Анатолий Жвитиашвили - Рабочий класс в классовых схемах западной социологии

В статье рассматриваются основные классовые схемы западной социологии, роль и место в них рабочего класса. Они отражают процесс дифференциации классовой структуры, в том числе рабочего класса, западных обществ. Несмотря на разные подходы к исследованию рабочего класса, данные схемы помещают его внизу классовой иерархии.

http://jour.isras.ru/index.php/socjour/article/download/432/405

Rachel Knaebel, Joe Hayns - The Gilets Jaunes and the Unions: A convergence over what?

Rachel Knaebel’s essay, published by Basta! On 7 December, delineates the various union confederations’ changing orientation towards the jaunes, and gives some sense of the difficulties this still-unmoored movement has presented to trade union militants.

https://notesfrombelow.org/article/gilets-jaunes-and-unions-convergence-over-what

Louis Althusser – ‘Michel Verret’s Article on the “Student May”’

Louis Althusser critiques Michel Verret's response to the May 1968 uprisings, and in so doing indirectly critiques the French Communist Party's handling of the situation. Available for the first time in English.

Althusser produced three substantive analyses of May 1968: A letter to Maria Antonietta Macciocchi (published here recently), a section of On the Reproduction of Capitalism and “À propos de l’article de Michel Verret sur ‘Mai Etudiant’”. Although he wrote all three less than a year after the events and did so with the intention of publishing them, only one appeared in French during his lifetime.

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4187-louis-althusser-michel-verret-s-article-on-the-student-may

Karthick Ram Manoharan - Review – Alienation and Freedom

Franz Fanon - Alienation and Freedom. Edited by Jean Khalfa and Robert J.C. Young, London: Bloomsbury, 2018

For academics working on Frantz Fanon Alienation and Freedom is no less than a gift. With the publication of this book we finally have the complete available works of Fanon in English. Aptly divided into neat sections – Theatre, Psychiatric Writings, Political Writings, Publishing Fanon, Frantz Fanon’s Library and Life – Alienation and Freedom provides a complete picture of the multifaceted personality of Fanon and is indispensible for scholars, intellectuals, and activists interested in the life and works of one of the greatest theorists of humanism and decolonization. Young’s introduction to the first section and Khalfa’s introduction to the next three place these texts in their social and historical context, providing deep insights into the development of Fanon’s thought.

https://www.e-ir.info/2018/12/05/review-alienation-and-freedom/

Dimitris Dalakoglou and Giorgos Poulimenakos - Airbnbizing Europe: mobility, property and platform capitalism

New social class distinctions are increasingly relocated outside the borders of a particular national economy, becoming transnational and carried out by ‘ordinary people’.

In an age when each one of us is interpellated as a micro-entrepreneur with individual responsibility to negotiate his/her existence as a private individual matter, ‘post-crisis’ globalized capitalism provides new tools and narratives to secure its reproduction.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/dimitris-dalakoglou-giorgos-poulimenakos/airbnbizing-europe-mobility-property-and

Luke Savage - Liberalism in Theory and Practice

Contemporary liberals are temperamentally conservative and what they want to conserve is a morally bankrupt political order.

Modern liberalism, of course, has in its past a rich and diverse philosophical tradition from which socialists and conservatives alike have occasionally been able to draw resources and inspiration. But perhaps because it’s been a victim of its own success or because it has failed to meaningfully adapt since its most recent high watermark in the 1990s, today’s liberal mainstream seems less concerned with ideas than with temperament and more driven by mood than mind.

https://jacobinmag.com/2018/12/liberalism-theory-practice-obama-trudeau/

Nathan Robinson -
Why Bernie Sanders is (still) the most progressive choice for president

With less than two years until election day, no other Democratic candidate has the ability to defeat Donald Trump.

Speculation over the 2020 US presidential elections has already gotten contentious. The Democratic field looks as if it’s going to be crowded, and new prospects are floated by the press seemingly every week, from Oprah Winfrey to Beto O’Rourke. With just under two years to go until election day, it’s best not to become too consumed by presidential speculation. But for those on the left who want to defeat Donald Trump and advance egalitarian political values, it’s important to start to think about who can succeed. For those of us who believe in radically transformative political change, the choice is already clear – Bernie Sanders is the only viable option.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/19/why-bernie-sanders-is-still-the-most-progressive-choice-for-president

Nick Bernards - African Labour in Global Capitalism

Nick Bernards argues that placing African labour in capitalism requires that we think seriously and in historical perspective about the politics of irregular forms of work. In his contribution to ROAPE’s debate on capitalism in Africa, Bernards points out that the kinds of work performed by African workers have often been key reference points in global debates about governing irregular forms of work. These debates are often shaped in powerful ways by the unfolding and contingent relationships between the state and various segments of working classes on the continent.

http://roape.net/2018/12/18/african-labour-in-global-capitalism/

Russell Mokhiber - Systemic Corporate Crime: Business as Usual, Making Markets Irrelevant

Russell Mokhiber, the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter, speaks at the forum, “Destroying the Myths of Market Fundamentalism,” held in Washington DC, on October 19, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYNKaWqESgk

Жан-Ив Камю - «Лозунгов о национальной идентичности не так много»

«Меня сразу смутил тот факт, что власти поторопились подчеркнуть присутствие в составе движения ультраправых элементов, основываясь лишь на том, что представители этого политического лагеря были замечены среди манифестантов. При этом достоверной информации о конкретных людях и действиях предоставлено не было. Создавалось впечатление, что их присутствие, вполне реальное, но очень немногочисленное, являлось едва ли не главной движущей силой протестов»

http://humanite-russie.ru/politic/1130-lozungov-ne-tak-mnogo.html

Étienne Balibar - “Gilets jaunes”: the meaning of the confrontation

After President Macron’s speech and with the ‘gilets jaunes’ movement continuing, Etienne Balibar explains its origins and examines some of its political implications.

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4191-gilets-jaunes-the-meaning-of-the-confrontation

Карин Клеман - В чем проблема с авторитаризмом?

Название статьи несколько настораживает, но оно намекает на желание автора сделать обсуждение поставленной здесь проблемы более взвешенным. Дело в том, что в сегодняшней России и во многих других странах с так называемыми «авторитарными режимами» присутствие авторитаризма (по крайней мере так, как его понимают политологи либерального толка) с точки зрения «обычных людей» не так уж очевидно и почти не заметно в повседневной жизни. Почему это так? Потому что социальная реальность современного авторитаризма — конкретные формы порядка, стабильности, наличия правил (даже «диктатуры закона»), восстановления национального суверенитета, сильного правительства мало и редко ущемляет политические свободы и права обычных людей.

http://www.intelros.ru/readroom/nz/121-2018/37302-v-chem-problema-s-avtoritarizmom.html

Дмитрий Жихаревич - Теоретические развилки 1968 года: «новый класс» vs. «массовый рабочий»

В знаменитой статье 1992 года Джованни Арриги, Теренс Хопкинс и Иммануил Валлерстайн предположили, что в ключевых аспектах «мировая революция» 1968 года была репетицией событий 1989-го, которые стали ее продолжением. Несмотря на перемену идеологических векторов “в то время, как 1968-й был “антикапиталистическим”, 1989-й оказался в той же мере “капиталистическим”», структурной опорой обоих движений выступал так называемый «новый рабочий класс», состоявший, с одной стороны, из «интеллектуального слоя профессиональных инженеров, управленцев и исследователей, более или менее непосредственно вовлеченных в производственные процессы», а с другой, полуквалифицированных слоев «рядовых специалистов». Результаты выступлений 1968 года зависели от того, с какой скоростью формировалась эта «новая профессиональная интеллигенция», а также от социальной композиции протестных коалиций.

http://www.intelros.ru/readroom/nz/121-2018/37298-teoreticheskie-razvilki-1968-goda-novyy-klass-vs-massovyy-rabochiy.html

Joshua Clover - Five Notes on the Yellow Vest Movement

Not the few urban episodes of fighting cops and looting shops but the whole thing. The national movement arose after President Emmanuel Macron imposed a fuel premium, supposedly to drive the transition from France’s diesel-centric automotive life to more ecologically sound practices. If you believe that, I have a pont to sell you. Given that Macron had recently enacted a substantial tax break for the wealthy, and given that he is literally a sack of 50-euro notes wearing a smart necktie, believing him was not really an option.

https://popula.com/2018/12/19/five-notes-on-the-yellow-vest-movement/

Yasha Levine - Google’s Earth: how the tech giant is helping the state spy on us

We knew that being connected had a price – our data. But we didn’t care. Then it turned out that Google’s main clients included the military and intelligence agencies.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/dec/20/googles-earth-how-the-tech-giant-is-helping-the-state-spy-on-us?CMP=share_btn_fb

Руслан Дзарасов - Кто владеет Россией?

Российский ученый и доктор экономических наук, заведующий кафедры политической экономии РЭУ им. Г.В. Плеханова Р. С. Дзарасов расскажет, кому, по его мнению, принадлежит Россия.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9-xNEzwPR9c

Alex Press - What’s It Like to Work at Amazon?

Heike Geissler’s Seasonal Associate offers an unsparing portrait of a German Amazon warehouse.

“Reduced to a state of exhaustion, Geissler knows that the company sees her and her co-workers as temporary alternatives to robots, “nothing but a placeholder for machines that have already been invented but aren’t yet profitable enough to permanently replace you and your workmates, who are very low-cost.” Their minds become “counting machines”; their hands, covered in Band-Aids, exist only to sort products. “You’re a tool gifted with a voice no one wants to hear,” she writes. Later, as she breaks under the strains of her job, the formulation changes: “You’re not even a tool with a voice [anymore].”

https://www.thenation.com/article/heike-geissler-seasonal-associate-amazon/

Slavoj Zizek - The yellow vest protesters revolting against centrism mean well – but their left wing populism won’t change French politics

The yellow vest protesters revolting against centrism mean well – but their left wing populism won’t change French politics

The yellow vests movement fits the specific French left tradition of large public protests targeting political elites (more than business or financial elites). However, in contrast to the 68’ protests, the yellow vests are much more a movement of the France profonde, its revolt against big metropolitan areas, which means that its leftist orientation is much more blurred. (Both Le Pen and Melenchon support the protests.) As expected, commentators are asking which political force will appropriate the revolt energy, Le Pen or a new left, with purists demanding that it remains a “pure” protest movement at a distance from established politics.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/yellow-vest-protests-france-paris-gilets-jaunes-macron-fuel-tax-minimum-wage-populism-a8686586.html

Nick Srnicek - Platform Capitalism

What unites Google and Facebook, Apple and Microsoft, Siemens and GE, Uber and Airbnb? Across a wide range of sectors, these firms are transforming themselves into platforms: businesses that provide the hardware and software foundation for others to operate on. This transformation signals a major shift in how capitalist firms operate and how they interact with the rest of the economy: the emergence of platform capitalism. This talk critically examines these new business forms, showing how the fundamental foundations of the economy are rapidly being carved up among a small number of monopolistic platforms, and how the platform introduces new tendencies within capitalism that pose significant challenges to any vision of a post-capitalist future.  Particular attention will be paid to the geopolitical and capitalist competition emerging over AI, and what this means for the future of the economy more broadly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYCiUEB7kyg

Nancy Fraser, Tithi Bhattacharya, Cinzia Arruzza - Notes for a feminist manifesto

In spring 2018, Facebook billionaire Sheryl Sandberg was counselling women that toughness and success in the business world was the royal road to gender equality. If only ‘half of all countries and companies were run by women, and half of all homes were run by men’, the world would be a better place and we shouldn’t be satisfied until we reach that goal. A leading exponent of corporate feminism, Sandberg had made her name by urging women managers to ‘lean in’ at the company boardroom, at the summit of a career that had led from Harvard via the Treasury Secretary’s office to data-harvesting and ad-targeting at Google and Facebook, with the help of mentor Lawrence Summers, chief deregulator of Wall Street.