126,301 research outputs found
La concezione neoliberale della storia: la saldatura tra neoliberismo e revisionismo storico in Friedrich von Hayek
No full textWhile neoliberal policies and their social and political consequences have been widely studied and criticised in the last decades, the historical and theoretical framework of neoliberalism in connection with the liberal tradition as a whole and the more theoretical aspects of its hegemonic construction have received less attention. Even less have been direct, critical discussions of its founders’ texts, and only a small amount of these has been conducted in an actually Marxist perspective. A major exceptionin this sense, especially in Italy, has been the work of Domenico Losurdo. This article builds on Losurdo’s discussions, which are scattered but numerous in his work, of Friedrich von Hayek’s texts, and tries to employ his method in order to analyse them.The specific aim of this research has been to investigate how Hayek’s neoliberalism and his theory of spontaneous evolution are combined with forms of historical revisionism, such as the re-invention of liberal tradition, the rewriting of the history of modern Europe and of modern political thought, the “idyllic” reconstruction of the early industrial capitalism, the equalization of communism and Nazism and their “orientalisation”, and the obliteration of colonial history. What emerges from this encounter is a full-fledged philosophy of history, a “neoliberal conception of history”, whose elements can still be well recognised in the current public discourse and even in common sense
The Hidden Abode of Artificial Intelligence Production: Stretching the limits of AI ethics and critique
No full textThe present article aims to discuss the possibility of including the sphere of artificial intelligence production within the domain of artificial intelligence ethics and investigate its moral implications. In the first section, the role of human labour in the artificial intelligence production processes is considered, with particular reference to the distinction between high-skilled and low-skilled jobs, their differential distribution in the production process itself, and the labour conditions of ghost workers, in order to analyse the main ethical issues emerging within the field. In the second section, some aspects of the existing critical literature concerning artificial intelligence and labour are discussed, focusing on Marxist and decolonial scholarship and more precisely on its lack of consideration of the global value chain through which artificial intelligence AI production processes are structured. Finally, the possibility and limits of an ethics of artificial intelligence production are reconsidered by assuming the centrality of workers’ struggles and agency along artificial intelligence's global value chain
Autistici laboriosi, autistici pericolosi. Neurodivergenze mostruose e dove trovarle
No full textThe last years have been characterised by increasingly
systematic attempts to “integrate” autistic people into the labour market
both in the U.S. and Europe. On a more general social level, such attempts
have been preceded and accompanied by a positive reassessment of the
“autistic traits” and by the emerging necessity to discipline the rising
“autistic labour-power” to make it a productive force fully able to fulfil its
role within the capitalist system. In the history of the primitive accumulation
and of the disciplinary institutions between the Eighteenth and Nineteenth
century, it is well-known that analogous phenomena brought to the
construction of a division between “labouring classes” and “dangerous
classes”, opposed along the cleavage between integration and
marginalisation. The present article aims at arguing that analogous processes
are affecting autistic people and autism as a cultural object today: at the
intersection between the heritage of changeling stories, the production of
psychiatric concepts such as “Criminal Autistic Psychopathy” associated
with mass shootings in the U.S., and the attribution of “autistic traits” to
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figures such as Putin and Hitler, beneath the façade of integration the
construction of a monstrous and radically other neurodivergence appears
Dalla menzogna politica al mito politico: per una genealogia coloniale della menzogna moderna a partire da Arendt e Derrida
No full textIn this article, the possibility of building a colonial genealogy for the Arendtian
concept of modern lie is considered. For this purpose, the different forms and figures
of the false proposed by Arendt and Derrida are discussed, with particular reference
to traditional and modern lie, self-deception, counter-truth, ideology and
political myth. Moreover, the hypothesis of a diachronic articulation between political
lie and political myth is proposed under the name of “mythopoeic development
of the political lie”. The hypothesis is then tested trough an examination of two historical
cases: the first case is centred around Hernán Cortés’ political lies and their
aftermath in connection with the myth of the conquest of America, while the second
case concerns Cecil Rhodes’ political lies in relation with the construction of Rhodesia
and the related “white mythologies”
What we have in common: David Graeber and the anthropological critique of philosophy
No full textThe anthropological critique of philosophy has traditionally challenged conjectural histories and simplistic abstractions used by philosophers to define human nature. While this critique often leans toward cultural relativism, this paper argues that David Graeber's work exemplifies a distinctive, anti-relativist version of the anthropological critique. Grounded in ethnographic, historical and archaeological material, Graeber's approach contests Eurocentric assumptions not only about non-European societies but also about Western social institutions themselves. The paper situates Graeber's position within contemporary anthropological debates, contrasting it with prevailing forms of anti-relativism such as cognitive, ecological and ontological perspectives. It then reconstructs Graeber's anthropological critique through key examples from Debt and The Dawn of Everything, including his reinterpretation of freedom inspired by the Indigenous critique of European society. Ultimately, this paper proposes that Graeber's work models a form of concrete universalism that respects cultural differences while offering a plural, historically informed critique of dominant social theories. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from Italian are mine
A Materialist Conception of Knowledge: The Colonial Roots of Cognitive Capitalism
No full textThis book develops a materialist conception of knowledge by uncovering its entanglement
with the history of colonial capitalism. Against accounts that frame
cognitive capitalism and the knowledge economy as recent developments, it argues
that these formations are rooted in long-standing processes of dispossession,
extraction, and exploitation inaugurated during colonial modernity. Drawing
on postcolonial critique, Marxian categories, and case studies from New Spain,
it reframes concepts such as human capital, intellectual labour, and knowledge
accumulation. The work highlights how colonial power structured hierarchies of
knowledge through race, labour, and difference, and how these structures persist
in contemporary capitalism. Attention is given to struggles over knowledge, from
early colonial encounters to present-day resistance against its commodification.
This book offers an original contribution to the critique of political economy, proposing
a historically grounded account of knowledge as a site of both exploitation
and struggle
Portando Latour all’estremo: l’Occidente come «più di una cultura» e le origini coloniali della modernità come progetto
No full textL’articolo mira ad analizzare il rapporto fra la modernità come progetto, la
scienza e l’Occidente attraverso una riconsiderazione della critica della modernità di
Bruno Latour. In particolare, si sostiene che quest’ultima, così come altre teorie critiche,
riproduce involontariamente le tesi eccezionaliste relative all’Occidente. Considerando
casi tratti dalla storia coloniale della conoscenza e il ruolo degli intellettuali indigeni in
essa, l’articolo riafferma il carattere globale della scienza moderna, indagando come
questo sia stato misconosciuto attraverso le relazioni coloniali di potere e come questo
abbia generato l’autorappresentazione dell’Occidente come «non meramente una
cultura». Infine, l’articolo propone un’origine coloniale per la modernità come progetto,
leggendola come logica culturale dell’impresa coloniale stessa.The article aims at analysing the relationship between modernity as a project,
science, and the West through a reassessment of Latour’s critique of modernity. In
particular, it is argued that this latter, as well as other critical theories, inadvertently
reproduces Western exceptionalist theses. Considering cases taken from the colonial
history of knowledge and the role of Indigenous intellectuals in it, the article restates the
global character of modern science, investigating how it has been misrecognised through
colonial relations of power and how this has generated the self-representation of the
West as «not merely a culture». Finally, it proposes a colonial origin for modernity as a
project, reading it as the cultural logic of the colonial enterprise itself
Il capitale oltre il capitale: per un’interpretazione materialistica dei capitali immateriali e della loro accumulazione
No full textIn questo articolo, muovendo criticamente dalle principali teorie riguardanti la natura dei capitali immateriali, si tenta di mostrare come la logica del capitale materiale possa essere impiegata anche per leggere un’ampia varietà di ambiti immateriali. In particolare, si utilizza una definizione di capitale mirante a porsi trasversalmente rispetto alla distinzione fra materiale e immateriale, da una parte recuperando gli elementi centrali nell’analisi critica classica di Marx, dall’altra introducendovi come correttivi i contributi di Robinson e Federici, al fine di operare un’interpretazione materialistica centrata sulla natura relazionale di rapporto sociale, storico e situato, del capitale, sulla questione dell’accumulazione originaria come processo violento, dialettica di espropriazione e distruzione, produzione della scarsità e monopolizzazione, nonché sulle funzioni di sfruttamento e dominio sociale esercitate dal capitale stesso. Si applica quindi quanto elaborato al caso dell’invenzione della razza bianca nel Sud degli Stati Uniti, impiegando la ricostruzione storica di Allen e integrandola con gli studi di Bethencourt sui razzismi e con alcune riflessioni sul ruolo e sulla funzione appropriativa di discorsi, rappresentazioni e teorie nella costituzione della whiteness come capitale immateriale.This paper critically examines the main theories concerning immaterial capitals’ nature, aiming to show how material capital’s logic could be used to interpret a wide range of non-material fields. A specific definition of capital is used to overcome the distinction between material and immaterial. This is accomplished on the one hand by recovering Marx’s classical analysis, on the other hand by introducing corrective elements taken from Robinson and Federici. Thus, the definition is used to construct a materialistic interpretation of immaterial capitals, with particular attention to their relational nature as social, historical and situated relationships, to the issues of primitive accumulation as a violent process and as a dialectic of expropriation and destruction, to the production of scarcity and phenomena of monopolisation, and, finally, to the functions of exploitation and social domination of the capital. The theoretical results thus obtained are then applied to the case study of the invention of white race in the South of United States. For this purpose, Allen’s historical reconstruction and Bethencourt’s research about racisms are employed, with some reflections on the role and approprative function of discourses, representations and theories in the process of constitution of whiteness as an immaterial capital
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