Search results

Abstract. The purpose of the article is to open up epistemological space for revitalising the idea of democratic
economic planning as a viable alternative vision. It
argues that a proper development of the idea must be
preceded by a comprehensive critical interrogation of a
hegemonic multidimensional ideological mystification
of capitalism and its markets. By utilizing Marxist and
eco-socialist insights the article identifies and analyses
several central ideological mystifications that enact an
epistemic closure. These range from the obfuscation
of capitalism's role in creating the climate crisis as an
inherently unsustainable system, to the mystification of
its non-evolutionary origins, to the obfuscation of the
role economic planning plays in contemporary capitalism, to the mystification of markets as ideal spaces of
freedom and innovation obfuscating the ever present
market-related oppression, exploitation and environmental devastation, and to silencing concrete historical examples of democratic economic planning such as
project Cybersyn that should serve as an inspiration for
imagining an alternative order.
Keywords: climate change, ideological mystification,
democratic economic planning, capitalism, neoliberalism

Abstract. The article analyses the innovative Marxist conceptualisation of
politics proposed by the Slovenian political scientist Adolf Bibič. The latter
built on the contributions of Heglo-Marxists and Gramsci to political theory.
At the core of his theory, he placed the question of the political power–class exploitation relationship. He distinguished political politics from self-managing politics, and problematised the dominant Western understandings of politics as well as the theories of elitism and pluralism. Moving away from such theories and dogmatic Marxist notions about the withering away of politics, he formulated his project of humanising politics beyond class exploitation and capitalist relations of production. This project assumed a necessary transformation of political practice in terms of the dialectical process of the socialisation of politics and the politicisation of society.
Keywords: Adolf Bibič, politics, political science, class relations, economic
exploitation.

Abstract. The Covid-19 crisis that hit the USA especially hard was accompanied by intensified anti-Chinese racism fuelled by the anti-Chinese rhetoric used by the Trump Administration. Although Trump's political opponents blamed him for having mismanaged the pandemic response, the anti-Chinese stance was a bipartisan issue. The article aims to analyse anti-Chinese racism in its systemic and historical dimensions. It examines the nature and strategic utility of antiChinese racism for past, the Trump, and future administrations as well as for America's elites generally. It is shown that anti-Chinese racism was substantially transformed during the pandemic and above all utilised to address the general destabilisation of the US-dominated socio-political and socio-economic order both at home and globally. China's growing importance around the world and the potential domestic destabilisation of the US mean that the strategic utility of anti-Chinese racism may well remain important for some time to come. Keywords: Covid-19 crisis, Trump's presidency, antiChinese racism, systemic racism, foreign policy