Телеграм канал «Политическая теория и философия (Political theory and philosophy)»

Marco Piasentier - Politics of Evolution: Hayek’s Naturalization of Neoliberalism The article delves into Friedrich Hayek’s theory of cultural evolution as a framework for understanding his “restatement” of liberalism. Beginning in the 1950s, Hayek increasingly embraced a naturalistic perspective, leading to a conceptualization of the market in evolutionary terms. His definition of the market sharply contrasts with the one proper to laissez-faire liberalism of the nineteenth century. Unlike classical liberalism, Hayek claims that the market is “unnatural,” as it has culturally evolved in opposition to innate human traits. The article will argue that Hayek’s concept of “evolutionary rationalism” establishes a new political rationality aimed at cultivating conditions that promote the flourishing of the market order and protect it from innate human instincts. According to this political rationality, the cultural reproduction of the market order maximizes the evolutionary “progress” of the human species and must be upheld to prevent the purported decline of modern civilization attributed to political rationalities based on “primitive” behavioral traits such as “solidarity” and the pursuit of “common goals.”

Louis Althusser - Letters to Franca (1961–1972) Letters to Franca offers an extensive selection from the 500 or so extraordinary letters Louis Althusser addressed to Franca Madonia between 1961 and 1972, the most productive period in Althusser's life and the time when his most characteristic works were being elaborated and first received. This correspondence allows, therefore, a unique insight into Althusser's theoretical and political trajectory, giving an intimate account of the establishment of Althusserian Marxism and the intellectual, historical and institutional milieu within which it came to prominence. It also charts the singular story of Althusser's relationship with Franca, whom he encountered in 1961 and who became his lover, intellectual confidante and Italian translator; the letters thus have a quasi-novelistic dimension and afford a gripping vision of a remarkable couple, the chronicle of a passion. Their correspondence consequently exhibits an exceptionally diverse tonal range, alternately analytical, lyrical, ludic and sombre, displaying an investment in language and expressionbarely suggested by Althusser's previously published work. At once the diary of an intellectual-political existence and the narrative of a coup de foudre, these letters also uniquely provide an astonishingly self-reflexive account of Althusser's experience of manic depression, inviting the reader to witness its sometimes exhilarating, sometimes devastating effects upon his private and public being. Featuring an extensive record of Althusser's long-term engagement with the thought and practice of psychoanalysis, Letters to Franca bids the reader, here and throughout, to accompany Althusser on a fascinating journey - between theory and life.

Stuart Blaney - Equality and Freedom in Rancière and Foucault Responding to the increasing need for new and peaceful forms of emancipation, Stuart Blaney offers a unique solution in the synergy between two pioneering strands of continental philosophy: Michael Foucault’s ideas on freedom and Jacques Rancière’s ideas on equality. Building a dialogue between these two thinkers, Blaney presents new perspectives on their work and a clear picture that emancipation comes from everyday practices rather than any particular movement or revolution. In exploring these combined views of equality and freedom, Blaney draws on some of the central facets of both concepts, including revolution, disagreement, care for the self, free speech and stoicism. To put these ideas into a practical framework of real, lived experience, we are introduced to the figure of Louis-Gabriel Gauny the 19th-century worker-poet and self confessed plebeian philosopher. Gauny is a nexus for Rancière’s and Foucault’s ideas; his life exemplifying a dual mode of existence in-between conformity and political revolution.

Sven Beckert - Capitalism: A Global History No other phenomenon has shaped human history as decisively as capitalism. It structures how we live and work, how we think about ourselves and others, how we organize our politics. Sven Beckert, author of the Bancroft Prize–winning Empire of Cotton, places the story of capitalism within the largest conceivable geographical and historical framework, tracing its history during the past millennium and across the world. An epic achievement, his book takes us into merchant businesses in Aden and car factories in Turin, onto the terrifyingly violent sugar plantations in Barbados, and within the world of women workers in textile factories in today’s Cambodia. Capitalism, argues Beckert, was born global. Emerging from trading communities across Asia, Africa, and Europe, capitalism’s radical recasting of economic life rooted itself only gradually. But then it burst onto the world scene, as a powerful alliance between European states and merchants propelled them, and their economic logic, across the oceans. This, Beckert shows, was modern capitalism’s big bang, and one of its epicenters was the slave labor camps of the Caribbean. This system, with its hierarchies that haunt us still, provided the liftoff for the radical transformations of the Industrial Revolution. Fueled by vast productivity increases along with coal and oil, capitalism pulled down old ways of life to crown itself the defining force of the modern world. This epic drama, shaped by state-backed institutions and imperial expansion, corresponded at no point to an idealized dream of free markets. Drawing on archives on six continents, Capitalism locates important modes of agency, resistance, innovation, and ruthless coercion everywhere in the world, opening the aperture from heads of state to rural cultivators. Beckert shows that despite the dependence on expansion, there always have been, and are still, areas of human life that the capitalist revolution has yet to reach. By chronicling capitalism’s global history, Beckert exposes the reality of the system that now seems simply “natural.” It is said that people can more easily imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. If there is one ultimate lesson in this extraordinary book, it’s how to leave that behind. Though cloaked in a false timelessness and universality, capitalism is, in reality, a recent human invention. Sven Beckert doesn’t merely tote up capitalism’s debits and credits. He shows us how to look through and beyond it to imagine a different and larger world https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e25-Idp_HdE