John-Baptiste Oduor - Red to Black

Until his death in September, Charles Mills was the most persistent defender of the irreducibility of race in the American academy. Across a nearly thirty-five-year career, he opposed both its reduction to an epiphenomenon of economic exploitation and to a category subsumable under supposedly universal conceptions of the rational human being. By his account both Marxism and liberalism had failed to get race adequately into view; the two chapters of his intellectual life took the form of a critical dialogue with each in turn. It was the immanent critique of the latter, set in motion by what remains his most renowned work, The Racial Contract (1997), that earnt Mills his reputation as one of the Anglophone world’s pre-eminent social philosophers. In his 2016 John Dewey lectures to the American Philosophical Association, he summarised his worldview with an inversion of Rawls’s famous assertion about the foundations of society: ‘a slave society, a white settler state, a white-supremacist polity, is not a cooperative venture for mutual advantage, but a coercive venture by whites for white advantage’.

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/red-to-black

How Capitalism Absorbs Anticapitalism

Jen Pan discusses how capitalism continually adapts in order to preserve its legitimacy and neutralize any ideological opposition.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QM0MMkxGBe8

Georges Perec - The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise

A long-suffering employee in a big corporation has summoned up the courage to ask for a raise. But as he runs through the coming encounter in his mind, his neuroses come to the surface: What’s the best day to see the boss? What if he doesn’t offer you a seat when you go into his office? And should you ask that tricky question about his daughter’s illness? The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise is a hilarious account of an employee losing his identity and possibly his sanity as he tries to put on the most acceptable face for the corporate world, with its rigid hierarchies and hostility to ideas and innovation. If he follows a certain course of action, so this logic goes, he will succeed but, in accepting these conditions, are his attempts to challenge his world of work doomed from the outset? Neurotic and pessimistic, yet endearing, comic and never less than entertaining, Perec’s Woody Allen-esque underling presents an acute and penetrating vision of the world of office work, as pertinent today as it was when it was written in 1968.

Дарья Ермакова - Предприимчивые и депрессивные: как гаджеты повлияли на мышление поколения Z и кто на этом заработал

Пока в России идет цифровизация образования, главы корпораций вроде Google и Amazon отдают детей в тех-фри-школы. Людям, которые придумали лайки и шеры, снятся кошмары, будто их ребенок логинится в фейсбуке. Рассказываем о вреде и пользе для детей гаджетов и интернета, а также об особенностях поколения, не отлипающего от экранов смартфонов и ноутбуков.

https://knife.media/genz-and-technology/

Gabriel Zucman - The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens

We are well aware of the rise of the 1% as the rapid growth of economic inequality has put the majority of the world’s wealth in the pockets of fewer and fewer. One much-discussed solution to this imbalance is to significantly increase the rate at which we tax the wealthy. But with an enormous amount of the world’s wealth hidden in tax havens in countries like Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the Cayman Islands this wealth cannot be fully accounted for and taxed fairly. No one, from economists to bankers to politicians, has been able to quantify exactly how much of the world’s assets are currently hidden until now. Gabriel Zucman is the first economist to offer reliable insight into the actual extent of the world’s money held in tax havens. And it’s staggering.

In The Hidden Wealth of Nations, Zucman offers an inventive and sophisticated approach to quantifying how big the problem is, how tax havens work and are organized, and how we can begin to approach a solution. His research reveals that tax havens are a quickly growing danger to the world economy. In the past five years, the amount of wealth in tax havens has increased over 25% there has never been as much money held offshore as there is today. This hidden wealth accounts for at least $7.6 trillion, equivalent to 8% of the global financial assets of households. Fighting the notion that any attempts to vanquish tax havens are futile, since some countries will always offer more advantageous tax rates than others, as well the counter-argument that since the financial crisis tax havens have disappeared, Zucman shows how both sides are actually very wrong. In The Hidden Wealth of Nations he offers an ambitious agenda for reform, focused on ways in which countries can change the incentives of tax havens. Only by first understanding the enormity of the secret wealth can we begin to estimate the kind of actions that would force tax havens to give up their practices.

Zucman’s work has quickly become the gold standard for quantifying the amount of the world’s assets held in havens. In this concise book, he lays out in approachable language how the international banking system works and the dangerous extent to which the large-scale evasion of taxes is undermining the global market as a whole. If we are to find a way to solve the problem of increasing inequality, The Hidden Wealth of Nations is essential reading.

Жак Деррида. Быть французским философом

Интервью с Францем-Оливье Гисбером было впервые опубликовано в журнале «Le Figaro Magazine» 16 октября 1999 г.

«Желать быть философом, в принципе и в рамках наиболее древней традиции, значит желать принадлежать универсальному сообществу. Не просто космополитическому, но универсальному: вне всякого гражданства, вне государства, а значит и вне космополитического. Но в то же время философия, начиная еще с греков, всегда регистрировалась в идиомах. Первым обязательством философа, возможно, является не отказываться от этого испытания, наиболее трудного из всех возможных — испытания противоборством с неотложностью универсальных вопросов, настаивая в то же время на том, чтобы подписываться на своем языке и даже создавать свой язык внутри своего языка. Этот уникальный, идиоматичный язык не должен быть чистым или даже национальным.
Философам нужно учитывать эту историю своей филиации. «Французский» философ XX в., хочет он того или нет, несет на себе мету весьма своеобразной формации, которую он воспринял еще в средней школе а ведь не так много стран, где в средней школе преподают философию, затем в университете, а после в философской, литературной и политической среде, не имеющей эквивалентов. Среди прочих причин, по которым некоторые из философов моего поколения оказались «успешны» за рубежом, можно указать на то, что они продолжали оставаться, каждый по-своему, очень «французскими». В 1960-е гг. сложилась кране уникальная «французская» конфигурация философии (а также других дисциплин: психоанализа, гуманитарных наук, литературы), и мы являемся ее акторами или, по крайней мере, наследниками»

https://syg.ma/@noodletranslate/zhak-dierrida-byt-frantsuzskim-filosofom-intierviu

Helen Boyden Lamb - Studies on India and Vietnam (1976)

Introduction by Paul M. Sweezy. This book includes substantially all of the essays and reviews on India and Vietnam by the late Helen B. Lamb. Topics include Colonial India, Indian Business Communities, Bania, Vietnam and Lyndon Baines Johnson, the tragedy of Vietnam, and more.

Miguel La Serna - With Masses & Arms: Peru's Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement

Miguel La Serna's gripping history of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) provides vital insight into both the history of modern Peru and the link between political violence and the culture of communications in Latin America. Smaller than the well-known Shining Path but just as remarkable, the MRTA emerged in the early 1980s at the beginning of a long and bloody civil war. Taking a close look at the daily experiences of women and men who fought on both sides of the conflict, this fast-paced narrative explores the intricacies of armed action from the ground up.

While carrying out a campaign of urban guerrilla warfare ranging from vandalism to kidnapping and assassinations, the MRTA vied with state forces as both tried to present themselves as most authentically Peruvian. Appropriating colors, banners, names, images, and even historical memories, hand-in-hand with armed combat, the Tupac Amaristas aimed to control public relations because they insightfully believed that success hinged on their ability to control the media narrative. Ultimately, however, the movement lost sight of its original aims, becoming more authoritarian as the war waged on. In this sense, the history of the MRTA is the story of the euphoric draw of armed action and the devastating consequences that result when a political movement succumbs to the whims of its most militant followers.

Thomas Lemke - The Government of Things Foucault and the New Materialisms

Materialism, a rich philosophical tradition that goes back to antiquity, is currently undergoing a renaissance. In The Government of Things, Thomas Lemke provides a comprehensive overview and critical assessment of this “new materialism”. In analyzing the work of Graham Harman, Jane Bennett, and Karen Barad, Lemke articulates what, exactly, new materialism is and how it has evolved. These insights open up new spaces for critical thought and political experimentation, overcoming the limits of anthropocentrism.

Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of a “government of things”, the book also goes beyond new materialist scholarship which tends to displace political questions by ethical and aesthetic concerns. It puts forward a relational and performative account of materialities that more closely attends to the interplay of epistemological, ontological, and political issues.

Lemke provides definitive and much-needed clarity about the fascinating potential and limitations of new materialism as a whole. The Government of Things revisits Foucault’s more-than-human understanding of government to capture a new constellation of power: “environmentality”. As the book demonstrates, contemporary modes of government seek to control the social, ecological, and technological conditions of life rather than directly targeting individuals and populations. The book offers an essential and much needed tool to critically examine this political shift.

Donatella Della Porta, Mario Diani - Social Movements: An Introduction

Social Movements is a comprehensive introduction and critical analysis of collective action in society today. In this new edition, the authors have updated all chapters with the most recent scientific literature, expanded on topics such as individual motivations, new media, public policies, and governance. Draws on research and empirical work across the social sciences to address the key questions in this international field. New edition expands on topics such as individual motivations, new media, public policies, and governance. Has been redesigned in a more user-friendly format.

Ашиль Мбембе - Некровласть и колониальная оккупация эпохи поздней модерности

Эта статья перевод отрывка из работы камерунского философа и политического теоретика Ашиля Мбембе «Некрополитика». В книге Мбембе раскрывает предложенную им концепцию некрополитики политики смерти, системы, с помощью которой государство (суверен) определяет, кто из людей должен жить и выживать, а кто в недостаточной степени удобен в статусе живого и потому должен умереть. Переведенный нами отрывок посвящен колониальной оккупационной некрополитике и ее наиболее завершенной форме современной колониальной оккупации Палестины.

https://syg.ma/@sumud-sumud/ashil-mbiembie-niekrovlast-i-kolonialnaia-okkupatsiia-epokhi-pozdniei-modiernosti

Jacques Ranciѐre. What Times Are We Living In? A Conversation with Eric Hazan. Polity Press, Cambridge, 2020. 75 pp.

Reviewed by Jake Parkins

The premise of Hazan’s discussion is whether, in light of the crisis of representative democracy across the world, Ranciѐre’s understanding of ‘democracy’ – that is, the assertation of equality, when those who are not accounted for assert themselves – is still important for understanding the world and whether having no government is fruitful (1-2, 10)? Ranciѐre’s retort is consistent with his previous work albeit with some surprising developments. He begins by stressing that one should avoid a symptomatic reading of this situation: there is no pathology of representative democracy that reveals the true socio-economic reality – such as class struggle –underneath it (4-10). Instead, ‘“[a]ppearances” are solid’ (7-8). Contra traditional Marxist approaches, this argument follows Ranciѐre’s idiosyncratic resistance to rendering ‘the political into an expression, or a mask of social relationships’ (1995: vii). Rather than viewing agents’ political thoughts and actions as autonomous from social conditions, theorists view them as the result of problematic social conditions that operate behind agents’ backs.

https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/19735_what-times-are-we-living-in-a-conversation-with-eric-hazan-by-jacques-ranci%D1%90re-reviewed-by-jake-parkins/

Nandini Sundar - The Burning Forest: India's War Against the Maoists

The war between Maoists and the state in the heart of India The Burning Forest is an empathetic, moving account of what drives indigenous peasants to support armed struggle despite severe state repression, including lives lost, homes and communities destroyed. Over the past decade, the heavily forested,mineral-rich region of Bastar in central India has emerged as one of the most militarized sites in the country. The government calls the Maoist insurgency the "biggest security threat" to India. In 2005, a state-sponsored vigilante movement, the Salwa Judum, burnt hundreds of villages, driving their inhabitants into state-controlled camps, drawing on counterinsurgency techniques developed in Malaysia, Vietnam and elsewhere. Apart from rapes and killings, hundreds of 'surrendered' Maoist sympathisers were conscripted as auxiliaries. The conflict continues to this day, taking a toll on the lives of civilians, security forces and Maoist cadres. In 2007, Sundar and others took the Indian government to the Supreme Court over the human rights violations arising out ofthe conflict. In a landmark judgment, the Court in 2011 banned state supportfor vigilantism. The Burning Forest describes this brutal war in the heart of India, and what it tells us about the courts, media and politics of the country. The result is a granular and critical ethnography of Indian democracy over a decade.