Capitalism

By Radhika Desai Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 1. London: Penguin and New Left Books, Translated by Ben Fowkes, with an introduction by Ernest Mandel. ‘Marx was the...

By C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout | Interview The concept of imperialism has fallen out of the political lexicon of many leftists in the West, with...

1 For the last thirty years the world system has undergone an extreme centralization of power in all its dimensions, local and international, economic and...

SAMIR AMIN 1 Le système en place depuis une trentaine d’années est caractérisé par l’extrême centralisation du pouvoir dans toutes ses dimensions, locales et internationales, économiques,...

By James Petras* Original post date: 31 January 2017 During his inaugural speech, President Trump clearly and forcefully outlined the strategic political-economic policies he will pursue...

By Boris Kagarlitsky The events currently unfolding in the United States, and discussions of the American Left regarding Trump, remind me of the famous Soviet...

More than four years on, we know that in 2012 the political fallout was only just beginning. It was in December 2011 that David Cameron reopened the European question by opting out of the new ‘fiscal compact’ drawn up by Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy with the aim of enforcing budget discipline across the EU. In the US in spring 2012, Mitt Romney emerged as the candidate from the Republican primaries, but the freakshow anticipated the Trump campaign to come. In Italy the ousting of Berlusconi in a backroom coup in November 2011 and the installation of the ‘unpolitical’ economist Mario Monti as prime minister set the stage for the emergence of Beppe Grillo and Five Star in the local elections of May 2012. In France as the fiscal compact began to bite, François Hollande’s presidency was dead almost before it had started.

Well before victories for Brexit and Trump seemed possible, Bannon declared there was a “global tea party movement” and praised European far-right parties like Great Britain’s UKIP and France’s National Front. Bannon also suggested that a racist element in far-right parties “all gets kind of washed out,” that the West was facing a “crisis of capitalism” after losing its “Judeo-Christian foundation,” and he blasted “crony capitalists” in Washington for failing to prosecute bank executives over the financial crisis.

The resistance against TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, is alive and kicking. While national leaders of the interested parties like Obama and Merkel are trying to revive the negotiations, wishing to finalise them, people are organising protest in many places to mark their disagreement.

The beautiful, peaceful world in which we have arranged our lives so comfortably is showing its repressed, violent side. Yet established political theory is silent – perplexed, incredulous, and helpless – in the face of these problems. Is this because the circumstances are beyond explanation? Or is there a problem with political theory itself? What has happened to the discipline that claims to be able to tell us about the legitimacy of political systems? To paraphrase Kant, is it dreaming the sweet dream of perpetual peace? In the following, I develop three theses in order to explain this silence. Before doing so, however, I will offer a brief sketch of recent key developments in political theory.