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ABSTRACT
In a discussion of Albena Azmanova’s book Capitalism on Edge (Columbia University Press, 2020), Amy Allen, Paul Apostolidis, Lea Ypi and Albena Azmanova debate key issues critical social theory confronts today. How should critical theorists re-engage with the critique of capitalism without entrapment in old ideological certainties? They revisit the classical debates about transformative agency, direction and methods of change, and the place of normative ideals and of moral theory in the critique of capitalism in light of the current historical juncture.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Book symposium on Albena Azmanova's Capitalism on Edge, convened by Azar Dakwar, 21 May, 2020: https://youtu.be/4e8YKk0UrCc
2. The successful 1917 Socialist revolution in Russia had made the possibility of a revolutionary upheaval part of the political common-sense of the early 20th century. With the November revolution of 1918 in Germany, the Marxist revolutionary movement Spartacus League led by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, and Clara Zetkin established itself as a nationwide organization aiming to institute a soviet republic in Germany. More broadly in the world, discontent with capitalism was acute in the first decades of the century. Writing in the early 1940s, Joseph Schumpeter comments on the rising popularity of Marxism and the ubiquitous ‘atmosphere of hostility to capitalism’, with the public mind ‘so thoroughly grown out of humor with it as to make condemnation of capitalism and all its works a foregone conclusion […] whatever his political preference, every writer or speaker hastens to […] emphasize his critical attitude, his freedom from “complacency,” his belief in the inadequacies of capitalist achievement, his aversion to capitalist and his sympathy with anti-capitalist interests.’ Schumpeter J., 2003[1943]. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. London and New York: Routledge.
3. Azmanova A., 2012. The Scandal of Reason. A Critical Theory of Political judgment. New York: Columbia University Press.
4. Ypi L., 2011. Global Justice and Avant-Garde Political Agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press, ch. 3.
5. Rawls J., 1971. A Theory of Justice. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 303. Italics added.
6. See McNay L., 2022. The Gender of Critical Theory: On the Experiential Grounds of Critique. Oxford: Oxford University press.
7. Apostolidis P., 2019. The Fight For Time: Migrant Day Laborers and the Politics of Precarity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1.
8. Puar J., 2012. ‘Precarity Talk: A Virtual Roundtable with Lauren Bertlant, Judith Butler, Bojana Cvejíc. Isabell Lorey, Jasbir Puar, and Ana Vujanovíc.’ TDR: The Drama Review. 56(4), 166.
9. Apostolidis P., 2022. The Fight For Time, and ‘Desperate Responsibility: Precairty and Right-Wing Populism.’ Political Theory. 50(1), 116.
10. Apostolidis P. and Azmanova A., ‘In a pandemic, we are more precarious than ever’, The Jacobin (16/04/2020).
11. Apostolidis P., ‘Sick from Work COVID-19 and the crisis of occupational safety and health in meatpacking’, Public Seminar, 14 April 2020.
12. Berlant L., 2011. Cruel Optimism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
13. Marx K., 1978. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. In: R. C. Tucker, ed. The Marx-Engels Reader. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 70–79.
14. Azmanova A., ‘Relational, structural and systemic forms of power: the “right to justification” confronting three types of domination.’ Journal of Political Power, 11(1), 68–78.
15. Allen A., 2008. ‘Power and the Politics of Difference: Oppression, Empowerment, and Transnational Justice.’ Hypatia, 23(3), 156–72. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25483202
16. Azmanova A., 2016. ‘Empowerment as Surrender: How Women Lost the battle for Emancipation as They Won Equality and Inclusion’. Social Research, 83(3).
17. Azmanova A., Capitalism on Edge. 7–8, 56–57, 133–134. See also Azmanova A., 2019. ‘The Paradox of Emancipation: Populism, Democracy, and the Soul of the Left’. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 45(9-10), 1186–1207.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Amy Allen
Amy Allen is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Pennsylvania State University; she edits the ‘New Directions in Critical Theory’ series of Columbia University Press.
Paul Apostolidis
Paul Apostolidis is Professorial Lecturer at the London School of Economics’ Department of Government. He co-edits the book series ‘Studies in Subaltern Latina/o Politics’ for Oxford University Press, and is Director of the Radical Critical Theory Circle.
Albena Azmanova
Albena Azmanova is Professor of Political and Social Science at University of Kent’s Brussels School of International Studies. She is co-found and co-editor of Emancipations: a Journal of Critical Social Theory, and Director of the Radical Critical Theory Circle.
Lea Ypi
Lea Ypi is Professor in Political Theory at the London School of Economics’ Department of Government and Adjunct Associate Professor in Philosophy at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University.