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Parallax of Growthexplores the ideas of economy and ecology and the factors that have put them on a collision course. Bjerg argues that our current mode of economic organization is characterized by an inherent ?debt drive?, whereby the creation of money through the issuance of commercial bank credit has locked our economy into a vicious circle of forced growth and increasing debt. Parallax of Growthis not a catalogue of solutions to the ecological or the economic crisis. The book aims to shift the inquiry from ?what shall we do?? to ?why have we not already done it?? In order to address the challenges of our contemporary times of crisis, we need to understand how the idea of growth is deeply ingrained in the ideology as well as the organization of our society. The book aims to open the space for philosophical thinking about this important issue. Ole Bjergis Associate Professor at the Copenhagen Business School. He is author of several books, including Making Money: The Philosophy of Crisis Capitalismand Poker: The Parody of Capitalism.

AbstractWhat happens to classic Marxist notions of revolution, exploitation and class struggle under the premise that we live in the age of financial rather than industrial capitalism? In this essay I argue that the logic of finance is the main structuring principle of the circulation of value, capital, and money today. Accordingly, we should no longer just think of class struggle in terms of workers and capitalists but also in terms of debtors and creditors. In financial capitalism class is determined by one's position relative to the production of money. This also means that a contemporary idea of revolution is a matter of radical change in the way that money comes into being.

How is Systems Theory possible?

This article tries to undercover some of the fundamental premises of Niklas Luhmann's Systems Theory by looking at its way of asking questions. The question: "how is communication possible?" is seen to be the theory's core question, and the concept of autopoietic social systems the answer to this question. Inspired by Nietzsche's critique of the Kantian question: "how are synthetic propositions a priori possible?" The article confronts System Theory with the question: "why is there being communicated?" I argue that Systems Theory is unable to answer this question without making some ontological assumptions about social systems. However these conflict with the theory's insistence on a radical constructivist epistemology; and too these assumptions involve ascribing social systems with characteristics that we would 'normally' only use in connection with living beings. The article discusses perspectives of introducing the Heideggerian concept of Dasein into Systems Theory to deal with the shortcomings of the theory that are discussed.

AbstractStephen Dunne recently sat down with Ole Bjerg to chair a discussion about his new book Making Money: The Philosophy of Crisis Capitalism (Verso, 2014). We publish an elaborated version of the book's concluding chapter - 'Life after Debt' - within this special issue. This interview and question and answer session puts Ole's argument there, as well as the arguments of his book more generally, into a broader context.