scholarly journals Responsibly Engaged: Ideology and Utopia along the Backpacker Trail

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sonja Bohn
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
Late Capitalism ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Discourse Functions ◽  
Market Capitalism

<p>By following the backpacker trail beyond the 'tourist bubble,' travellers invest in the ideals of freedom, engagement, and responsibility. Backpacker discourse foregrounds travellers' freedom to mobility as it constructs the world as 'tourable'; engagement is demonstrated in the search for 'authentic' connections with cultural Others, beyond the reach of globalised capitalism; responsibility is shouldered by yearning to improve the lives of these Others, through capitalist development. While backpackers frequently question the attainability of these ideals, aspiring to them reveals a desire for a world that is open, diverse, and egalitarian. My perspective is framed by Fredric Jameson's reading of the interrelated concepts of ideology and utopia. While backpacker discourse functions ideologically to reify and obscure global inequalities, to entrench free market capitalism, and to limit the imagining of alternatives, it also figures for a utopian world in which such ideology is not necessary. Using this approach, I attempt to undertake critique of backpacker ideology without invalidating its utopian content, while seeking to reveal its limits. Overall, I suggest that late-capitalism subsumes utopian desires for a better way of living by presenting itself as the solution. This leaves backpackers feeling stranded, seeking to escape the ills of capitalism, via capitalism.</p>

scholarly journals Responsibly Engaged: Ideology and Utopia along the Backpacker Trail

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sonja Bohn
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
Late Capitalism ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Discourse Functions ◽  
Market Capitalism

<p>By following the backpacker trail beyond the 'tourist bubble,' travellers invest in the ideals of freedom, engagement, and responsibility. Backpacker discourse foregrounds travellers' freedom to mobility as it constructs the world as 'tourable'; engagement is demonstrated in the search for 'authentic' connections with cultural Others, beyond the reach of globalised capitalism; responsibility is shouldered by yearning to improve the lives of these Others, through capitalist development. While backpackers frequently question the attainability of these ideals, aspiring to them reveals a desire for a world that is open, diverse, and egalitarian. My perspective is framed by Fredric Jameson's reading of the interrelated concepts of ideology and utopia. While backpacker discourse functions ideologically to reify and obscure global inequalities, to entrench free market capitalism, and to limit the imagining of alternatives, it also figures for a utopian world in which such ideology is not necessary. Using this approach, I attempt to undertake critique of backpacker ideology without invalidating its utopian content, while seeking to reveal its limits. Overall, I suggest that late-capitalism subsumes utopian desires for a better way of living by presenting itself as the solution. This leaves backpackers feeling stranded, seeking to escape the ills of capitalism, via capitalism.</p>

The Legacy of Iraq

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
The World ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Market Capitalism

This book critically reflects on the failure of the 2003 intervention to turn Iraq into a liberal democracy, underpinned by free-market capitalism, its citizens free to live in peace and prosperity. The book argues that mistakes made by the coalition and the Iraqi political elite set a sequence of events in motion that have had devastating consequences for Iraq, the Middle East and for the rest of the world. Today, as the nation faces perhaps its greatest challenge in the wake of the devastating advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and another US-led coalition undertakes renewed military action in Iraq, understanding the complex and difficult legacies of the 2003 war could not be more urgent. Ignoring the legacies of the Iraq War and denying their connection to contemporary events could mean that vital lessons are ignored and the same mistakes made again.

Planetary Ambitions

2019 ◽  
pp. 67-84
Author(s):  
Joshua Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Mapping ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Ground Level ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Hegemonic Discourse ◽  
The World ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Fredric Jameson ◽  
Market Capitalism

This chapter reads Lydie Salvayre's Portrait de l’écrivain en animal domestique (2007). In this novel, Salvayre’s anxieties about allowing oneself—and even herself as author—to be domesticated by the logic of global capitalism are condensed into the pathological relationship between her narrator avatar (who incarnates politically-engaged literature) and the satirical Jim Tobold, the richest man on the planet and ‘uncontested champion of globalization’—a character who, incidentally, bears more than a passing resemblance to Donald Trump. Tobold sees the world at the level of the master, corporate map, from which he can make boardroom decisions in perfect disregard for their harmful, ground-level side effects. This chapter revisits and further explores Bruno Latour on cartographic megalomania, and draws on Fredric Jameson on cognitive mapping, and David Harvey on the self-defeating contradictions of the infinite expansion paradigm of capitalism in a world of increasingly finite resources. Moreover, it develops the Salvaryean notion of the paralipomenon, offering a new perspective on Salvayre’s underlying (engaged) literary strategy, one that, by focusing on the seemingly insignificant details of a hegemonic discourse—such as that of free-market capitalism—reveals its inherent contradictions and flaws.

“Your Grandchildren Will Grow Up Under Communism!”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria M. Grieve
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Democratic Capitalism ◽  
The World ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Soviet Communism ◽  
Advertising Council ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Market Capitalism

A potent weapon in the Cold War, advertising relied on the notion of childhood innocence to promote Cold War containment at home and to advance a crucial pillar of US Cold War ideology abroad—the superiority of free market capitalism over communism. This chapter analyzes how images of children and ideas about childhood informed several major Advertising Council public service campaigns as well as consumer advertising during the 1950s. The distinction between domestic advertising and foreign propaganda during the Cold War was often a fine one, as both routinely used images of children to represent the nation to Americans and to potential allies around the world. In the hands of government propagandists and corporate advertisers, children simultaneously functioned as symbols of the happiness and security that could be achieved through a commitment to democratic capitalism and as symbols illustrating the nation’s vulnerability to the spread of Soviet communism.

scholarly journals Contesting realities

2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-206
Author(s):  
Jessica Whyte
Keyword(s):  
Wall Street Journal ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Central Tenet ◽  
The World ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
The Face ◽  
Market Capitalism

In 2004, an unnamed Bush adviser accused a senior Wall Street Journal reporter of belonging to the “reality based community”—a community that believed solutions stem from the judicious study of reality. “We're history's actors, “ he told the journalist, “and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” Overwhelmingly, the response of those on the left, and of US progressives to this comment was to smugly deride the irrationalism and the arrogance of the Bush Administration. This paper, in contrast, will examine what is missed in the rush to accept membership of the reality based community. It will suggest that that the advisor's comments express something that was once a central tenet of the left: the belief that political action is capable of transforming reality. Today, on the left, this belief has been all but abandoned in the face of a seemingly unstoppable onslaught of free market capitalism and increasingly repressive state power. This paper will ask what it would mean today, to begin to re-imagine political action as capable of remaking the world.

scholarly journals Globalisasi dan Reformasi Keuangan Internasional

2001 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-89
Author(s):  
Rahmatina A. Kasri
Keyword(s):  
Fiber Optics ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The World ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Market Capitalism

Globalisasi berasal dari kata "Global", yang menurut Kamus Oxford Advanced Learner berarti "covering or affecting the whole world', sehingga secara etimologis kita bisa menginterpretasikan globalisasi sebagai sebuah proses dinamis-berkelanjutan yang mempengaruhi seluruh dunia. Lebih jauh lagi, menurut Thomas L. Friedman, proses tersebut meliputi "...the inexorable integrations of markets, nation-states and technologies to a degree never witnessed before-in a way that is enabling individuals, corporations and nationstates to reach around the world faster, deeper and cheaper than ever before. And in a way that is enabling the world to reach into individuals, corporation and nation-states farther, faster, deeper and cheaper than ever before. "(Friedman, 2000).Globalisasi, dengan free-market capitalism sebagai pendorong utamanya, mempunyai struktur kekuatan tersendiri, Pertama, globalisasi mempunyai aturan ekonominya sendiri, yang meliputi ekonomi yang lebih terbuka, deregulasi dan privatisasi ekonomi agar lebih kompetitif dan menarik bagi investasi asing. Kedua, globalisasi mempunyai dominant culturenya sendiri, yang menurut sebagian besar orang adalah gejala Amerikanisasi.  Ketiga, globalisasi punya teknologinya sendiri: komputerisasi, miniaturisasi, digitization, komunikasi satelit, fiber optics dan internet, yang kekuatannya mampu menyatukan dunia. Keempat, globalisasi memiliki pola demografis yang ditandai oleh akselerasi migrasi yang sangat cepat, dalam skala nasional maupun internasional. Terakhir, globalisasi mempunyai struktur dan sistem kekuasaan/kekuatan sendiri. 

scholarly journals Estonia’s Digital Transformation

2019 ◽  
pp. 143-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Kattel ◽  
Ines Mergel
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Economic Success ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Distinct Features ◽  
Market Capitalism

Estonia’s transition to free-market capitalism and liberal democracy is marked by three distinct features: economic success, digital transformation of its public sector, and a rapid increase and persistence of social inequality in Estonia. Indeed, Estonia has become one of the most unequal societies in Europe. Economic success and increasing social inequality can be explained as different sides of the same coin: a neoliberal policy mix opened markets and allowed globalization to play out its drama on a domestic stage, creating winners and losers. Yet Estonia has been highly successful in its digital agenda. Particularly interesting is how the country’s public sector led the digital transformation within this highly neoliberal policy landscape. While within economic policy, Estonia did indeed follow the famed invisible hand in rapidly liberalizing markets, in ICT, Estonia seems to have followed an entirely different principle of policymaking. In this domain, policy has followed the principle of the hiding hand, coined by Albert Hirschman: policy-makers sometimes take on tasks they think they can solve without realizing all the challenges and risks involved— and this may result in unexpected learning and creativity. The success of Estonia’s e-government has much to do with the principle of the hiding hand: naïvety and optimism propelled initial ‘crazy ideas’ in the early 1990s to become ingrained in ICT policy, enabling the creation of multiple highly cooperative and overlapping networks that span public–private boundaries.

Encounter Three: Art and the Socialist State

2019 ◽  
pp. 55-68
Author(s):  
Jan Bryant
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Western Art ◽  
Socialist State ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Market Capitalism

This chapter traces the tactics used by the art Slovenian collective, Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK), specifically the art section, Irwin and the music group, Laibach, to criticise the socialist state of Yugoslavia. The chapter offers a brief overview of the political climate at the time leading up to and during the Yugoslavian wars (1980s and ‘90s). Closely analysed is NSK’s use of ambiguity and parody to hold a mirror up to authoritarianism and Irwin’s appropriation of early Russian avant-garde motifs to criticise socialist-realism and the State’s ‘misuse’ of art. As protection against retaliation by the state, NSK never prescribed their intentions, so audiences and viewers needed to bring their own context and perspective to events. Once Slovenia left the Yugoslavian Federation to enter into free-market capitalism, NSKs tactics seemed far less potent, flowing neatly into a 1980s western art context (a moment in history) that embraced ambivalence and indeterminacy. As an approach that hides a work’s political intent, allowing its viewers to have their own political views affirmed, it is argued that such a tactic fails to shake the political aesthetic. [181]

Giovanni Arrighi in Beijing: An Alternative to Capitalism?

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leo Panitch
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Market Society ◽  
World State ◽  
The Us ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Chinese Capitalism ◽  
Market Capitalism

AbstractGiovanni Arrighi made a remarkably broad-ranging and original contribution to comparative political economy and historical sociology over five decades. His last book shares these qualities. But Adam Smith in Beijing is unfortunately not mainly about the origins and dynamics of Chinese capitalism over the past three decades. It presents Adam Smith not as the apostle of free-market capitalism, but rather of a ‘non-capitalist market society’; and it uses this to make the case that since China’s economic development takes place outside the European/North American capitalist ‘core’, it must, almost by definition, not be capitalist. Markets are conceived here as the instruments of states, yet the theory of the state advanced is severely undeveloped. Arrighi’s argument that China’s economic development is part and parcel of the demise of the US project for establishing itself as the ‘world state’ misinterprets the nature of the US empire as well as misses the extent of China’s integration with US-led capitalist globalisation.

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