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For a New Critique of Political Economy

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The catastrophic economic, social and political crisis of our time calls for a new and original critique of political economy - a rethinking of Marx's project in the very different conditions of twenty-first century capitalism. Stiegler argues that today the proletarian must be reconceptualized as the economic agent whose knowledge and memory are confiscated by machines. This new sense of the term ‘proletarian' is best understood by reference to Plato's critique of exteriorized memory. By bringing together Plato and Marx, Stiegler can show how a generalized proletarianization now encompasses not only the muscular system, as Marx saw it, but also the nervous system of the so-called creative workers in the information industries. The proletarians of the former are deprived of their practical know-how, whereas the latter are shorn of their theoretical practice, and both suffer from a confiscation of the very possibility of a genuine art of living. But the mechanisms at work in this new and accentuated form of proletarianization are the very mechanisms that may spur a reversal of the process. Such a reversal would imply a crucial distinction between one's life work, originating in otium (leisure devoted to the techniques of the self), and the job, consisting in a negotium (the negotiation and calculation, increasingly restricted to short-term expectations), leading to the necessity of a new conception of economic value. This short text offers an excellent introduction to Stiegler's work while at the same time representing a political call to arms in the face of a deepening economic and social crisis.

100 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

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About the author

Bernard Stiegler

87 books180 followers
Bernard Stiegler heads the Department of Cultural Development at the Pompidou Center in Paris and is co-founder of the political group Ars Industrialis. Stanford University Press has published the first two volumes of Technics and Time, The Fault of Epimetheus (1998) and Disorientation (2008), as well as his Acting Out (2008) and Taking Care of Youth and the Generations (2010).

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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
Profile Image for Ferda Nihat Koksoy.
518 reviews29 followers
February 10, 2016
YENİ BİR EKONOMİNİN POLİTİK ELEŞTİRİSİ İÇİN
-Bugünkü kapitalizmin asli eksenini oluşturan TÜKETİM modeli, sistematik olarak KISA DEVRELİ ve KISA VADELİ bir hal almış (aşamalı dizgeyi ve uzun vadeyi unutturmuş), sistemsel APTALLIĞA ve pratik beceri ve yaşam bilgilerinin değerinin düşürülmesine yol açmıştır.
-YAZI ve NUMARALANDIRMA (teknik ve makinalaşma), TOPLUMSAL HAFIZANIN KAYDEDİLMESİ ve İNTİKALİ için kullanılan sistemlerdir ve EMEK, ALGI, PSİKOLOJİ ve ESTETİĞİ belirler.
-Bugün standart üretimin yerini sayısal ağlar ve onlar üzerinden gelişen madde ötesi ekonomi almaktadır. 2050'de %5 İNSANIN, bugünkü sanayinin işlemesi için yeterli olacağı tahmin edilmektedir (J.Rifkin'den).
-EMEĞİN (değişken sermaye) yerinin azaldığı ve MAKİNAlaşmanın (sabit sermaye) arttığı dönemde düşmesi gereken KAR olanları (K.Marx), TÜKETİCİNİN LİBİDİNAL/ARZU ENERJİSİ sayesinde ayakta durmakta ise de 2008 krizi bunun sona yaklaştığının işaretlerini vermektedir. Marx'a göre EMEĞİN makinalaşma ile RADİKAL DÖNÜŞME zamanları, TÜM SINIFLARDAKİ PROLETERLEŞMENİN başlama zamanlarıdır.
-Marx'daki proleterya, şimdiye kadar kabul edildiği üzere işçi sınıfı demek değildir. Burada kastedilen proleterleşme BİREYSELLİKTEN ÇIKMA anlamı taşır ve sadece ekonomik fakirleşme anlamında değil, PRATİK BECERİLERİN, YAŞAM BİLGİLERİNİN ve HAFIZALARIN FAKİRLEŞMESİ anlamındadır. Tüm sınıfların ŞEYLEŞMESİ ve SERFLEŞMESİ başlar.
-Sayısallık ve herşeyin ticarileşmesinin (kısa vadeli) baskısı, YARATICILIK ve SANATÇILIĞI, hesaplanamaz/öngörülemez/zamansal/ emekyoğun olmaları nedeniyle sık boğaz eder.
-Yeni tasarlayacağımız ekonomi, EMEĞİ ve TÜKETİMCİLİĞİ AŞMALI, yeni bir sosyal mülkiyet biçimi içermelidir. Gençlerin fakirleştiği, aidiyetlerin parçalandığı, kuşakların koptuğu, ayrışmış ortamların yaygınlaştığı ve sorumsuzluğun salgın halini aldığı dünyada, GÜÇLÜLERİN GÜCÜ YASASIZ ve İMANSIZ bir KİNİZME, yani MAFYALAŞMAYA varmakta; burjuvaziyi de mafyaya mahkumiyet ve ESTETİK SEFALET sarmalamaktadır.
-Geleceğe yönelim yaratmak üzere inanca dayalı KREDİ (para, kredi, din, bilim, sanat, siyaset kredileri) sistemi üzerinden işleyen kapitalizme alternatif bir gelecek yaratmanın yolu, SOSYOTERAPİ ve BAKIM SİSTEMİ oluşturmak üzere bir HUKUK DEVLETİNİN KURULMASI, SOSYAL MÜLKİYET tasarımı ve bunların zemininde KATILIM EKONOMİSİnin gerçekleştirilmeye başlanmasından geçer.
Profile Image for Matt.
172 reviews7 followers
January 17, 2020
I just wanted to add some thoughts since this was one of my first 5* reviews on goodreads and I've recently gone back and read sections of it.

When I first read this short summary of Stiegler's political work, which mainly focuses on a lot of the main concepts in Technics and Time 3, I was totally blown away. I'd read Stiegler's work before and was familiar with most of his concepts and his very particular vocabulary, so seeing these concepts applied in ways that suggested solutions to pressing political issues was pretty novel, at least to me.

However, going back over this book just made me realise how it's almost unreadable for someone not familiar with his vocabulary. From the very first pages he jumps into the ideas of mnemotechnics, tertiary retention, discretization, grammatization, proletarianization etc. (and that's only the introduction) with virtually no explanation of what these complicated and nuanced terms mean. Stiegler assumes you have read all of his previous works (or at least the Technics and Time series) and are familiar with a whole host of other continental philosophers' works.

Now, this was fairly exciting to me reading this for the first time, and there's no doubt that Stiegler has some important and even revolutionary things to say in this book, but the problem is no one outside of his circle of influence is going to be able to truly understand it. I had read some of these criticisms of Stiegler's work in the past and had brushed them off as the standard 'postmodern obscurification' comments (which are frankly pretty ridiculous at this point) but honestly 6 years removed from first reading this book I can say that in this case they are pretty fair.

This wouldn't be an issue if this was a dense academic text aimed at academics (like the Technics and Time series), but this is meant to be a book aimed at a wider audience, and on that basis Stiegler fails to engage with his potential audience in ways they could understand. If the issues he is aiming to combat in here are really so important, some time spent on the explanation of his core concepts would have been useful, or in fact, necessary.

All in all I'm going to leave my 5* rating because I think Stiegler's work deserves it, but this is certainly not the introductory book on Stiegler's thought I once claimed it was. For those who are really interested in Stiegler's work, the only way to approach it will be to read the Technics and Time series, and watch or read as many interviews with the man as possible.
Profile Image for Evan Milner.
81 reviews4 followers
October 18, 2020
After hearing of Bernard Stiegler's recent passing I figured I'd give For a New Critique of Political Economy a go. The book's publisher markets this as an ideal introduction to Stiegler's work. It isn't.

While it is an admirably terse book, it unfortunately presumes far too much on the part of a reader who is not sufficiently familiar with, not only Stiegler's preceding work, but also much of the continental philosophical tradition. The inaccessibility is not necessarily to do with the difficulty of the ideas he is describing. Occasionally they emerge in sharp relief and are quite intriguing. The possibility of a radically expanded notion of proletarianization than the one which the Marxist tradition provides is genuinely tantalizing. However, when Stiegler proceeds to explore these ideas, he employs his specialized vocabulary (which seems to have been developed in his prior works) as a kind of shorthand way to gesture towards vast areas of intellectual enquiry that someone not already deeply engaged in this discourse has little hope of making sense of. On top of that, Stiegler employs that typically French style of philosophical writing in which the main line of argument always seems to be disappearing over the horizon of intelligibility.

The best I can really say for this book is that it didn't put me off wanting to explore Stiegler's work in greater depth, but it certainly didn't provide the entry point that I was hoping for. Of course, Stiegler can hardly be blamed on that account—nowhere in the text does he state that he is writing for a general audience. However, the publisher does bear some responsibility, describing it on the cover as 'an excellent introduction to Stiegler’s work'. So my low rating is not a judgement on the book's content, but rather reflects its failure to live up to the publisher's description.
Profile Image for Alex.
5 reviews5 followers
December 10, 2013
A succinct distillation of Stiegler's refreshing and unique take on the Political and Economic climate in the western world.
Profile Image for Danielius.
34 reviews3 followers
April 20, 2019
Skaityti buvo tikra kančia..

Čia iš serijos - čia kritika, bet iš tikrųjų rašau apie tai, kad reikia kritikuoti. Parašyta žiauriai komplikuotai, vos ne kas antrą žodį reikėjo googlint ir vis kartojasi tas pats per tą patį kitais žodžiais arba "in other words" - tai jeigu tau reikia aiškinti savo teiginius porą kartų, tai gal ir rašyk suprantamai..?

Čia greičiau buvo Markso kapitalo interpretacija, o ne šių laikų tęsinys.

Gal kai būsiu tspmi ar dar kažkur ir pribręsiu, suprasiu, ką jis norėjo rpasakyti, tai 2 žvaigždės, nes buvo viena gera mintis:

"Insofar as it is true that the proletariat are those economic actors who are without knowledge because they are without memory. Their memory has passed into the machine that reproduces gestures that the proletariat doesn't need to know - they must simply serve the reproductive machine and thus, once again, they become serfs."

Čia gal apskritai labiausiai suprantama mintis... Bet visai tiksli - mūsų atmintis tampa išoriška, eksternalizuota, t.y mūsų atmintis slypi ne smegenyse, o telefonuose, appsuose, darbe, dėl to žmonės iš lėto degraduoja (nes neįgyja žinių ir mąstymo, dėl prarasto laiko dirbant) ir dirba "mašinoms", kitaip tariant, ne savo, o kitų vizijoms ir idėjoms .
Profile Image for D.
314 reviews29 followers
November 21, 2023
Un texto breve y extremadamente complejo, quizás no es el mejor para entrar en la teoría de Stiegler, que combina cibernética, fenomenología, marxismo y varias cosas más. Sin embargo, su tesis general de la necesidad de una nueva crítica (que desplace, además, el programa de la deconstrucción derrideana), y de una fundación de una nueva economía general (a la Bataille, digamos) es muy acertada y bien argumentada. Se siente, a fin de cuentas, como un punto de partida para refundar la filosofía, y quizás autorxs como Yuk Hui ya se están montando sobre estas ideas.
Profile Image for Alex Gergely.
104 reviews1 follower
October 21, 2021
Do not read this. Extremely opaque, (sometimes) insightful, but a bit too much brain power involved. Find a summary maybe. Nevertheless here is a nice quote from his conclusion:

"It is necessary to organize an economy of carelessness by cultivating systems of care…Our epoch is, however, very singular: unlike any other before it, it has made carelessness into the very principle of its organization. This is what can no longer be endured."
Profile Image for Monokl Kitap.
141 reviews26 followers
November 30, 2020
Dijital dünyanın insanın hafızasını kullanmasını azalttığı ekonomi ve teknolojik gelişmelerin aslında insana neler yaptığı üzerine yazılar.
Profile Image for Korhan Günsor.
55 reviews4 followers
January 18, 2024
Teknoloji teknolojik değildir, dispozitiftir, farmakondur...

Bernard Stiegler, Fransız filozof ve yazar olarak bilinir ve teknoloji, medya, kültür ve ekonomi üzerine yaptığı çalışmalarla tanınır. "Politik Ekonominin Yeni Bir Eleştirisi İçin" kitabındaki bazı neolojileri inceleyelim:

"Teknolojinin Dispozitif ve Farmakon Niteliği "
Teknoloji, sadece teknolojik değil, aynı zamanda dispozitif ve farmakondur. Endüstriyel hatırlatma aygıtları hafızalarımızı makinelere bağlı hale getirdi. Artık en yakınlarımızın telefon numaralarını bile aklımızda tutmuyoruz. İmla denetim aygıtlarının yaygınlaşması ise imla bilgimizi riske atıyor. Bu, bilişsel ve duygusal proleterleşme zehirlenme sürecidir.

"Gramatizasyon: Yeni Proleterleşme"
Yan etkisi, bilgi kaybı sürecidir. Becerilerimiz, yaşama bilgilerimiz ve kuramsal düşünme yeteneğimiz kaybolur. Muasır yapısöküm eleştirisi önemlidir ancak yapısöküm kendi eleştirisini eleştirmemiştir. Bu süreç, pratik bilgi değerini düşürerek bizi duygusal ve bilişsel olarak yoksullaştırır ta ki Jean Baudrillard'ın da bahsettiği simülasyonlar hatta simülakrlar topluma yön versin.

"Libidinal Enerji ve Sömürü "
Tüketicinin libidinal enerjisi sömürüldükçe, libidinal ekonomi ve genel ekonomi dönüşür. Bu, bizi derin bir değişime uğratan bir süreçtir. Mafya, kapitalizmin yerine geçmeyi hedefler ve kapitalizm, büyü bozulduğunda tam anlamıyla mafyalaşır.

"Karl Marx ve Tekniğin Unutmacı Niteliği "
Marx, tekniğin ve insan varoluşunun unutmacı niteliğini dile getirmez. Bu, insan hayatını 'ek-sistence' olarak düşünmediği bir dönemde gerçekleşir. Proleterleşme, sadece ekonomik değil, aynı zamanda bilgi ve varoluş kaybını içerir.

"Yeni Ekonomiye Doğru: Politik Eleştiri "
Kapitalizmin asli eksenini oluşturan tüketim modeli kısa vadeli ve kısa devreli hale gelmiştir. Sayısal ağlar ve madde ötesi ekonomi, standart üretimin yerini alır. Gelecek, emeği aşan ve tüketimi aşan bir sosyal mülkiyet biçimi içermelidir.

"Yine Teknoloji ve Sosyal Mülkiyet "
Alternatif bir gelecek yaratmanın yolu, tekno-teröpatik bakım sistemini içeren bir hukuk devleti kurmaktan geçer. Sosyal mülkiyet tasarımı ve katılım ekonomisi bu vizyonun temelini oluşturur. Bu, tekno-zehirlenerek ayrışan toplumları bir araya getirmenin, estetik sefalete son vermenin bir yoludur.
Profile Image for Patrick.
10 reviews
August 12, 2012
Too often philosophers don't pay attention to economics and vice versa.

Bernard Stiegler is one of those gems of a writer who does pay attention to both and manages to find ways to re-invent the capitalist dialectic as originally envisioned by Marx into something that is fresh and relevant and perhaps one of the few fresh sets of eyes on the current techno-economic crisis.

You don't have to agree but, you should take some time to read this very short, very deep book.
14 reviews8 followers
April 2, 2018
Too often philosophers don't pay attention to economics and vice versa.

Bernard Stiegler is one of those gems of a writer who does pay attention to both and manages to find ways to re-invent the capitalist dialectic as originally envisioned by Marx into something that is fresh and relevant and perhaps one of the few fresh sets of eyes on the current techno-economic crisis.

You don't have to agree but, you should take some time to read this very short, very deep book.
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