PROKLA - Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaft
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Wer sieht das, was wir nicht sehen? Überlegungen zum Subjekt der Ideologiekritik
Get PDFThe critique of ideology has often been criticised because it seems to imply a problematic gap between the perspective of the critical sociologist and that of the actor. The following article tries to show that the conception of the critique of ideology developed by Marx in his writings on the critique of political economy can avoid this problem insofar as the conception can be reconstructed as an instrument to explain the practical contradictions with which the actors are confronted in capitalist societies. The way in which these practical contradictions are explained shows also that the structures which first seemed to be natural preconditions for the actors are in fact the product of their actions
Vom Krisenmanagement zur neuen Konsolidierungsagenda der EU
Get PDFOver the past years the economic crisis has been sensibly displaced. Starting as a subprime crisis in the US, it soon unfolded as a global economic and financial crisis. European countries confronted the crisis with banking rescue packages, economic stimulus programmes, automatic stabilisers and a common emergency fund for endangered states of the Eurozone. Consequently, not only private, but also public debt increased. The crisis therefore evolved towards a fiscal crisis and moved into the political system. Against this background, the article investigates the articulation of political economic interests and initiatives in the European management of the debt crisis. It argues that the emergence of a new austerity oriented fiscal consolidation agenda reflects a strengthened position of creditors and owners of financial assets. However, given the unequal – European and domestic – distribution of the adjustment burden, the revitalisation of European financial market capitalism remains characterised by intensified social struggles
Editorial: Critique of Economics
Get PDFDie Finanzkrise der Jahre 2008/2009 und die folgende Wirtschaftskrise hat nicht nur die Ökonomie, sondern auch die herrschende ökonomische Theorie erschüttert . Weitgehend deregulierte Finanzmärkte, nach neoklassischer Lehre der Gipfel ökonomischer Effizienz, stürzten in kürzester Zeit in eine tiefe Krise. Nur durch umfangreiche staatliche Bürgschaften und Finanzspritzen für Großbanken – ganz im Widerspruch zu den bis dato weithin geteilten marktradikalen Glaubenssätzen – konnte ein weitgehender Zusammenbruch des internationalen Finanzsystems verhindert werden. Die analytische Hilflosigkeit der Neoklassik war angesichts der Krise offensichtlich, so manche Auftritte ihrer Vertreter wirkten nur noch peinlich. Angesichts der enormen Konjunkturprogramme, mit denen die USA, Deutschland und andere Staaten auf die Finanzmarkt- und Wirtschaftskrise reagierten, sahen manche Beobachter schon eine Renaissance des Keynesianismus am Horizont. In manchen Medien erinnerte man sich sogar wieder der Marxschen Theorie, die immer schon argumentiert hatte, dass Krisen notwendigerweise zum Kapitalismus gehören
Das Landnahmetheorem: eine kritische Würdigung
Get PDFThe “Landnahme”-Theory tries not only to explain the processes of privatization, deregulation and financialization of the economy since the crisis of the 1970s. Following Rosa Luxemburg’s “Accumulation of Capital” and Marx’ remarks on “primitive accumulation”, David Harvey and Klaus Dörre develop a heuristic framework for the interpretation of capitalist dynamics and reproduction through economic crisis. This article reconstructs their theories, examines their empirical plausibility and questions gaps in the Political Economy of contemporary capitalism
Uneingeschränkte Solidarität: Das neue strategische Konzept der NATO und die Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Get PDFThis article focuses on the analysis of the new strategic concept of NATO (Lisbon 2010) and its effect on German foreign and security policy. During the Cold War, the (old) Federal Republic of Germany had done well to recognize its limited sovereignty while at the same time expanding its economic and political influence in NATO and the EC/EU. This approach has not fundamentally changed with the unification of Germany in 1990. Since then Germany has been developing its imperial ambitions cautiously, embedded in the aggressive NATO military pact and the militarization of the EU. The credo of the new Germany is the enforcement of both;, German economic and geo-strategic interests as a nation cannot be achieved alone, but only within the range of existing alliances
Die Schuldenbremse als politisches Projekt
Get PDFThe German constitution has rules concerning public debt, and those rules changed a couple of years ago. Starting in 2016, new public debts are permitted up to a level of 0.35 percent of GDP for the German federation. The German states are not allowed net new borrowing at all, starting in 2020. This is a crucial change, given the old constitutional law, which allows debts for public investments. The following article deals with the question of whether the new law is used to „starve the beast”, in other words: to cutback public activities and authorise tax reductions. The article interprets the new dept regulations as a political project rather than an economical imperative
Editorial: Gesellschaftstheorie im Anschluss an Marx
Get PDFEditorial: Gesellschaftstheorie im Anschluss an Mar
Zum Frieden verdammt – Bundeswehr 2011
Get PDFThe German Bundeswehr from 1956 onwards evolved into an institution where combat and military actions were confined solely to a rhetorical level. In its actual functions, the Bundeswehr resembled a routine operation, offering its personnel attractive vocational opportunities. The development since the 1990s and the deployment of troops in international crises are to be interpreted as clear departures from this institutionalised tradition. The reform to be introduced in 2011 is expected to initiate a return to its former orientation
Politisch relevanter Totenkult
Get PDFIn Germany a new cult of the dead soldier is emerging. Whoever thinks this cult is only an antiquated custom of military rituals, which should be done away with, or whoever declares this cult to be an object of political discussion of only secondary rank, is missing one of the important political and sociological dimensions of the changing reproduction of the military in the time of the Afghanistan war. The article shows which necessary contribution this cult of the dead makes to Germany’s ability to wage war. Two important functions of this cult can be made out: to maintain the soldiers’ motivation, and the population’s acceptance of dead soldiers due to the war. The article focuses on the second function
Das neue Elend der US-Städte: eine avancierte Form des Klassenkampfs von oben
Get PDFThe recent financial and economic crisis had its origins in the subprime mortgage collapse that wreaked havoc across urban America, with exploding foreclosure and eviction rates confronting municipalities with entirely new challenges. On top of these housing market and vacancy problems, the financial crisis has squeezed municipal budgets so that local politicians have themselves resorted to risky fiscal innovations as well as to increasingly severe cuts in public sector and social programs, aggravating poverty, homelessness and the decay of public urban infrastructures. While these developments occur unevenly across different types of cities and regions, and state measures to deal with the accelerating social problems have also varied, trends of instrumentalizing the ‘budget crisis’ for consolidating class power can be identified. With the assault on public sector unions launched by a number of states and cities, some disparate protest and resistance movements have begun to emerge