Re: <nettime> The ends of democracy

[Allan Siegel via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Mr. Wolff, quoted in the Washington post has this to say: “The 
corruption, injustice, and lies of elites are powerful solvents of bonds 
that tie citizens together, inevitably replacing patriotism with 
deepening cynicism,” he writes. “Without decent and competent elites, 
democracy will perish.”
Without having to go too much further this explains a lot about Wolff's 
conception of democracy - his feelings about capitalism are well 
documented. I read a text by Lukács recently, to paraphrase: he talked 
about how people disconnect historical episodes from one another 
ignoring how various historical threads are woven together.  So, from 
Wolff's perspective the contemporary "corruption, injustice, and lies of 
elites" has not much connection to pre-1930's corruption or the 
post-civil war injustices in the U.S.
There is a crisis in so-called democratic capitalism but a meaningful 
analysis would throw out the ahistorical framework that seemingly 
underlies Wolff's crisis.

Thanks for bringing this into the spotlight Brian.

best
allan


On 2023. 08. 24. 3:43, Louis Rawlins via nettime-l wrote:
> Uf. Feelin this, Brian.
>
>
> > On my way to Argentina a couple weeks ago I started listening to the book
> > by Martin Wolff, The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism. I was drawn by the
> > use of the central concept, which has been deployed by Wolfgang Streek for
> > many years. The basic idea, as old as Marx, is that capitalism has been
> > historically associated with democracy, not by accident but because free
> > labor is much more productive (that's Marx) and because free entrepreneurs
> > can process information and invent new business combinations more
> > efficiently than any centralized government (that's Hayek and Schumpeter).
> > However, democratic government delivers not only a legitimation but also a
> > contradiction of capitalism, because it is not just about the individual
> > freedom to labor and invent. It's also about collective decisions
> > concerning resource use, the regulation of production and the distribution
> > of the results.
> It's possible I've mentioned on the list, but there is a bit in
> *Psychopolitics:
> Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power*<http://v>  by Byung-Chul Han
> (trans. by Erik Butler), where Byung-Chul starts the text by outlining and
> comparing modes of extraction:
>
>
>     - allo-extraction – taking away from something else, like mining and
>     harvesting
>     - auto-extraction – taking away from one's self, like up-all-night
>     computer programming, poverty wage work on agricultural lands
>
>
> Similar to what you mention, I never finished the book, but the thought has
> stuck with me. (I've been struggling to read more than an essay in NLR
> lately since every book I read feels like just another story that I've
> already read in Borges's infinite library.)
>
> More to your provocation though, I've been thinking more into what it looks
> like to have a new politics, and I admit, it's difficult with the
> surrounding influences. Writing poetry, chatting with folks (like this!
> hooray), and drawing have been helping quite a bit in that regard.
> Bypassing the expected forms of coming to conclusions
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDEL4Ty950Q>, as it were.
>
> Totally with you on making good use of our remaining years on this earth.
>
> Peace,  Louis
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