Re-engineering the Future?

Alien Life

RE-ENGINEERING THE FUTURE?

Tate Britain, London

Friday 10 April 2015, 19.30 – 20.30

FREE

All discussions will be held in the Clore Auditorium at Tate Britain 19.30–20.30.

Attendance is free but tickets will be given out on a first-come-first-served basis from 18.00 in the Clore Foyer

Part of the series Speculative Tate

This panel brings together three leading political thinkers, Nina Power, Nick Srnicek (via Skype), Alex Williams and chaired by James Trafford, to consider the ways in which we might think and construct a “future”.

This is surely a task that is an absolute necessity, given, for example, the breakdown of the planetary climate system; increasing wealth disparity, rentier economics; precarity and automation of labour; state bailouts. But at the same time, the future itself seems almost impossible, with the ultimate channeling of thought and action under the axiom of Capitalist Realism: there is no alternative.

The issue raises further concerns regarding “whose” future is under construction? We may rightly ask, for example, if anything can be retrieved from the narrative of “progress” given its alliance with Modernism and Neo-liberalism. On the other hand, the relinquishment of “progress” by the left has arguably left us in a political bind, wherein we have little way of constructing an alternative form of modernisation in a context where increasingly the transformation and automation of labour requires us to think precisely this.

The panel will discuss: Post-work society, automation and Universal Basic Income; How or if it is possible to “think” the future in a democratic way; Whether or not it is possible to restructure the left along the lines of a radical form of modernisation.

Biographies

Nina Power is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Roehampton and Tutor in Critical Writing in Art and Design at the Royal College of Art. She has written widely on European philosophy and politics.

Nick Srnicek is a political theorist. He is the author of Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics and the forthcoming Inventing the Future: Folk Politics and the Struggle for Postcapitalism (Verso 2015) (both with Alex Williams), and Postcapitalist Technologies (Polity 2016).

Alex Williams is a political theorist, working on the relationship between social complexity and political hegemony. With Nick Srnicek he is the author of the Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics and the forthcoming Inventing the Future (Verso 2015).

See: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/talks-and-lectures/re-engineering-future

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

 

‘Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism’ – by Peter Hudis

Peter Hudis

‘MARX’S CONCEPT OF THE ALTERNATIVE TO CAPITALISM’ – BY PETER HUDIS

Peter Hudis, Oakton Community College and Loyola University

In contrast to the traditional view that Marx’s work is restricted to a critique of capitalism and does not contain a detailed or coherent conception of its alternative, this book shows, through an analysis of his published and unpublished writings, that Marx was committed to a specific concept of a post-capitalist society that informed his critique of value production, alienated labor and capitalist accumulation. Instead of focusing on the present with only a passing reference to the future, Marx’s emphasis on capitalism’s tendency towards dissolution is rooted in a specific conception of what should replace it. In critically re-examining that conception, this book addresses the quest for an alternative to capitalism that has taken on increased importance today.

ISSN: 1570-1522

ISBN13: 9789004221970

Planned Publication Date: June 2012

Version: Hardback 

Pages, Illustrations: approx. 272 pp.

Historical Materialism 36

Imprint: BRILL

 

Table of contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Why Explore Marx’s Concept of the Transcendence of Value Production? Why Now?
The object and purpose of this study
Objectivist and subjectivist approaches to Marx’s philosophical contribution

1. The Transcendence of Alienation in the Writings of the Young Marx
Marx’s beginnings, 1837–41
Marx’s critique of politics and philosophy, 1842–3
Marx’s critique of economics and philosophy, 1843–4
Discerning the ideal within the real, 1845–8
Evaluating the young Marx’s concept of a postcapitalist society

2. The Conception of a Postcapitalist Society in the Drafts of Capital
The ‘first draft’ of Capital: The Poverty of Philosophy (1847)
The ‘second draft’ of Capital: the Grundrisse (1858)
The ‘third draft’ of Capital: the manuscript of 1861–3

3. The Vision of the New Society in Marx’s Capital
Volume I of Capital
Volumes II and III of Capital

4. Marx’s Late Writings on Postcapitalist Society
The impact of the Paris Commune on Marx
The Critique of the Gotha Programme and ‘Notes on Wagner’

Conclusion: Evaluating Marx’s Concept of a Postcapitalist Society

Appendix: Translation of Marx’s Excerpt-Notes on the Chapter ‘Absolute Knowledge’ in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit

Bibliography
Index

 

Biographical note:

Peter Hudis, Ph.D. (2011) in Philosophy, Loyola University Chicago, is Lecturer in Philosophy and the Humanities at OaktonCommunity Collegeand LoyolaUniversity. He has published extensively on Marxist theory and is General Editor of The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg.

Book details and ordering at: http://www.brill.nl/marxs-concept-alternative-capitalism

I am really looking forward to reading this book: Glenn Rikowski

**END**

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic