (Author: Time, Labour and Social Domination)

'The Subject and Social Theory: Marx and Lukacs on Hegel'

Patrick Murray (Author: Marx's Theory of Scientific Knowledge)

'Value, Money, and Capital in Hegel and Marx'

Chris Arthur (Author: The New Dialectic and Marx's Capital)
'Capital and Logic'

Scott Meikle (Author: Essentialism in the Thought of Karl Marx)

'The Composition of Marx's Reaction to Economic Thought'

stevphen writes:

Continental Drift Seminar

Brian Holmes


Enrollment info for Continental Drift Seminar with Brian Holmes

Part I — Sept, (12) and (15–18)
Part II — Oct (20–24).

Contents

0. Invite
1. Dates
2. About Seminar Format and Schedule
3. How to Enroll? + Funding
4. Continental Drift — An Overview
5. About Brian Holmes
6. Specifics

_______________________________________
0. Invite

We are pleased to invite you to participate in a Seminar with Brian Holmes this September and October online and at 16Beaver.

There are two possible ways of joining:
1. to physically attend in NYC
2. to participate via webcast

We will give more information about the online version, as we have details, so for this email, we focus on the physical participation.

Continental Drift is a modular and experimental seminar that will attempt to embark upon the "impossible" task of articulating the immense
geopolitical and economic shifts which took place between 1989-2001, the effects of those changes on the emerging bodies of governance (i.e., the formation of economic blocs like EU or NAFTA) and in turn the effects on subjectivity. Having witnessed the incredible vibrancy of social movements which took hold in that same period, the seminar acknowledges that new modes of control and channeling of various flows have merited a shift in tactics and strategies. The question of "what now?" is precisely at the core of our study. "The goal, then, is to map out the majority models of self and group within each of the emerging continental systems, to see how they function within the megamachines of production and conquest – and at the same time, to cross the normative borders they put into effect, in order to trace microcartographies of difference, dissent, deviance and refusal."

We hope you will be able to join us in what should be an open and critical discussion.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Zapatistas: The Second Stage"

Immanuel Wallerstein

When NAFTA came into effect in January of 1994, the Zapatistas — a group
representing the indigenous Mayans in Mexico — revolted in Chiapas, one of
the poorest regions in the country, and drew attention to their right to
autonomy. For the last 11 years, the Zapatista rebellion has reinvigorated
anti-systemic movements around the world. The protests at the 1999 WTO
meetings in Seattle, as well as similar demonstrations in Genoa, Quebec
City, and Gleneagles, were in no small measure inspired by the Zapatistas.
Last month, however, the Zapatistas declared that their struggle had entered
a new phase, one that would be political and inclusive, but not military.
Similar to the actions of 1994, this declaration, says Immanuel Wallerstein,
seems once again to be the barometer of an international shift in sentiment.
Although the details have yet to be revealed, the author implies that this
new initiative could be the inspiration for a similar reevaluation
throughout similar movements around the world.

Since 1994, the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas has been the most important
social movement in the world — the barometer and the igniter of antisystemic
movements around the world. How can it be that a small movement of Mayan
Indians in one of the poorest regions of Mexico can play such a major role?
To answer that, we have to take the story of the antisystemic movements in
the world-system back to 1945.


From 1945 to the mid-1960's at least, the antisystemic movements (or Old
Left) — the Communist parties, the Social-Democratic parties, the national
liberation movements — were on the rise throughout the world, and came to
power in a very large gamut of states. They were riding high. But just as
they seemed to be on the cusp of universal triumph, they ran into two
roadblocks — the world revolution of 1968, and the revival of the world
right.

Dmytri Kleiner writes:

"What is Venture Communism?"
Dmytri Kleiner

Venture Communism is an investment model designed to be a form of revolutionary worker's struggle. The Venture Commune is a type of voluntary worker's association, designed to enclose the productivity of labour and enable the possibility of the collective accumulation of Land and Capital, which, in the endgame, will eventually allow the workers to buy the entire world from the Capitalists.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Biopolitics, Narrative, Temporality"
Polygraph 18


Polygraph: An International Journal of Culture and Politics, is seeking submissions for its next issue, "Biopolitics, Narrative, Temporality."

Call for Papers

Contemporary accounts of politics often coincide with strategies, theories, and experiences of temporality, whether they be historical periodizations, the experience of everyday life, or attempts to give figural or concrete form to such experiences through narration. If we understand narrative as the principal and necessary means through which one is able to make sense of time and temporal experience (and therefore also social change), we must recognize the centrality of narrative to any attempt to think politically; if we reject this claim, we must account for one's ability to make sense of lived experience in some other way.

Beyond this dilemma, however, we must acknowledge the prevalence of narrative as a means for understanding life (everyday or otherwise), causality, and political action, not only in the abstract, but in relation to specific forms of narrative and the different experiences of temporality they engender.

Foster writes:

"Jacques Ranciere and Radical Equality"
Free Society Collective’s Seminar on Anarchism and Philosophy
Todd May and Peter Staudenmaier
August 19-21, 2005

Cosponsored by the Institute for Anarchist Studies and Black Sheep Books

French theorist Jacques Ranciere has promoted an idea of politics as acting from the presumption of radical equality—a presumption most societies deny in their actions if not in their words. His ideas intersect with both anarchist theory and with the thought of recent theorists like Michel Foucault. We will discuss how Ranciere’s ideas might help us think through political organization and political action. Each of the three sessions will consider one chapter from Ranciere’s 100-page “On the Shores of Politics” (it is highly recommended that participants read chapters 2–4 in advance of this seminar).

"Communique From the SI Concerning Vaneigem"

Guy Debord

Part 2 [Continued from here]

This permanent refusal to envision a real historical development, which was the product of his awareness and his acceptance of a relative personal incapacity (which thus increased), was accompanied — as was normal with Vaniegem — by an enthusiastic insistence on a caricature of the totality, in the revolution as in the SI, on the magic fusion, one day, of a spontaneity finally liberated (for the masses and for Vaneigem personally) with coherence: in such a wedding of identifications, the vulgar problems of real society and real revolution would be instantaneously abolished even before one had the displeasure of considering them, which is obviously an amiable perspective for the philosophy of history at the end of a banquet.


Vaneigem handled the concept of the qualitative by the ton, but resolutely forget what Hegel, in The Science of Logic, called "the most profound and most essential quality," which is contradiction. "In relating to it, actually, identity is only the determination of what is simple and immediate, of what is dead, insofar as contradiction is the source of all movement, of all life. This is only to the extent that a thing includes within itself a contradiction that shows itself to be active and alive."

Vaneigem, except at the beginning, didn't love the life of the SI, but loved its dead image, which was a glorious alibi for his mediocre life and a totally abstract hope for the future. Seeing that Vaneigem was quite comfortably accomodated to such a phantom, one understands how he could totally disperse it with a single breath, exactly on 14 November 1970, when it became necessary for him to begin to express his dissatisfaction, because taking the side of satisfied silence was no longer sustainable.

NOT BORED! writes:

Guy Debord on Raoul Vaneigem, [Part One]

Not Bored!


Originally written 35 years ago, Guy Debord's "Communique of the SI concerning Vaneigem" was originally published in The Real Split in the International: Public Circular of the Situationist International (Chronos, 1974, 1985, 1990). A rather rough read, this translation has never been available on-line. What follows is a brand-new translation, which is interesting because 1) it is very well-written, and in Vaneigem's flowing style, not in Debord's aphoristic manner; 2) it is full of both stinging criticism and compassionate appreciation; and 3) it is very relevant to today's "practioneers" of "situationism."

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Call for Applicants

Faculty for Radical Aesthetics

In the context of two research projects starting in autumn 2005 the eipcp
will organize a transnational pilot course for Radical Aesthetics. The
components of this one-year course will take place in different European
cities (Barcelona, Linz, Lüneburg, Napoli, Paris, Vienna). Aimed at
fostering the transnational exchange and discourse on art and activism,
they will reflect on concrete activist and critical projects, accompanying
them with discursive events and theoretical workshops.

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