Peter Gowan (1946—2009)
‘Crisis in the Heartlands’, NLR 55 Against mainstream accounts, Peter Gowan argues that the origins of the global financial crisis lie in the dynamics of the New Wall Street System that has emerged since the 1980s. Contours of the Atlantic model, and implications—geopolitical, ideological, economic—of its blow-out.

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NLR 57 was mailed out to subscribers on 8th May 2009

CONTENTS

  1. Perry Anderson: A New Germany? What have been the outcomes of reunification in the Federal Republic? Perry Anderson charts contradictory cross-currents within its polity, economy, culture and society, gauging the impact of a contested neoliberal offensive on the ‘Modell Deutschland’ and its intellectual life.
  2. Slavoj Zizek: How to Begin from the Beginning Mountaineering lessons from the Bolsheviks’ master strategist provide a metaphor for regroupment in hard times. Slavoj Žižek identifies the principal antagonisms within contemporary capitalism, as the basis for positing anew the ‘communist hypothesis’.
  3. Alain Supiot: Possible Europes Interview with leading French jurist on the fate of ‘social Europe’ after Maastricht: subordination of labour to market, and of EU enlargement to the priorities of capital. Might the continent’s bloody past inspire alternative visions?
  4. Leo Panitch, Martijn Konings: Myths of Neoliberal Deregulation Contrary to mainstream diagnoses blaming the current financial crisis on a retreat of the state, Leo Panitch and Martijn Konings trace the active interventions that have shaped US finance and yoked working-class America to the discipline of debt.
  5. Roberto Schwarz: Brecht's Relevance: Highs and Lows In what ways does Brecht’s drama—and the world-transforming impulse behind his strategies of defamiliarization—speak to times and places other than his own? Ups and downs of his resonance in Brazil and beyond, shadowing the movements of history’s leading edge.
  6. Chin-tao Wu: Biennials without Borders Against claims for a de-territorialized, fully globalized art world, Chin-tao Wu measures the stubborn realities of continued Western dominance. Birthplace and residence of art-festival participants as indices of enduring hierarchy.
  7. Immanuel Wallerstein: Reading Fanon in the 21st Century Immanuel Wallerstein draws on The Wretched of the Earth to set out three central dilemmas for today’s anti-systemic movements. Questions of violence, identity and class seen through an anti-colonial lens.

BOOK REVIEWS

  1. Alexander Zevin on Serge Audier, La Pensée anti-68. Recasting of Aron, Sartre and Debray in an attempt to make the May événements safe for liberalism.
  2. Tom Hazeldine on John Adamson, The Noble Revolt. The English Civil War re-staged as baronial rebellion, leaving socio-economic forces waiting in the wings.
  3. R Taggart Murphy on Graham Turner, The Credit Crunch. Origins of the financial crisis in the global squeeze on labour, and the example of Japan’s lost decade.
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Articles:

  1. Perry Anderson,
    ‘A New Germany?’ What have been the outcomes of reunification in the Federal Republic? Perry Anderson charts contradictory cross-currents within its polity, economy, culture and society, gauging the impact of a contested neoliberal offensive on the ‘Modell Deutschland’ and its intellectual life.
  2. Dylan Riley,
    ‘Oligarchic Europe’ Reviving its classical definition, ‘rule of the propertyless’, Luciano Canfora recasts the story of democracy in Europe as one of successive defeats, with lessons from Louis Napoleon on the use of suffrage as legitimation for oligarchic rule. Dylan Riley assesses a remarkable historical polemic from the Italian philologist.
  3. Göran Therborn,
    ‘NATO’s Demographer’ Göran Therborn on Heinsohn, Söhne und Weltmacht. Political demography of the Mid-East youth bulge as threat to Western power.
  4. Robert Wade,
    ‘Financial Regime Change?’ As stock markets plunge and governments scramble to bail out the finance sector, Robert Wade argues that we are exiting the neoliberal paradigm that has held sway since the 1980s. Causes and repercussions of the crisis, and errors of the model that brought it to fruition.
  5. Slavoj Žižek,
    ‘Class and Commons’ Mountaineering lessons from the Bolsheviks’ master strategist provide a metaphor for regroupment in hard times. Slavoj Žižek identifies the principal antagonisms within contemporary capitalism, as the basis for positing anew the ‘communist hypothesis’.
  6. R. Taggart Murphy,
    ‘Bubblenomics’ R Taggart Murphy on Graham Turner, The Credit Crunch. Origins of the financial crisis in the global squeeze on labour, and the example of Japan’s lost decade.

Editorials:

  1. Susan Watkins,
    ‘Lulling Nuclear Protest’ What are the geopolitical origins of the NPT, and what are its actual effects? Non-proliferation as nuclear privilege of the few, weapon of intimidation of the one, submission of the many—and its impact on the peace movement.
  2. Perry Anderson,
    ‘On the Conjuncture’ A reckoning of global shifts in political and economic relations, with China emerging as new workshop of the world and US power, rationally applied elsewhere, skewed by Israeli interests in the Middle East. Oppositions to it gauged, along with theoretical visions that offer exits from the perpetual free-market present.
  3. Afghanistan, Reasons for the West’s stalemate in Afghanistan sought neither in lack of troops and imperial treasure, nor in Pakistani obstruction, but in the very nature of the occupation regime. Tariq Ali on the actual results of ‘state-building’ in the Hindu Kush, as a broken country is subjected to the combined predations of NGOs and NATO.
  4. Europe, Europe’s political landscape, revealed by the protest votes in France and the Netherlands. Mutation and dilation of the EU in the age of liberal hegemony, and lessons to be drawn from the unprecedented irruptions of discontent against it.
  5. Chechnya, Eager to embrace Putin, Western rulers and pundits continue to connive at the Russian occupation of Chechnya, as Moscow’s second murderous war in the Caucasus enters its sixth year. Traditions of resistance, popular demands for sovereignty and Russia’s brutal military response, in Europe’s forgotten colony.
  6. Iraq, With the now unanimous support of the ‘international community’, can Washington hope to recoup its gamble in Iraq? Prospects for the resistance and the Occupation, as the UN-approved government is hoisted into place.
  7. New Labour, Causes and consequences of Britain’s distinctive contribution to the repertoire of latter-day neoliberalism. The domestic and foreign record of the Blair regime, and its hybrid role in a shifting Atlantic order.
  8. Middle East, As fears are voiced within the US establishment of impending debacle in Iraq, a survey of the embattled landscape from Baghdad, Ramallah and Tehran to Beirut and Damascus. American control is slipping, Ali argues—but it is too soon to count on imperial defeat.
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