Juha Suoranta, Tere Vadén: Wikiworld (2008/2010)
Filed under book | Tags: · capitalism, collaboration, economy, education, learning, political economy, politics, socialist media, web 2.0
Wikiworld explores a revolution in the world of education. The way we learn is changing: institutionalised learning is transforming into new forms of critical learning and open collaboration. This book offers a historical and political framework to think about the future of learning and educational media.
The authors provide an overview of the use of new technologies and learning practices, and assess how the changing nature of education can lead to a more socially just future. At the same time, they place their analysis of education within a wider social and economic framework of contemporary capitalism.
Publisher Pluto Press, 2010
ISBN 0745328911, 9780745328911
176 pages
PDF (2010 version)
PDF (2008 version, copyleft)
Christian Marazzi: The Violence of Financial Capitalism (2010)
Filed under book | Tags: · capitalism, cognitive capitalism, economy, finance, financial crisis, politics
“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
PDF (updated on 2017-6-26)
Comment (0)Nigel Thrift: Knowing Capitalism (2005)
Filed under book | Tags: · actor-network theory, anthropology, capitalism, complexity theory, computing, cultural economy, economics, economy, genetic algorithms, geography, information technology, rfid, social theory
Capitalism is well known for producing a form of existence where `everything solid melts into air’. But what happens when capitalism develops theories about itself? Are we moving into a condition in which capitalism can be said to possess a brain?
These questions are pursued in this sparkling and thought-provoking book. Thrift looks at what he calls “the cultural circuit of capitalism,” the mechanism for generating new theories of capitalism. The book traces the rise of this circuit back to the 1960s when a series of institutions locked together to interrogate capitalism, to the present day, when these institutions are moving out to the Pacific basin and beyond. What have these theories produced? How have they been implicated in the speculative bubbles that characterized the late twentieth century? What part have they played in developing our understanding of human relations?
Building on an inter-disciplinary approach which embraces the core social sciences, Thrift outlines an exciting new theory for understanding capitalism. His book is of interest to readers in Geography, Social Theory, Antrhopology and Cultural Economics.
Publisher SAGE Publications, 2005
Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society
Theory, culture & society
ISBN 141290059X, 9781412900591
Length 256 pages