Christian Marazzi: The Violence of Financial Capitalism (2010)

“This first English-language edition of Christian Marazzi’s most recent book, The Violence of Financial Capitalism, makes a groundbreaking work on the global financial crisis available to a new audience of readers. Marazzi, a leading figure in the European postfordist movement, first takes a broad look at the nature of the crisis and then provides the theoretical tools necessary to comprehend capitalism today, offering an innovative analysis of financialization in the context of postfordist cognitive capitalism. He argues that the processes of financialization are not simply irregularities between the traditional categories of wages, rent, and profit, but rather a new type of accumulation adapted to the processes of social and cognitive production today. The financial crisis, he contends, is a fundamental component of contemporary accumulation and not a classic lack of economic growth.

Marazzi shows that individual debt and the management of financial markets are actually techniques for governing the transformations of immaterial labor, general intellect, and social cooperation. The financial crisis has radically undermined the very concept of unilateral and multilateral economico-political hegemony, and Marazzi discusses efforts toward a new geo-monetary order that have emerged around the globe in response. Offering a radically new understanding of the current stage of international economics as well as crucial post-Marxist guidance for confronting capitalism in its newest form, The Violence of Financial Capitalism is a valuable addition to the contemporary arsenal of postfordist thought. This expanded edition includes a new appendix for comprehending the esoteric neolanguage of financial capitalism—a glossary of ‘Words in Crisis,’ from ‘AAA’ to ‘toxic asset.'”

Translated by Kristina Lebedeva
Publisher Semiotext(e), 2010
Intervention series, 2
ISBN 1584350830, 9781584350835
112 pages

publisher

PDF (updated on 2017-6-26)

Lewis Mumford: Technics and Civilization (1934-) [English, Spanish]

The book gives the history of technology and its interplay in shaping and being shaped by civilizations. Mumford asserts that the development of modern technology, rather than springing up during the Industrial Revolution, has its roots in the Middle Ages. He argues it is the moral, the economic, and the political choices we make, not the machines we use that has produced a capitalist industrialized machine-oriented economy, whose imperfect fruits serve the majority so imperfectly. The development of technology is divided into three overlapping phases: ecotechnic, paleotechnic and neotechnic.

First published in England, 1934
Publisher: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, London, Seventh impression, 1955
496 pages

Wikipedia (EN)

Technics and Civilization (English, 1934/1955, updated on 2014-3-19)
Tecnica y civilizacion (Spanish, trans. Aznar de Acevedo, 1971/1992, updated on 2014-3-19)

Sarai Reader 08: Fear (2010)

Fear aims to question how fear and anxiety shape individual and collective dispositions, how lives and social processes are designed around and against them, and what effects they have on our politics and our economy. It is especially interested in fear as language, as mode of communication, as a way of ordering and rendering the world.

Edited by: Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta and Jeebesh Bagchi
Assistant Editor: Shyama Haldar Kilpady
Sarai Reader Editorial Collective: Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Ravi Sundaram, Ravi Vasudevan, Awadhendra Sharan + Jeebesh Bagchi
Produced and Designed at the Sarai Media Lab, Delhi
Translations: Shveta Sarda
Published by The Director, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, india
ISBN 9788190585323
312 pages

Publisher

PDF (updated on 2014-8-29)
PDFs (added on 2015-12-7)