Dylan Riley in The Ideas Letter:
It is as if the open theft, the corruption, the orgiastic excesses of the elite were so brazen that it would seem superficial, non-scientific, pre-theoretical to take them seriously. Surely, this line of thinking says, the real action lies elsewhere, behind the Technicolored phantasmagoria of the political scene, with its low-life boobies and con-men. But it is precisely this—the theoretical elucidation of the chaotic obscenity of our current moment—that is most required. What follows is the roughest and most telescopic of attempts to do just that.
There are, to begin with, three striking features of the post-2008 political economy: low growth rates, high levels of inequality, and a scrambled political landscape. A considerable proportion of workers—especially those who lack educational credentials—has shifted to the far right, while a corresponding share of the educated has shifted to the left. Any adequate critical social theory needs to begin from these basic realities. But how to explain them?
There are two main responses. One is to suggest that the new, post-2008 period is what “normal” capitalism looks like. The anomaly, from this perspective, was the high-growth, low-inequality period of the thirty glorious years. Now we’re returning to a low-growth system—which is how capitalism has operated for most of its history. So, as the work of Thomas Piketty has indicated, the new political economy is an old political economy: it’s just that our vision has been distorted by the experience of the twentieth century.
The second response is to ascribe these changes to technology—particularly to the ability of the owners of technology companies to extract rents from their users.
More here.
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