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

Labor parties in postindustrial societies (1991)

Vast changes in western societies have dimmed the prospects of the labour-based political parties that emerged a century ago, and then became major contenders for government power. The contributions in this volume, coming from international commentators, make evident the problems generated for left parties by the emerging postindustrial international economic order. Not only are traditional working class constituencies shrinking, but traditional projects are losing force and credibility as the world in which they were crafted is transformed. Despite common difficulties, each party confronts the new problems of postindustrialism in the context of different national political heritages, and weighted by different internal party legacies. These differences, in turn, go far toward explaining the relative success of some parties, and the disarray of others.

Colin Crouch - The Knowledge Corrupters: Hidden Consequences of the Financial Takeover of Public Life

In principle the advanced, market-driven world in which we now live is fuelled by knowledge, information and transparency, but in practice the processes that produce this world systematically corrupt and denigrate knowledge: this is the powerful and provocative argument advanced by Colin Crouch in his latest exploration of societies on the road to post-democracy.

Crouch shows that executives in profit-maximizing corporations have incentives to ignore or distort knowledge, especially firms in the information business of the mass media themselves, as financial knowledge increasingly trumps the other kinds of knowledge that business needs. Firms also seek to take control of public knowledge and use it for their own ends, often at the cost of other stakeholders in society. Meanwhile the transfer of similar practices to professional public services undermines professional skills and ethics - especially when these services are out-sourced to the private sector. Attempts to extricate ourselves from these problems involve reshaping the complex and often conflicting relationships among citizens, professionals, managers and financiers.

Theodor W. Adorno - Lecture, 7 February 1963

Ladies and gentlemen, in my previous lecture, I introduced the concept of a negative system, or, as one might also say, a critical theory, in connection with Marx’s materialism, and I took the opportunity to develop for you a number of points concerning the concept of a system. At the end I remarked only cursorily that thinking that breaks free from systems need not descend into the randomness of aperçu, as is often claimed of free thinking especially by people who have nothing else to rely on but their trust in systematics. Of course, I cannot unfold for you here what a philosophy should look like that, on the one hand, frees itself from the system, yet on the other hand, holds fast to the idea of the boundedness of thought that is still free and not scientifically controlled. I can only say that all I attempt and strive for is in fact, in the service of drafting such a form of thought and nothing else. I do believe, in any case and here once again I would like to follow Marx that the moments of thought freed from the compulsion of the system must be constituted through carrying out the concrete critique of systematic thinking itself as is implied, for that matter, in one of the central concepts of Hegelian dialectics, namely the concept of determinate, or positive, negation.

https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/rp221_adorno.pdf

Michael Clifford - Political Genealogy After Foucault

Combining the most powerful elements of Foucault's theories, Clifford produces a methodology for cultural and political critique called "political genealogy" to explore the genesis of modern political identity. At the core of American identity, Clifford argues, is the ideal of the "Savage Noble," a hybrid that married the Native American "savage" with the "civilized" European male. This complex icon animates modern politics, and has shaped our understandings of rights, freedom, and power.

James Hellings - Adorno and Art. Aesthetic Theory Contra Critical Theory

A comprehensive, critical and accessible account of Theodor W. Adorno's materialist-dialectical aesthetic theory of art from a contemporary perspective, this volume shows how Adorno's critical theory is awash with images crystallising thoughts to such a degree that it has every reason to be described as aesthetic.