Capitalism’s revenge: critique, response and the third wave of capitalism

ABSTRACT

In this paper I will sketch a theory of how normative demands for freedom emerging from the lifeworld both serve to provide new bases of legitimation for capitalism by drawing on underlying normative orders in the lifeworld while simultaneously giving rise to precarity on the part of new classes of workers. I argue that such a theory can provide a means of theorizing recent protests against capitalism (including, for instance, the events of the Occupy Wall Street movement and protests against the so-called sharing or gig economy). My thesis is that the phenomenon Standing identifies as the precariat emerges out of the reaction of the capitalist system to the events of the 1960s, and to available normative potentials contained therein.

KEYWORDS:

• Precarization
• capitalism
• protest movements
• critical theory
• Boltanski
• Habermas
• Frase

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Kevin W. Gray holds a JD from Osgoode Hall Law School and a PhD in philosophy from Laval University. He works in critical theory and legal philosophy.

Notes

1 For a critique of the uncritical acceptance of the good of work, see, representatively, Weeks’s The Problem with Work (2011).

2 Boltanski and Chiapello (2005).

3 Fraser (2013b), Gutting and Fraser (2015).

4 Fraser (2013a).

5 Habermas and Offe develop diagnoses of why legitimation crises emerge, but have been weaker in showing how the re-legitimation of capitalism, in response to those crises, occurred (Habermas 1973; Offe 1984).

6 One need not accept Standing’s rather questionable Marxist class analysis (e.g. Standing’s claim that the precariat is separate from the proletariat) to accept that now exists a group of precariatized labour at the core of Western economies.

7 Unlike Boltanski and Chiapello, I interpret this change as a process of the reciprocal interchange of values between lifeworld and economic system. In this respect, I incorporate the important insight from the work of the Second Generation of the Frankfurt School (most notably the work of Habermas and Offe), that legitimating potentials can emerge in the lifeworld and need not be ultimately traceable to social systems.

8 Habermas (1984).

9 Gray (2011).

10 Gray (2011).

11 Boltanski, Chiapello and Thévenot refer to these as orders of worth; I will suggest following Habermas that these orders of worth, as potential areas of action coordination, exist as distinct elements of the lifeworld.

12 Chiapello (2003, 156).

13 Dumont (1977, 31).

14 Dumont (1977, 26–27).

15 Ricoeur (1997, 33)

16 Chiapello (2003, 161).

17 Honneth (2010, 377).

18 Thévenot (1995, 3).

19 Boltanski, Thévenot and Chiapello work with a model of six (and perhaps seven) social orders: the inspired, the domestic, the order of fame, the civic, the merchant, the industrial and (later) the order based on shared projects. This last order emerges in Boltanski and Chiapello’s The New Spirit of Capitalism and their analysis of the post-1968 transformation of capitalism. It stresses the values of free choice, lack of domination, independence, and self-direction.

20 Boltanski and Thévenot (1991, 96–99).

21 Here, Boltanski and Thévenot’s work shares important parallels with that of Luhmann, who argues that autopoietic system adopt a binary internal coding which allows the system to process ‘irritants’ from its environment (for instance, law is coded by the dichotomy legal/illegal). This internal coding is then used to construct an internal system program (in law, codes, regulations, etc.). See, for instance, Luhmann (1996).

22 Boltanski and Thévenot (1991, 102–103).

23 Boltanski and Thévenot (1991, 337).

24 While Boltanski is frustratingly vague as to what exactly constitutes an institution, it is possible to draw from his work a sufficiently robust description to satisfy my purposes.

25 Boltanski (2009, 86).

26 Boltanski (2009, 115).

27 Susen (2012, 701).

28 Boltanski (2009, 120).

29 Boltanski (2009, 132).

30 Boltanski (2009, 14).

31 Boltanski (2009, 152).

32 Boltanski (2009, 54).

33 Boltanski (2009, 160–162).

34 Boltanski (2009, 162).

35 Weber (2013, Vol. 1: Chapter 3).

36 Offe 138.

37 Streeck (2014, 4).

38 Streeck (2014, 3).

39 Boltanski and Chiapello (2005).

40 Chiapello and Fairclough (2002, 186).

41 Boltanski and Chiapello (2005, 5).

42 Boltanski and Chiapello (2005, 97).

43 Boltanski (2002, 8).

44 Boltanski (2002, 8).

45 The two critiques emerge out of the fragmentation and separate interests of different factions of the proletariat (Gorz; Mallet).

46 Boltanski (2002, 6).

47 Callinicos 2006; it is labelled the artistic critique in part because it is traceable to 19th century bohemian critiques of lack of autonomy and alienation.

48 Boltanski (2002, 6).

49 Boltanski (2002, 6).

50 Boltanski (2002, 7).

51 I thank a blind reviewer for pushing me to consider the role of state power. The repressive role of state violence played an important role in limiting the sorts of actions which are permitted, making certain courses of action risky or dangerous. At the same time, state violence can also draw attention to protest movements or lead to solidarity amongst protestors (Calhoun 2013).

52 Boltanski and Chiapello (2005, 167).

53 Mallet (1969, 16).

54 This is to be distinguished from the obvious use of police and carceral power against minority groups to render certain forms of protest costly.

55 Offe (1984, 144).

56 Boltanski (2002, 9); Boltanski and Chiapello (2005, 177).

57 Boltanski (2002, 10). Of course, not all members of the working class were interested in self-management. There was a great deal of internal differentiation of the proletariat. Young educated workers were most likely to be interested in workplace autonomy, finding themselves confronted with jobs where their professional training was not recognized and where there were few possibilities for promotion to positions for which their training prepared them (Mallet 1969, 15, 18, 34).

58 There is a plausible argument to be made that the proliferation of unpaid internships represents the exploitation of the artistic critique, and the desire for meaningful opportunities for self-improvement, by the economic system (Chiapello and Fairclough 2002, 189).

59 Standing (2011, 74).

60 Boltanski (2002, 16).

61 Ndizi (2019); Office for National Statistics (2015).

62 Beck (1992).

63 Standing (2011, 60).

64 Hatton (2011, 7).

65 Standing (2011, 9)

66 Standing (2011, 9).

67 Standing (2011, 6).

68 Standing (2011, 8).

69 Standing (2011, 274).

70 They similarly cannot be explained by demographic changes in the workforce (Katz and Krueger 2016). Instead, they are symptoms of the larger structural changes in the economy. This paper addresses how those structural changes were legitimated.

71 Hatton, 5–6.

72 Hatton, 1.

73 Standing (2011, 33).

74 The ideological basis for social critique has been gravely weakened by the disappearance of class structure (Mallet 1969; Gorz 1981).

75 Boltanski and Chiapello (2005, 345).

76 While some unions have recently seen growth in their membership (e.g. the movement to guarantee a living wage to fast-food workers), overall, union membership as a percentage of all workers is now half of what it was 30 years ago (Dunn and Walker 2016).

77 Lenoir (1974).

78 For a discussion of the unequal distribution of wealth, see Piketty (2014).

79 The first critique recapitulates the classic Marxist critique of capitalism. The latter two though are dependent on the response of capitalism to the social upheaval of the 1960s.

80 In this regard, the actions of the group Strike Debt, an offspring of the original Occupy movement, have been important for highlighting this critique.

81 Chrisafis (2016); Battersby (2015).

82 Berwick v. Uber Technologies 2015.

83 While simultaneously increases in productivity have not led to increased wages.

84 National Centre for Policy Analysis (2011).

85 Standing (2011, 49).

86 Conlin, Herbst, and Coy (2010).

87 Asal, Testa, and Young (2017); Milkman (2012).

88 Packer (2011).

89 Yen (2012).

90 Declining job prospects have been documented by Duménil and Levy (2004) and Stiglitz (2012).

91 Gitlin (2012).

92 Packer (2011).