"17 Contradictions in Capital Society", two editions of the Publishing House (2014) and CITIC Publishing Group (2016)
American geographer David Luhavi rereads Capital and makes a sharp criticism of capitalism in the 21st century
Singing elegy is the art of the door. Whenever it is said that "XXXX is dead, XX Long live" can not be false, and the dead XX is not as slogan as we are used to saying, "It is crushed by the wheel of history" or "swept into history." The garbage dump, died, because it exhausted itself and released all the potential it could release. All the results produced, good and bad were given to later people, causing their lifestyle and organization. And psychological changes. A good elegy is not a slang, but in the Utopia vision and imagination of high spirits, there is still no lack of affection to look back, although people always ignore the latter because they see the former.
David Luhawi said that "capitalism is dead", and he took the subtext of "Long live". "The 17 Contradictions in Capital Society" is his new work in 2014. In the original English name, there is the term "EndofCA pitalism". What can be called "End" must have something to lose. Harvey is a believer in Marxism. He is eagerly awaiting a capitalist alternative on the horizon. He is willing to take the lead in telling the end of capitalism and globalization. Like other serious study Marxists, he is convinced that analyzing the world is tantamount to changing the world. As long as the crux of capitalism is clearly resolved, the possibility of any new form of production organization is motivated. To torture, negate and change the status quo, to play the "subjective initiative" of Marx's individual, and to join the "objective process" that promotes the development of history in the next stage.
It should be noted that the analysis of this book “focuses on capital rather than capitalismâ€, which is a “social form in which the supply of material, social and intellectual foundations of social life and Shaped, governed by the circulation and accumulation process of capital." Some contradictions of capitalism exist in other societies. Harvey is not willing to be involved in general. He must specifically study the contradictions arising from the "circulation and accumulation of capital" and separate capital from other things. As a "closed system", it is like a gym, the bodybuilder should isolate the muscles of the body as much as possible in order to shape it in a targeted manner.
Is this analysis feasible? Harvey firmly believes that the contradictions in the operation of capital itself are enough to determine the fate of capitalism. This kind of contradiction requires a book to be resolved, but if one sentence conceals its meaning, or seriousness, a sentence in the book's introduction explains: "If you do not destroy the lives of millions of people around the world." With the livelihood, there will be no clear way out for the world.†That is to say, the development of today’s capitalist globalized society has no way to go.
However, in addition to the death sentence, Harvey did not neglect the need to sing the elegy. Because, if you can't understand the previous history, capitalism has always been aware of this step and formed its own unique views, simply listing a set of data or some information about the dark insider of exposed capital, the resulting discussion will be thin and ugly. Harvey and Nom Road Chomsky are different from the "argumental left", which is different from the author of the best-selling book "Why Marx is right" four years ago and the British critic Terry Road Eagleton. Chomsky is keen to build black materials, and Eagleton is relatively isolated in the original words of Marx to compare reality, but Harvey has a detailed explanation of the "Capital" course, books and video circulated, in his In the book, I rarely see the citation of Marxist dogmaticism. He tries to convince the reader that the analysis of the law of capital operation in Capital is not outdated, and the economic phenomena that we are most familiar with are like Supermarket promotions, such as every new-born service, will quickly appear as market competitors – the cause of which has not yet been removed from the analysis of Capital, and behind them there is the power to make the whole world bad.
The 17 contradictions in the book are very ambitious, some can cut the pain, some are more abstract and not easy to understand. Harvey is a geographer. His interpretation of the "space" of capitalist society is his unique theoretical contribution. The eleventh contradiction in this book, "Unbalanced Regional Development and Space Production," is the embodiment of his expertise. Harvey firmly grasps the instinct of capital's endless profit-seeking. He said that capital will always seek new technology development and reduce the cost and time of moving across space. Nowadays, the global circulation of money is almost instantaneous, and for those movable and immovable properties that are not suitable for mobile, the capital is taken by global location to open a factory. “The division of labor within a company can be spread across many different location". A Ningbo person bought an American-made shirt. I don’t know that this shirt with a foreign brand was produced by Ningbo’s garment factory. The fierce competition in space is to better reduce production costs.
“Unbalanced geographical development easily conceals the true nature of capital.†This statement has the power to make a difference. “Hope can last forever, because even if the world is in catastrophe, we can always find a thriving community and region. Or country. The overall crisis is broken down into local events, and people in other places don't care much or even don't understand."
In general, Harvey is optimistic, but only if he is optimistic, he will have the heart to sing the elegy to an opponent that he respects. The left hand closes the verdict, and the right hand gives a ritual to the person who is guilty of the crime, and then recites a prayer. And unlike Eagleton, every time he proves the correctness of a Marx, he reveals a certain sense of victory. When a person tries to look farther, he must find that he can't see too many things. For example, he put forward the idea of ​​"eliminating money" in the book, and when answering my question, he simply said this. Things are too complicated and not yet possible.
Does Harvey believe in Marx's historical determinism? I think he is a believer. He must have this belief. People like him will do their best to do research and find out the facts that are suitable for their own writing. Theorists are well aware of the power of theoretical intervention in reality: giving abstract theoretical modeling, letting the facts go according to the model, rather than passively, and then verifying the correctness of the model, which is the most ideal result. David Luhavi is eighty years old. He hopes that someone in the future can point to his book and praise: This energetic old man is doing really beautiful.
The bourgeoisie is doing well, but capitalism is not doing well.
First Finance: Your writing is quite optimistic, but I have a question: If capitalism is going to happen, then it can be said that if any humanitarian reform is carried out in the existing production system, it may be destroyed. A long-term plan to eliminate capitalism? This is what every leftist is not willing to see?
Harvey: There must be some changes that can help eliminate social inequality, help improve the working conditions of workers under the capitalist framework, and reduce environmental damage. However, the previous changes in European social democratic institutions have shown that such changes are limited, have clear boundaries, and there is obvious resistance that reforms can only exist for a while and cannot last. This is because it does not touch the big problem of “permanent compound growthâ€. Just to deal with this fundamental problem, China has consumed more cement in the past two years than the United States in the entire 20th century, and has initiated an ultra-high-speed urbanization process, which has produced deadly air pollution problems.
CBN: The experiments of the past century seem to have gradually lost the appeal of socialism, and when you talk about another option to replace capitalism, you are not willing to mention "socialism" or "communism." Do you think this term will evoke unpleasant memories?
Harvey: Yes, I think that using these two words will leave us in the past. As Marx said, the past is heavily pressed on the minds of living people, like a nightmare. So I said that we need some new terminology to create poetics about our future.
First Finance: When the neoliberal debut comes, the world turns to the right. Can we say that in the past three decades, capitalism has proved its tenacious vitality? If we return to 1979 and return to Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, respectively, we observe the world's dynamics. Is it possible to foresee what happened later?
Harvey: It's hard to predict. At that time, people thought that we would go to this step today. Today we can't predict the starting point of the problem. Only afterwards, we can see the powerful forces that have made everything neoliberal. However, for the past 30 years, I have not felt full of evidence that capitalism is invincible. Global growth has slowed (of course China is an exception), and now the main achievement of neoliberalism has turned the majority of the world's wealth into the hands of a very small number of people. The bourgeoisie is doing well, but capitalism is not doing very well at all.
First Finance: In 2011, did you see some good signs of public rebellion in the occupation of Wall Street? Maybe we don't see what it has changed, but as people become more cynical about their attitudes towards life under the old system, is it possible for a new society to emerge?
Harvey: The occupation movement successfully changed the political game. Before the occupation movement, in most western countries, no one in power was willing to discuss the inequality of wealth and income and the intensification of the rich and the poor, but after that it would be difficult to avoid this problem, even if no action has been taken accordingly. The occupation movement is small and scattered, and it can't do more, but it has been crucial.
First Finance: China's air pollution has been very serious in recent times. Do you think that in Western countries, environmental problems will trigger political crises, even though they don't seem so terrible right now?
Harvey: I remember the smog in London. I think it was in 1952, so I know what the haze is all about. But for some reason, air quality has improved in Europe, even though Paris has just had a period of poor air. It’s not impossible to do something about it, but it’s still the problem. Since we want to grow, for a long time, we will not be able to give up the car and the current way of generating electricity, so we will have to endure the air quality. Decline, so the quality of life is also reduced.
Capitalism can survive from environmental disasters, but people under capitalism cannot. They will get sick and will die because of this. This is still the question: how successful the bourgeoisie is and how weak the capitalist system is in meeting the social and physical needs of the people.
First Finance: Your point of view in the book makes me feel very fresh: destroy money. I think you are optimistic about the emergence of new currencies like Bitcoin, but we know that the Internet and Internet-enabled technologies still have to rely on the support of big capital to operate and develop, and capital still controls everything. Leaving the capital, this system cannot operate on its own. Do you think we can have too much time?
Harvey: The money problem is very complicated. Bitcoin is not the answer. It is also difficult for other forms of currency to undergo a major transformation without a social relationship. I can't see the future in this area.
First Finance: What do you think of this fact: You have written a book that advocates change and even revolution, can be freely circulated in the market, can be read by countless readers, they will accept the "dangerous" knowledge in the book. Treating written text, the society controlled by capital is very generous and tolerant. It seems that it can be “immunizedâ€, even if the text itself is radical.
Harvey: This is also one of the contradictions of capitalism, that is, as long as anything can make money in the market, it will almost certainly be produced, no matter how dangerous, toxic, harmful or revolutionary. . Therefore, the right wing can use the market, and the left can also use it!
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David Harvey
A famous American geographer, born in Gillingham, Kent, England in 1935, received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography from the University of Cambridge in 1957, and a Ph.D. in 1961 in the article "On the Change of Agriculture and Countryside in Kent 1800-1900". After graduating, he taught at the University of Bristol, where he was a revolution in geography. He moved to the United States in 1969 and served as a professor of geography and environmental engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Harvey believes that the mainstream of modern Western thought is based on a historicalist way of thinking, that is, giving time a special attention, but relatively neglecting the decisive role of space. Therefore, Harvey, who believes in Marxism, has added his own disciplinary expertise in the concept of "historical materialism" and proposed "history-geographical materialism." Starting from this original theory, Harvey has carried out fruitful and critical research on issues such as capital, neoliberalism and neo-imperialism, urban development and management, globalization, and post-modernity.
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