We Don't Agree on Capitalism
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Not a Good Century for Thinking
The twentieth century saw unprecedented scientific breakthroughs, tools for understanding the world, the expansion of higher education and data on which to derive theories. Yet at the same time radical political thought has stagnated and largely failed to take advantage of the conceptual developments of the last century. Why?
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Anarchism, not a Libertarian Marxism
A frequent assumption by both Marxists and anarchists is that despite all our differences we ultimately share similar assumptions about how capitalism operates. Yet despite the fact there's no official anarchist economics, many anarchists throughout history have pointed out serious problems with Marxism that point towards a as-yet unarticulated anarchist economics.
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Enclosing the Future
Marxist theories of capitalism posit the uncontrolled development of productive technology towards the end of profit. What we instead see when we look at the world is the development of technology in a way that is constrained and directed to maintain control. How ruling elites handle the disruption that comes with innovation so as to maintain social control is a critical part of how capitalism that has largely been under-theorized by radicals.
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Marx's Account of Capitalist Rationality
Marxism is premised on capitalist enterprises becoming ever more rational and effective as they scale. This poses serious problems for anarchist aspirations. Thankfully there are good theoretical reasons to think that Marx was wrong about this.
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