May
20
my god
lol the dawkins fortune comes from slavery
(via monetizeyourcat)
there's our catastrophe
work is its own cure. you have to like it better than being loved. ⚑ ♀- About me /
- ask me whatever /
- RSS /
- Archive
Posts tagged capitalism
May
11
the whole “socially liberal, economically conservative” thing is so male
I mean it’s obvious that right-libertarians are a bunch of young white dudes who spend too much time editing the “criticisms of feminism” section of wikipedia
but also, I cbf digging any of them up but I keep running into studies of voting patterns showing that men are more “socially liberal, economically conservative”, and women are, conversely, way less into capitalism and possibly more socially conservative
which makes sense because women are more likely to be poor, more likely to have a lot of responsibility for a lot of people, even partnered women are more likely to be responsible for managing family finances and actually making sure everybody eats and they don’t get evicted, and etc
it’s also worth noting here that women’s “social conservativism” is often reckoned with reference to stuff like their feelings on drugs and R-rated movies and asinine “free speech” defences of hateful tripe, individualist, hedonist stuff, rather than attitudes to marginalised groups or liberatory social movements
while these are of course overlapping concerns, there is a large and concrete difference between a discourse like “criminalisation of drug users targets already vulnerable people” and “420 blaze it the government can’t tell me what to do, it’s not my problem if other people can’t handle this shit”
having said that, a lot of women are really invested in stuff like the family and religion, sometimes in a really conservative way, and I think it’s important to think about why that is and what women might find alienating about secularism or discourses of sexual liberation and how we as the Left are approaching that
May
8
“Uncovering the secrets of capitalism is a difficult process because the bodies of the workers keep disappearing, to be replaced by objects or commodities. If the worker is a victim, he’s a secret victim because his exploitation is hidden by the sensational allure generated by money, capital, and commodities. Capital is thus no ordinary mystery novel; it uncovers a nightmarish world in which bodies become things, and things become people, and in which the victim is also the agent. In the course of its search for the secret origins of profit, Capital renders the category of agency problematic. The capitalist, for example, is actually only “capital personified,” the human recipient of profits that are not of his own making. And the worker who produces surplus value would seem to be complicit in the very process that exploits him. Capital is a whodunit that cannot find its resolution by locating a human agent to blame for the violence it uncovers. ”
Ann Cvetkovich, “Marx’s Capital and the Mystery of the Commodity”, Mixed Feelings: Feminism, Mass Culture and Victorian Sensationalism.
May
4
“
Among young black men in America, about 10 percent are currently incarcerated. It’s shocking, but we’ve almost grown used to it.
But while those young men are in prison, what’s happening to their wives, girlfriends, mothers and sisters?
Eviction. A new study coming out of Milwaukee shows that eviction is for black women what incarceration is for black men. One in 20 households there are evicted every year. In predominately black communities, that rate doubles to 1 in 10 families.
”USA: Eviction is for black women what incarceration is to black men
(via native-detroiter)
(via rigatonideology)
Apr
9
“People praising Thatcher’s legacy should show some respect for her victims. Tasteless.”
David Wearing
Apr
6
I feel like I skipped the young leftist Adbusters/No Logo/Corporate Watch phase and went straight to “capitalism itself is the problem, not simply consumerism or neoliberalism or multinationals or individual bad-apple corporations, there can be no Capitalism Done Right” but now I’m backtracking a bit and reading a lot of Corporate Watch material because I’m continually shocked by how fucking gross G4S are and how many things they’re involved in and how each arm creates opportunities for other arms, how they’re involved in catching shoplifters and staffing prisons, airport and seaport security and immigration detention, detaining asylum seekers from Iraq and working with oil interests there
anyway they’re operating the recently reopened Manus Island detention centre and apparently there’s no fucking water
Mar
19
ok, this pisses me off.
because the reason behind this blatant misogyny in the media is presented as that fucking amorphous #rapeculture bullshit—but if you have a digital justice analysis—you’d know that five fucking corporations own almost all of the media in the US. and you’d know that when the case in India was reported on relentlessly—and you never fucking SAW such gendered analysis of patriarchy coming out of the US media—the indian culture was *inherently* violent and degrading towards women—and those same five corporations have *continued* to report on rapes that have happened in india since then.
you saw the same sort of understanding of gender with afghanistan and iraq and you see it now with the muslim brotherhood and egypt—muslim men from arab/middle eastern countries are *inherently* violent towards women and OMG WE NEED TO STOP THEM.
but when it comes to “boys” in the US—we have those 5 corporations reporting on how drunk the victim was etc etc etc.
this is not a case of some not quite defined #rapeculture—this is a very clear and pointed attempt to write “our boys” as GOOD MEN who are needed to “defend” women throughout the world (with guns and bombs).
#rapeculture happens because men weren’t raised right or boys are taught to hate women etc.
colonialism and imperialism as directed by white supremacist heteropatriarchy (i.e. *capitalism) happens because there are narratives out there that allow us to believe we are “good” all while servicing the needs of the capitalist class that NEEDS “boys” to be mighty warriors “defending” women of color (ahem, oil) for the nation/state.
see what I mean? I’ll go so far as to even agree—yes, we live in a culture that condones and loves and does what it can to uphold rape as a value.
but nobody ever asks WHY. sure men hate women and *absolutely* boys are taught to hate women and girls.
but WHY? men as a class get all sorts of great benefits from using terror to control women—but there is a class that rules 99% of the men out there. those five media corporations that control almost all of our media is a part of the class that 99% of the men answer to.
men get benefits from using terror as a method of control—what benefits do those men who control those 5 corporations get from having half the population controlled through terror tactics?
Mar
3
let me tell you something, as someone having experienced the situation in Greece first hand. the anger most Greeks feel, proletariat or not, can not and will not be quelled at this point, with or without concessions. there is a shift for the first time since the fall of the dictatorship in how we conceptualize ourselves in relation to Europe, which is very important. and let’s not forget that 60% of Greeks didn’t want to join the EU in the first place. the society has collapsed, it’s no longer about having labor rights confiscated via austerity. the EU core (primarily Germany) has completely dominated Greece, and people know, are aware, and have nothing to lose. without international solidarity, it is only a matter of time before Western imperialists intervene to subvert the revolutionary process. there have been insurrections you don’t hear about, that are underrepresented. city hall was burned, the central european bank was burned. recently there have been small-scale bombings and armed incidents. workers have taken over factories. people in the rural areas have resorted to bartering or labor credits in order to live. children are malnourished. people are committing suicide in unprecedented numbers. power and water have been cut for a large portion of Athenians. i don’t know what planet you people inhabit or kind of sources you’re reading if you think this is just another case of workers striking to keep their reforms. the reforms have all been taken away.
the fact of the matter is that we will either see a socialist Greece or a future of death and dismay, like Chile
Feb
28
god, melbourne uni is depressing
today I saw Glyn Davis, the vice-chancellor of Melbourne Uni, on TV. he was talking about how great it is that Australia went from having 3% of the population with a bachelor’s degree or higher to 40% and rising within two generations. he’s a very well-connected man, a personal friend of previous…
This is part of a talk I gave at la trobe uni last year on this topic- re elites staying elites within massified higher education system.
“Universities used to be a place where the elite of society were trained, since the 70’s higher education has become massified. The proportion of society undertaking higher education has increased hugely and continues to increase.
Universities are now tasked not only with the reproduction of the elite of society, but also now of the working class, that is, higher education under neo-liberalism is not premised on the creation of social mobility, a university education does not mean you automatically enter the top rung of society. Higher education now works through differential inclusion rather than exclusion. There has been a proliferation of hundreds of different degrees or courses one can undertake these days. This plethora of tertiary qualifications available at many different levels acts as a complex system of social sorting and class reproduction. Because of the shifting nature of the labour skills now required by capital, the task of universities is to produce an army of qualified yet malleable workers. It of course now is increasingly common for people to have multiple qualifications undertaken at different stages in their lives. People change jobs or careers much much more than they used to and need the appropriate skills. Such is the ever shifting nature of todays economy.
How does the Melbourne model fit into this picture?
Education is what is known as a ‘positional good’ , it depends on its own scarcity for value, so the expansion of and increased intake into higher education leads necessarily to a downgrading in its value. The Melbourne model reforms were in some ways a response to this.
The Melbourne Model’s main feature is a shift from a focus on undergraduate education provision towards becoming something akin to an American graduate school. The University is funnelling more and more resources (and indeed students, its long-term goal being a major decrease in undergraduate numbers) away from undergraduate education and into graduate courses, which are for the most part full-fee. In other words, Melbourne University is becoming an elite private university whilst still retaining the veneer (and the government funding) of a public institution. Melbourne University’s marketing highlights the economic worth and prestige of a new Melbourne Model graduate qualification, attempting to resurrect higher education as an elite and scarce good.
So there were a number of different aspects to the Melbourne model transformations – but it was clear that the main thrust of the changes was to make Melbourne university a more elite university that was more reliant on exorbitant student fees and more geared towards profit than teaching students how to think critically.”
yep yep yep, good analysis
embittered ex-melbourne uni student activist party 2k13
+ in general I think it’s always good to question the idea that social marginalisation is always a matter of “exclusion” rather than exploitation, which often requires, as you say, differential inclusion
Feb
19
“It is a curious fact that while critical theory has interrogated almost every leading category of modern social science, it has left perhaps the most central one untouched. It has critiqued the concepts of class, nation, culture, society, state, gender, race, personhood, and many others, but not the idea of the economy. It is as though the varieties of cultural theory had to leave in place a residual sphere of the economic, as a reserve whose existence in the distance made cultural analysis secure. Everything could be understood as cultural, including particular forms of economic practice or local ways of thinking about economy. Anthropological studies of communities that do not know the modern concept of the economy could show that nonmarket societies had other ways of understanding value and organizing exchange. But even those emerged as an alternative kind of economy, rather than as ways of questioning the foundation of the concept… The economy always remained, tacitly, as a material ground out of which the cultural is shaped, or in relation to which it acquires significance.”
Timothy Mitchell - Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (pg 3).
Well sir, I am intrigued. I can’t wait to see where he takes this…
(via tanacetum-vulgare)
please continue to blog this book, I want to vicariously read it
← Older posts
Page 1 of 14
