Speculations on the Future of Economic Models in the Wake of Trans/Posthuman Sentient Evolution in Charles Stross’s SF Novel “Accelerando”

Economy, understood as a domain of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services, has been unquestionably comprehended as a social activity, the purpose of which is to satisfy first of all vital material, but also immaterial, needs of the biological natural human being. Whatever the underlying ideology—whether protectionist mercantilism, the physiocrats’ laissez-faire policy, Adam Smith’s free-market capitalism, Karl Marx’s socialist economics, Keynesian state interventionism, or present day neoliberalism—economic considerations have been invariably driven by the fundamental problem of scarcity. The objective of the proposed paper is to present Charles Stross’s speculative predictions, made in his SF novel Accelerando, about the future of economic models in light of trans/posthuman evolution hailed by, among others, Ray Kurzweil, Max More, and Hans Moravec.

Palingenetic Ultra-Nationalist Christianity: History, Identity, and the Falsity of Peripeteic Dialectics

The recent upsurge of European nationalism is partially an attempt to address the ongoing identity crisis that began with the Bourgeois revolution, which expressed itself through positivistic scientism and aggressive secularization, and culminated in the post-World War II “liberal consensus”: representative democracy and free-market capitalism as the “end of history.” Due to the needs of capitalism after World War II, coupled with the liberalization and Americanization of European societies, there has been a growing presence of “non-identical” elements within Europe, which itself is reexamining the very geography of what it means to be European. In this essay, I explore the historical context of the current identity struggles that are facing Europeans. From a Critical Theory perspective, I challenge the idea that Christianity or a Christian age can be resurrected by ultra-nationalists in their attempt to combat the cosmopolitanism of Western modernity. Moreover, I demonstrate how such attempts to return to an idealized Christian identity are rooted in a false possibility: Peripeteic Dialectics, or “dialectics in reverse.”

Prelude to America’s Downfall: The Stagflation of the 1970s

Since the end of the Bretton Woods system and the stagflation of the 1970s, the transatlantic core, under the leadership of the United States of America, has been trying to expand its model of free market capitalism embracing every part of the globe, while addressing its domestic overaccumulation crisis. This article follows a historical methodological perspective and draws from the concept of Uneven and Combined Development (UCD), which helps us consider the structural reasons behind the long and protracted decline of the American economic power. In this respect, according to the UCD concept, there is no global power that can enjoy the privilege for being at the top of the global capitalist system forever in a world which develops unevenly and in a combined way. Power shifts across the world and new powers come to challenge the current hegemonic power and its alliance systems. The novelty of the article is that it locates this decline in the 1970s and considers it as being consubstantial with the state economic policy of neo-liberalism and financialisation (supply-side economics). However the financialised capitalism of the transatlantic assemblage lack industrial base producing, reproducing and recycling real commodity values. Further, the article shows that this attempt to remain at the top of the global capitalist system forever has not been successful, not least because the regime which the recovery of the core had rested upon, that of neo-liberal financialisation represents a major vulnerability of the transatlantic assemblage eroding the primacy of the United States of America in it.

Neoliberal Cricketing Subjects in Contemporary India: The State-Market Dichotomy in Two Cricket Movies

This essay examines the ways in which two popular cricket movies from India — the Hindi movie Iqbal (2005) and the Tamil movie Jeeva (2014) — validate the tenets of “roll-back neoliberalism” (Peck and Tickell 2002), an ideology that calls for the withdrawal of State-regulatedwelfare mechanisms in favour of free market capitalism. The protagonists of these movies are talented cricketers from underprivileged backgrounds, and they are excluded from regional and national teams by corrupt cricket board officials. This essay critiques a common story arc that these narratives share: the protagonists are quintessentially neoliberal entrepreneurial subjects who overcome the marginalization through adept exploitation of commercial potential of the sport. The argument is that the discursive delegitimization of State intervention in cricket, and the concomitant framing of the free market as a progressive and inclusive entity, are disempowering for the cricketing public. While a State-regulated sporting culture does have its exclusionary aspects, this essay contends, contrapuntally, that the neoliberal validation of the free-market rationale can be problematic in that it absolves the State of the responsibility of fostering an inclusive cricketing culture. This study thus offers a contingent and strategic endorsement of the Indian State’s intervention in the nation‘s cricketing cultures.

Responsibly Engaged: Ideology and Utopia along the Backpacker Trail

<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>

Responsibly Engaged: Ideology and Utopia along the Backpacker Trail

<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>

Free market capitalism and societal inequities: assessing the effects of economic freedom on income inequality and the equity of access to opportunity, 1990–2017

Some blame free-market capitalism for increasing income inequality, arguing that richer classes could block access to others for maintaining their privileges. By manipulating the degree of political rights and resources available to others, the rich could reduce opportunities for others. Others argue that growth-promoting free markets raise all incomes, increasing aggregate welfare. We argue that governments more dependent on free markets are likely to focus on increasing access to human capital, thereby narrowing the gap between the rich and poor by increasing opportunities, even if income inequality rises with high growth. We assess the issue by examining the effects of an Index of Economic Freedom on income inequality measured by the standardized GINI and measures of the equity of access to quality schooling, health, and justice covering 128 developing countries during the 1990–2017 period. Our results show that, even if economic freedom is associated with higher income inequality, it also associates robustly with access to opportunity. Our results are robust to alternative models, sample size, and testing methods, including instrumental variables analyzes addressing potential endogeneity bias. Our results, taken together, do not suggest that growth-promoting economic freedoms hamper future progress by raising inequalities—on the contrary, economic freedoms promote equity of access to opportunities—findings inconsistent with the view that governments under free-market conditions are easily captured by the wealthy, who then block equitable access to public goods.

The Advent of Neoliberal Capitalism Over The 20th Century

In this paper, I have attempted to trace the emergence of neoliberal capitalism as an economic system pertaining to the foundations of classical liberalism of the 18th century. The paper essentially draws a comparative analysis of the Keynesian theory of government intervention in economic activity as opposed to Hayek’s conceptualization of free-market capitalism, while tracing the advent, trajectory and scope of neoliberal capitalism in the global context.

In search of alternatives for individualised workers: A comparative study of freelance organisations

This article contributes to the debate on the enterprise culture, which is characterised by the celebration of risk-taking and self-realisation, which in turn also implies self-responsibilisation and atomisation of the workforce. It does so by investigating organisations created with the aim of finding alternatives for freelancers, who epitomise the processes of individualisation typical of late capitalism. The organisations studied, both companies and cooperatives, aim to enable freelancers to combine autonomy in running their business with access to labour and social rights and inclusion in a collective. Drawing on a multiple case study conducted in France and Italy, the article investigates how organisations can counteract the processes of self-responsibilisation and atomisation of the workforce by enacting principles typical of alternative organisations. This study thus provides a twofold contribution to critical organisational theory and sociological literature on the individualisation of work and feasible alternatives to it. Our findings show, first, that the enterprise culture can be challenged through alternative organising even when freelancers – a category of workers embodying the contemporary processes of individualisation – are at stake. Second, the study of these emerging organisations also contributes to the flourishing debate on alternative organisations by adding an original empirical contribution to ongoing reflections on alternatives to market capitalism.