The triumph of neoliberalism globally, with the exception of a few pockets of resistance, signifies the weakness of theory, that is, of the claims that theory is endowed with the resources to transform the world through a kind of enlightenment followed by emancipatory action. What evidence is there, however, that neoliberal capitalism reigns supreme in […]
Hardt
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
How should one understand the rise of ‘fundamentalism’?
With the current wave of “terrorist” attacks, not only in France, but in other parts of the world such as Nigeria and Mali, too, “fundamentalist” organisations have become the focus of many questions, including the one concerning the reason why (particularly young) people join these despite risking their lives in the course of performing their […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
What ‘war’ means today
When picking up Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Multitude – War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (Penguin, 2006), again, in the light of recent developments across the globe involving Syria, Isis, Boko Haram and al-Qaeda (to mention only some of the names associated with war), I was struck, anew, by their astute identification […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality
A world where time replaces money as currency
Isn’t it amazing how a huge money-spinner of a film, made on a budget of millions, obviously in anticipation of making a sizeable profit in moviehouse-attendance and on DVDs, can tap into something that goes diametrically against the grain of its own production rationale? What it taps into, is the latent desire on the part […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
The significance of recent protests for democracy
There is a certain historical justice about TIME magazine’s choice of its 2011 Person of the Year: The Protestor, with the sub-script, “From the Arab Spring to Athens, from Occupy Wall Street to Moscow”. What managing editor Richard Stengel writes on page 7 of this issue (December 26, 2011/January 2, 2012), resonates with Albert Camus’s […]