Postcapitalism: a guide to our future
Postcapitalism: a guide to our future
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后资本主义：我们未来的指南
DOI：
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发表时间：
2016
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
H. Lauder
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文献类型：
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作者：
Ian Mcgimpsey;Stuart Tannock;H. Lauder
在撰写本文时，头条新闻主要是英国脱欧和一款名为Pokemon Go的手机游戏。《后资本主义：我们的未来指南》一书的解读表明，这两个事件都是同样的结构性经济变化的信号，这些变化最终将带领我们超越资本主义。梅森预测，英国脱欧是一种政治混乱，将继续破坏危机后新自由主义的低增长、高债务资本主义经济的稳定。他的论点是，资本主义内部以前也发生过长期衰退。这些时期的特点通常是资本从越来越无利可图的生产转移到金融业，随后是劳动力需求下降、经济冲击和衰退，以及政治和社会不稳定。换句话说，发达经济体自20世纪70年代初石油危机以来所经历的一切。然而，在之前的资本主义“长周期”中，这些衰退迫使技术创新，从而带来新的利润机会，对生产活动的再投资以及对熟练劳动力的需求不断增长。换句话说，资本主义成功地适应了随之而来的劳动和团结以及国际和国内政治解决方案的变化。这一次，这种情况没有发生。梅森认为，在资本主义250年的历史中，各种因素共同阻碍了经济的上升，这是独一无二的。一个因素是新自由主义，这是一种全球化的政治体系，它如此有效地将劳动力原子化，以至于资本可以通过简单地压低工资，继续从越来越无利可图的活动中榨取利润。资本非但没有被迫寻找新的盈利方式，反而使薪酬停滞不前，增加了不安全感，摧毁了福利制度。在这种情况下，英国脱欧是一种可以预料的政治脉搏；在99%的人群中产生分裂，在某种意义上去全球化，但可能被精英们用于新的超全球化行动。这是团结受到压制和经济不安全日益加剧的症状。《精灵宝可梦Go》是结构变化的一个信号，也指向了阻止资本主义适应的另一个因素：信息和网络对生产的奇怪影响。这款游戏创造了一种“增强现实”，一种混合空间的物理网络，由行走在街道、道路、
At the time of writing, the headlines are dominated by Brexit and a phone game called Pokemon Go. A reading of Postcapitalism: A Guide to our Future suggests both events are signals of the same structural economic changes that will ultimately take us beyond capitalism. Brexit is the kind of political disruption Mason predicts will continue to destabilise the low-growth, high-debt capitalist economies of post-crash neoliberalism. His thesis is that extended downturns have happened within capitalism before. These periods are usually characterised by movement of capital away from increasingly unprofitable production and into finance, followed by falling demand for labour, economic shocks and recessions, and political and social instability. In other words, everything that developed economies have experienced since the oil crisis in the early 1970s. However, in prior ‘long-cycles’ of capitalism, these downturns forced technological innovation which led to new opportunities for profit, reinvestment in productive activity and growing demand for skilled labour. In other words, capitalism adapted successfully with concomitant changes in labour and solidarity, and international and intranational political settlements. This time, that is not happening. Uniquely in capitalism’s 250-year history, Mason argues, factors combine to prevent an upswing. One factor is neoliberalism, a globalised political system so effective in atomising labour that capital could continue to extract profits from increasingly unprofitable activity by simply driving down wages. Instead of being forced to look for new ways of making a profit, capital has been able to stagnate pay, increase insecurity and destroy the benefits system. Brexit is the kind of political pulse that might be expected in these circumstances; affectively loaded, divisive among fractions of the 99%, de-globalising in one sense but potentially used for new hyper-globalising moves by elites. It is a symptom of repressed solidarity and growing economic insecurity. Pokemon Go is a signal of structural change and a pointer to the other factor preventing capitalism from adapting: the weird effects of information and the network on production. The game creates an ‘augmented reality’, a hybrid spatiality of the physical networks of bodies travelling streets, roads,