The Economy as Cultural System: Theory, Capitalism, Crisis PDF
Preview The Economy as Cultural System: Theory, Capitalism, Crisis
The Economy as Cultural System The Economy as Cultural System Theory, Capitalism, Crisis EDITED BY TODD DUFRESNE AND CLARA SACCHETTI Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 175 Fifth Avenue 50 Bedford Square New York London NY 10010 WC1B 3DP USA UK www.bloomsbury.com First published 2013 © Todd Dufresne and Clara Sacchetti, 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The economy as cultural system : theory, capitalism, crisis / edited by Todd Dufresne and Clara Sacchetti. -- 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4411-4003-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-4411-7037-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Capitalism--Social aspects--History--21st century. 2. Global Financial Crisis, 2008- 2009. 3. Economic development. I. Dufresne, Todd, 1966- II. Sacchetti, Clara. HB501.E286 2012 306.3--dc23 2012025717 ISBN 978-1-4411-1897-4 Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN Contents Acknowledgements vii Contributors ix Preface xiii Todd Dufresne Introduction: The economy as cultural system: Theory, capitalism, crisis 1 Clara Sacchetti 1 The I/eye of capital: Classical theoretical perspectives on the spectral economies of late capitalism 19 Thomas M. Kemple 2 Can’t buy me love: Psychiatric capitalism and the economics of happiness 35 Joel Faflak 3 Metaphoric wealth: Finance, financialization, and the end of narrative 51 Max Haiven 4 The burden of metaphor: Marx’s vampires, populist politics, and the dialectics of capitalist abstraction 73 Matthew MacLellan 5 Critical theory against the dispossession of needs: From perpetual crisis to social engagement 93 Tim Kaposy 6 Finance and the social time of aging: Toward a synthesis 109 Justin Sully vi CONTENTS 7 The work idea: Wage slavery, bullshit, and the good infinite 127 Mark Kingwell 8 The uniqueness of late capitalism: Biopower and biopolitics 141 Kezia Picard 9 Place, creativity, and Richard Florida: On the aesthetics of economic development 153 Todd Dufresne and Clara Sacchetti 10 Franco “Bifo” Berardi and the future of capitalism: “We have to run along the line of catastrophe” 169 Andrew Pendakis References 177 Index 195 Acknowledgements We want to thank the contributors to this volume of essays for their intelligence, good sense, and patience, which has made this project a pleasure. Special thanks is owed to Mark Nisenholt for allowing us to use his fabulous drawing for the cover. And, finally, our gratitude to Chris Wood, for editorial assistance, and to the editors at Continuum, most especially Marie- Claire Antoine, who guided us with professionalism and wisdom. The book was conceived in early 2010, but took its final and decisive shape while we were in Toronto in 2011–12. Dufresne would like to recognize his colleagues and administrative home during this period, The History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto, where he was a Visiting Professor. Sacchetti would like to recognize the support she received as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Frank Iacobucci Centre for Italian Canadian Studies at the University of Toronto. Special thanks goes out to Dr. Salvatore Bancheri for his encouragement and sage advice. This book we dedicate to Chloe, in the hope for a better, kinder, more just tomorrow. Contributors Franco Berardi is a Marxist theorist and media-activist who played an important role in the Italian Autonomist movement. He is the author of numerous books, including The Soul at Work: From Alienation to Autonomy (Semiotexte 2009b), and Precarious Rhapsody: Semio-Capitalism and the Pathologies of the Post-Alpha Generation (Autonomedia 2009a). He presently teaches media history at the Accademia di Brera, Milan. Todd Dufresne, Professor of Philosophy at Lakehead University, is the author and editor of numerous books, including Tales from the Freudian Crypt (Stanford UP), Killing Freud (Continuum), Against Freud (Stanford UP), and Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Broadview). He has been Associated Scholar and Visiting Professor at the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto. Joel Faflak is Associate Professor in Theory and Literature in the Department of English and core member of the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism at Western University. Among his many books are Romantic Psychoanalysis (SUNY), Revelation and Knowledge (University of Toronto Press), an edition of Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (Broadview), and ten edited collections and journal issues. He is currently writing two books on the psychopathology of happiness: one on the American film musical and the other on the rise of psychiatry in late eighteenth-century Romantic culture. He is on the executive of the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism and has lectured widely in North America and Europe. Max Haiven is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the department of Art and Public Policy at New York University, and an Adjunct Professor of material cultural studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Haiven’s work on the radical imagination has appeared in Cultural Critique, Affinities, and The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies. His work on finance has appeared in Social Text, Cultural Studies, and Cultural Logic.
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