… but the way it doesn’t keep them is setting social movements on track to explore new ways of integrating the aims of Old Marxism and Neomarxism, says Charlie Masquelier in his article just out in EJST Far from marking the extinction of grounds upon which the artistic critique can draw its strength and legitimacy, the ...
I have speculated about the advent hedonistic-libertarian consumerist socialism – but I didn’t expect Russell Brand to spearhead it… well – i did see it – and read it… i think this one here’s the central statement with regards to revolutionary tactics: As John Cleese said, there is a tendency to confuse seriousness with solemnity. ...
I know it’s weak evidence (it it is evidence at all), but at least my claim that consumerism may engender a critical view of capitalism and even support the plausibility of socialist concepts has just become a little less unlikely: In what generally is seen as the homeland of consumer capitalism, the USA, the young ...
A voice from the past, which I came across when reworking my consumerist critique of capitalism for publication: Douglas Jay – often misread as an advocat for paternalistic state planning (Richart Toye’s got more on this here) – in his 1938/1947 book The Socialist Case has this to say: ‘Socialists have been inclined to depreciate ...
update 19th may 2013 slightly improved version now published in ephemera http://www.academia.edu/1303458/towards_a_consumerist_critique_of_capitalism_and_a_socialist_defence_of_consumer_culture Introduction To suggest a ‘consumerist critique of capitalism’ sounds quite oxymoronic – and even more so a ‘socialist defence of consumer culture’. Consumerism is widely seen as the cultural expression of developed capitalism and Marxist analyses from the 1970s onwards have tried to ...
here’s the agenda The aim of of journal is to carry discussion of democratic socialism in theory and practice, but also democratic socialist views of the world. We welcome art as well as social and political commentary. We welcome journalistic writing as well as academic submissions. We encourage submissions, from academics, whether employed or students, from ...
[this post is a bit of a mess – it’s initial occasion was Emre Kongar’s article (see below) on tolerance and secularism. My reaction to it got, somehow, entangled with my plan to write a socialist defence of consumer culture…] A distant colleague of mine is fond of saying that he will dance on the ...