Suchergebnisse

This book adopts an explicitly postmodernist perspective of the digital revolution. While exploring issues relating to the re-creation of social life in the digital world, its main focus is on the political economy and in particular the extent to which the paradigms of capitalism and socialism can be mapped as postcapitalism onto this new world, This book explores digital technologies from a distinctive postmodern perspective. Contrary to common belief, Sassower argues that digital technologies have allowed for the centralization of economic power. Further, where new digital devices offer the potential to express freedom and bring about revolutions they also allow for increasing possibilities for surveillance of citizens. The digital age and the current state of the global political economy are therefore linked and focusing on the promise of new technologies without locating them in their political structures and institutions or economic realities can be misleading and dangerous

This book explores digital technologies from a distinctive postmodern perspective. Contrary to common belief, Sassower argues that digital technologies have allowed for the centralization of economic power. Further, where new digital devices offer the potential to express freedom and bring about revolutions they also allow for increasing possibilities for surveillance of citizens. The digital age and the current state of the global political economy are therefore linked and focusing on the promise of new technologies without locating them in their political structures and institutions or economic realities can be misleading and dangerous.

This special issue introduces and unpicks some of the intellectual wiring behind the emerging thinking on postcapitalism and the post-work society on the contemporary left. The first part considers the empirical claims made around the changing face of work and economic life in contemporary capitalism and the potential for a postcapitalist or post-work alternatives.The second part considers the wider political underpinnings and consequences of this vision of capitalism and its transformation.

Penseur atypique, André Gorz (1923-2007) fait partie de ces auteurs hétérodoxes qui ont toujours mis en avant l'instabilité constitutive du capitalisme. Sa critique de l'économie accorde une place centrale au thème du travail : bien qu'il soit le plus souvent contraint, encadré et subi, le travail peut rester un lieu de libération personnelle. Mais dans quelle mesure le revenu doit-il rester lié à une situation d'emploi ?

In this paper, I explore the implications for gender equality of building democratic institutions in workplaces and democratic planning in the economy. I review proposals for postcapitalism and consider whether those institutional innovations are likely to address three aspects of gender equality: discrimination and harassment at work, adequate provision for care work, and social control over consumer decisions. I propose three areas for developing competency at democratic decision making that could improve gender equity.JEL Classification: P4, B54

AbstractThis article introduces the special issue on the politics of postcapitalism. Considering the theoretical foundations, empirical perspectives and political ramifications of claims made about a coming 'post‐work' or 'postcapitalist' society, it maps existing debates through a discussion of two key recent texts, Paul Mason's Clear Bright Future and Aaron Bastani's Fully Automated Luxury Communism. It first surveys how the relationship between labour market trends, technological change and wider political‐economic shifts is articulated in the postcapitalist literature. It then explores how concepts from Marx are deployed to depict social relations as a constraint on technological development and its utopian potentialities, leading to political demands for new class actors and electoral blocs centring on the new forms of economic and political activity associated with digital networks. It also considers the role of the state and how this theoretical and political approach envisions historical change, situating utopian visions of an incipient postcapitalist alternative to capitalism within the contemporary political context of authoritarian populism and challenges to liberal democracy. Finally, it explores the continuing relevance of humanism as a critical counterpoint to the social and philosophical agenda of present day 'posthumanism'. It concludes that, in unfavourable political conditions, it would be strategically unwise to stake too much on an over‐optimistic approach to the unfolding future. This outlook, it is suggested, carries considerable risks and consequences for a contemporary left in search of a viable electoral coalition and route back to power.