PROKLA - Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaft
Not a member yet
1980 research outputs found
Sort by
Der Aufstieg der Madame Le Pen: Die Strategie der Front National im Europawahlkampf 2014
Get PDFAfter the latest european election, the Front National (National Front) is now the strongest party in France. With the aid of the hegemony theory, this article analyzes the contextual conditions for the rise of the Front National and the political strategy in the european elections campain. The aim of this article is to answer the question how the party managed to resolve the poor results of the presidential elections 2007 and gain such high approval rates in the latest elections
Oligarchie – eine Form bürgerlicher Herrschaft: Das Beispiel osteuropäischer semi-peripherer Kapitalismus
Get PDFThe close link between economic and political power is the key characteristic of oligarchic rule. Different forms of oligarchic rule and structures have emerged during the capitalist transformation in Eastern Europe over the last 25 years. The article compares oligarchic rule in the successor states of multinational federations that disintegrated after 1989 – i.e. the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. From a comparative perspective, it analyses the emergence of domestic oligarchic groups, the (sub-)sectors of their economic activities and their relationship to the semi-peripheral states (in particular their relationship with political parties as a key transmission belt into state decision-making centres)
Ressourcen-Extraktivismus oder Re-Industrialisierung? Das russische Entwicklungsmodell im Kontext der „neuen Weltordnung“
Get PDFAgainst the backdrop of the recent conflicts in the Ukraine and Syria the article examines Russia’s geopolitical strategy in the context of a “new world order”. Starting with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the beginning of capitalist reforms in the early 1990s the focus lies on the negotiation process of a new hegemonic consensus among the Russian elites represented by Vladimir Putin. Special attention is drawn to the role of the state and its key role stabilizing both social and power relations. Furthermore, the article analyses the expansionist strategies of Russian capital and its geopolitical interests, especially in the post-soviet space. The current financial and economic crisis has lead to conflicts among the elites on the resource-extractive mode of development and its one-sided dependency on natural resources. Therefore, the article highlights both the plans on import substitution and new integration process in the postsoviet space (Eurasian Union) asking whether these developments might contribute to a reconfiguration of Russia’s geopolitical role
Warum die Ukraine gescheitert ist: Oligarchische Konsolidierung und geopolitisches Hasardspiel
Get PDFWith the advent of the Ukrainian crisis, the old repertoire of Cold War stereotypes is back. The uprising on Kiev’s Independence Square, a local event, has been framed as a clash of „European values“and the expansionary nature of a revived „Russian autocracy“.Ukraine’s autonomy seems in danger, the risk of a new great war is written on the wall. The history of Ukraine since independence tells a different story. From the very beginning the construction of a Ukrainian state has been captured by (post)communist elites which, transformed into oligarchic clans, dominate all layers of Ukrainian politics. Each turn, from the „Orange Revolution“ to the Maidan-protests, can be understood as oligarchic stratagems. The universal frustration of the population as well as (West-)Ukrainian nationalism serve as mobilization strategies in the struggle for state power. The EU and the U.S.have entered and escalated these infightings. The EU have been doing so by making illusionary promises of „Europeanization“, while the US tries to score another „Victory in the Cold War“, whose final trophy is waiting them in Moscow
Kräfteverhältnisse in der Eurokrise: Konfliktdynamiken im bundesdeutschen ‘Block an der Macht’
Get PDFJohn Kannankulam and Fabian Georgi show, that the dominant authoritarian neoliberal fraction of the german Federal Government made a change of course in summer 2012. It quits with some ordoliberal principles and stops resistance against the mutualization of debt and expansive monetary policy. The alliance of a national-conservative and an ordoliberal fraction broke up. The contradiction within the (neo-)liberals and conservatives result in a foundation of a new right-wing party, the AfD, Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany). Anyway new conflicts arise and the Great Coalition of Merkel’s CDU and the Social Democrats hold on its hard-line (against greece): austerity. John Kannankulam and Fabian Georgi reconstruct the dynamics on the basis of four phases in which the authoritarian-neoliberal fraction prevail
An der Oberfläche der Tauschgesellschaft: Kritik der Kritischen Theorie
Get PDFIn this paper I argue that we should not accept the normative turn that major contemporary critical theorists, such as Habermas, Honneth, and Jaeggi, have introduced to critical theory. On the one hand, the introduction of a communicative and ultimately ethical paradigm led to a loss of a dialectical concept of society. On the other hand, this turn led to a loss of a non-normative concept of critique. Accordingly, I argue that we should return to a Marxian concept of critique as analysis of (capitalist) social totality, which, in turn, enables us to re-introduce a concept of society that is not based on abstract moral or normative assumptions, but, instead, functions as their basis. For only a non-normative concept of critique can help us to see the finite and historical limits of capitalist society. Moreover, this return to Marx not only helps us understand that capitalist social totality is not established on ethical grounds but that it is constituted by money and labor. As a consequence, the return to a Marxist paradigm allows critical theory to include an analysis of the natural basis of capitalist sociality, of which it has lost sight due to its ethical idealism
Neoklassischer Marxismus? Wie ideologisch ist die linke Kritik an der Geldpolitik?
Get PDFA couple of years after the outbreak of the financial crisis, a discussion about money creation from a political economy perspective has finally been initiated again, analyzing the interaction between commercial and central banks. Neo-Marxist approaches, though, are to a large extent unaffected by this discussion – which is based on Joseph Schumpeter’s Theory of Economic Development (1911) – or even completely reject the idea of a money-creation out of nothing. Two Neo-Marxist articles are exemplary of this deficit of monetary theories. On the one hand, the influential book Political Economy of Financial Markets (1999) by Jörg Huffschmid, which has constituted the paradigm of capitalism being driven by financial markets. On the other hand Political Economy of Money (2012) by Stephan Krüger, which assumes that the value of money is still based on the respective production of gold. Consequently, these approaches unintended trigger an adherence to the Neoclassical dichotomy of „real economy“ and „monetary sphere“, albeit with different rationales
Kapitalistische und territorial-geopolitische Logiken der Macht: Die Rolle der EU im Ukraine-Konflikt
Get PDFThe non-signing of the association and free trade agreement with the EU by the former Ukrainian president Victor Janukovych triggered the on-going conflict in the Ukraine. By offering a deepening of the political and economic relations with the West, the EU did not consider Russia’s interests in the post-Soviet region. Drawing on Harvey, the article argues that within this process the territorial-geopolitical logic prevails over the capitalist logic of power. Economic interests of the European Union exist, but they are not sufficient to explain the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. Rather, the conflict can be understood as a non-intentional consequence of the EU’s politics concernging the Ukraine. In particular, three sectors – finance, energy and agriculture – are relevant for the EU in Ukraine. However, up to now the European capital factions are facing difficulties in asserting their interests in these sectors due to strong oligarchic structures in the country. Together with the territorial-geopolitical logic of power they have to be taken into account to explain the conflict. Ultimately, the armed conflict in the Eastern Ukraine endangers the EU’s economic ties with Russia. These are more important for the EU than its economic relations with Ukraine. As a result, the territorial-geopolitical logic unfolds as opposed to the capitalist logic in the conflict
Geld als Fiktion? Warum Geld kein Kredit ist und das Publikum so schwer von seiner Stabilität zu überzeugen ist
Get PDFStarting from frequent characterizations of modern money as a fiction, the text discusses the theoretical background of the idea that money once was something „real“ whereas now it amounts to no more than a fiction. The distinction has its roots in the conviction that only commodity money was (or is) something „real“, whereas credit money is held to be fictitious money. However, both forms of money are social constructions, one operating with a „natural“ base in the form of precious metals, the other in the context of a politically managed credit system with the central bank as the lead institution. The problem with the latter is that it is not well understood, as the article demonstrates by going through Keynes understanding of money in his Treatise and some of the recent literature. Another recently popular theoretical remedy to enlighten the public about the money it uses has been to declare that all money is credit. However this is a simplification that threatens to undermine the project of improving the general understanding of money as a prerequisite for more democratic decision-making in the wake of the financial and the Euro crises. The fiction concerning money that remains is that there can be such a thing as a monetary invariant
Geldreform als Weg aus der Krise? Ein kritischer Überblick auf Bitcoin, Regionalgeld, Vollgeld und die Modern Money Theory
Get PDFMonetary reform proposals can be characterized by their position taking on two fundamental debates within monetary theory: What is the nature of money (credit or asset)? Who should issue money (the state or private entities)? In opting for a radical departure from the hybrid nature of the current monetary system, reform proposals suffer from a gap between far reaching legitimacy claims and neglected functionality problems in monetary governance