Re: <nettime> Fwd: Re: Forms of decisionism

[Alex Foti <alex.foti@gmail.com>]

Dear Brian, Felix, and all

the Schumpeterian state is already with us (e.g. The Entrepreneurial
State by Mazzuccato). The crisis has brought industrial policy back
into fashion, and today this means innovation policy, or rather
incentives and subsidies for digital innovation. So in a sense, all
states are Schumpeterian. However none of them, with the partial
exception of the US, is Keynesian. A keynesian-schumpeterian policy
would be going the Finnish way and make higher education free for all
Europeans (whatever it means today;) Alternatively, a basic income
could be a way to make sure the pokemon go economy takes off (you need
leisure to catch'em all).

But let's hypothesize that Ordoliberismus is excommunicated by the
pope and that Kenyes, Kalecki and Kondratieff have now supplanted
Lenin, Mao, Chavez as icons of the left. Wouldn't a society like that
be also unequal, says Brian? A Millsian response would be: hierarchies
based merit and talent are more justifiable than those based on
property - the point is equality of opportunity. But clearly this is
not enough for radicals. Kill the financial and digital rentiers, yes
- but not many would want to live under the republic of ubergeeks
- substituting technocrats with nerdocrats doesn't seem a great
advancement.

Inequality reproduces through inheritance (which Bakunin wanted to
abolish unlike Marx) and the cultural and relational capital of your
family. Unless you live in some system like the Soviet Union that
actively discriminates the educated middle classes, these differences
reproduce inequality. So i guess to the Schumpeterian-Keynesian state
you would have to add a Martin Luther King kinda state to redistribute
jobs and opportunities for the emancipation of all the people. The
Emancipatory State, which would succeed the Nanny State murdered by
Thatcher and the Tories, which was however highly constrictive on
individual liberty (let's not forget that). In guise of conclusion:
given today's absurd levels of inequality, equality of opportunity
would already be quite a leap.

This leaves Felix's question to be answered (it's a tall order):
couldn't neoliberalism's death throes last forever and consign us
to a future of rising entropy and civil war? Personally I doubt
it. My hunch is that the present chaotic phase will end up in a
temporary dynamic equilibrium: a new growth regime that will last for
a generation capable of, say, integrating young muslims. Certainly,
in Europe things won't stay they way they are in either France or
Germany, or anywhere else. Dystopia could win in either Europe or
America. I don't see it likely in the US, but the EU looks really
scary in 2016..

one thing is sure - we won't enter postcapitalism anytime soon
- it'd be really interesting to have a conference/brainstroming
about the ultimate tendencies of informationalism and what will
replace neoliberalism as a (socieoconomic AND geopolitical) mode of
regulation. It'd be also a great excuse to chug a lot of beers in good
company;)

summertime ciaos
lx

On Fri, Jul 22, 2016 at 4:45 PM, Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Alex, your last posts have been spot on and I am totally fascinated to
> read more. I agree with you that the broad framework of crisis theory is
> predictive and above all, it shows that in the wake of past crises, some
> mix of decisions, inventions, organizational forms, cultural trends and
> governmental interventions has always come together to form a new pattern,
> a new phase or period of global society. With Felix were talking about
> possible stagnation or a continuingly chaotic, entropic phase opening up
> now, and I would suggest that these two things could at worst coexist: you
> would see a new pattern emerge _for the oligarchies and their closest
> supporters_, while the rest would limp on in a continuing decline of the
> old system.

<...>


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