|
when the nixon administration scrapped bretton woods and instituted floating currency, the idea was to abandon an outmoded break on capital accumulation. it never anchored anything to anything, the gold standard--rather it was a residuum of the inability of folk do deal with value as an effect of circulation, as relational, as based, in the end, on momentum, and so, by extension, no-thing.
the neoliberal order is definitely in trouble. i think the system that has taken shape is at its limit. i don't think that means capitalism will collapse---what it means is that we're entering a period of mutation in the course of which you'll get a little demonstration of what it mean when folk characterize capitalism as an autopoeitic system. changes in environment force adaptation in system logic in order to preserve system identity. neoliberalism is as outmoded as the edsel at this point, but without the lovelt design points that make the edsel still interesting--it's inability to provide either a compelling or robust description of actually existing capitalism is now obvious--that an inadequate description leads to incoherent policy is now also obvious. but this has been true for quite a long time--the only real changes are (a) the material required for becoming-visible within the bizarre little ideological bubble that is the united states are in place because (b) the dysfunctions of the system have reached the metropole. that's it.
that folk invested in precisely the ideology that is being pulverized in real time have trouble seeing what's in front of them is not surprising.
that it is so pervasive in the states is an index of the monocrop culture we live in from the political viewpoint.
it provides an idea of the consequences of soft-authoritarian rule, shows its limits.
so i find it almost funny watching the problems folk are having with getting their heads around what's in front of them.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|