Search results for "Capitalism"

(Re)creating “society in silico” : surveillance capitalism, simulations and subjectivity in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal

2021

This article provides a different angle to understand the Cambridge Analytica (CA) data scandal. It focuses on the role of models and simulations in the big data campaigning tools CA allegedly used, and their epistemological and ontological potential to produce and reproduce voters' digital doubles that would first colonise and eventually replace the analogue selves they were related to. By integrating and revising Zuboff's surveillance capitalism framework with Debord's classic theory of the Spectacle, the article argues that the dystopian simulations played as real life experiments by surveillance capitalist firms such as CA have the ultimate goal of replacing analogue humanity with digit…

The Gender Effect: Capitalism, Feminism, and the Corporate Politics of Development

2018

07. Social freedom in contemporary capitalism: A reconstruction of Axel Honneth’s normative approach to the economy

2015

This paper discusses two related issues, namely how to adequately describe the economy within the framework of a critical social theory, and how to understand the interrelation between the socio-economic and political dimensions of democracy. Concerning the first issue Honneth stresses the moral quality of social integration, and concerning the second issue he develops a conception of ‘democratic Sittlichkeit.’ In reconstructing these issues, both the promises and problems of Honneth’s work for analyzing and criticizing contemporary developments in the economy are explored. The paper concludes that the unresolved challenge for Honneth is not to succumb to a nostalgic return to 19th century …

Constructing an American fear culture from red scares to terrorism

2013

Building on the work of social analysts who have identified the emerging culture of fear in the USA, this article argues that the current fears about terrorism derive from deliberate campaigns by the world capitalism’s elites. It traces the history of political scares since the late 19th century to show an evolution from red scares to terrorism. While acknowledging the complexities of cultural constructions, the obsession with terrorism is shown as an outgrowth and offspring of earlier, anti-communist hysterias in the USA.

The portrait of Dean MacCannell – towards an understanding of capitalism

2015

Certainly, the sociology of tourism has gained recognition over the last decades. This achievement was based on the legacy and contribution of many voices, but one of them deserves my personal admi...

Pay Now, Consume Later: The Power of Delayed Gratification

2021

This chapter analyzes the birth and development of modern tourism. The bubble model, an economic instrument that originated in Fordism, provides the direction to this analysis. Mass-scale production generated much frustration and discontent in society. Economists who historically suggested consumption as a great malady for the economy emphasize consumers’ self-control as the only way to reach a zero-poverty society. Tourism not only revitalized the social frustration of capitalism but also allowed rapid globalization of the world. For this project to be successful, all-paid packages and tours were widely offered to travelers. Prepaid tours or all-inclusive tours emerged as an excellent reas…

Ley y democracia en la era del terrorismo

2013

Gradually, the law and state are funcional to defend the interest of status quo. We believed having seen anything before the disaster of Nuremberg, but we were wrong. Even United State defended racism inner-ward at time this power expanded the discourse of democracy beyond its boundaries. We strongly believe not only that the law is determined by economy but also the right paves the way for the upsurge of dictatorship. Whether the old democracy in Greece encouraged the possibility to derogate an unfair law if necessary, the Anglo democracy (functional to capitalism) today recycles sites and states in order to install a regime of consumption where the gap between representants and citizens a…

The Precarization Effect

2015

What’s in the name ‘precarization’? Such a question can always be asked when we are dealing with a highly contestable concept (Gallie, 1956) or a family of concepts — as is definitely the case here, where it is also customary to speak about ‘precariousness’, ‘precarity’, and even ‘precariat’. This is a family of concepts or terms that has been defined in so many different and often incompatible ways that the answer to the question seems to greatly depend on the perspective or approach adopted. This is not as big a problem in the case of ‘precariousness’, which can be used to describe a variety of situations and events quite generally; but it makes all the difference when one refers to ‘prec…

La tesis de Weber en torno al capitalismo en el 500 Aniversario de la Reforma Protestante

1970

La tesis de Weber respecto a una hipotética huella del protestantismo en el «espíritu» del capitalismo ha sido ampliamente difundida. Sin desmerecer su planteamiento (la indemostrabilidad no resta verosimilitud), lo cierto es que, siendo una hipótesis difícilmente falsable, de ella han derivado formulaciones poco cuidadosas que vendrían a justificar las actuales circunstancias económicas con hechos religiosos diferenciales. Siendo la religión un hecho omniabarcador sin igual, tales circunstancias dependen de muchos factores. Se ha pretendido conferirle validez científica a partir de datos socioeconómicos de lo más variado. Algo aplicable también a quienes pretenden refutarle. La intoxicació…

Body, Nature, Language: Artisans to Artists in the Commodification of Authenticity

1969

This article examines processes of authenticating and selling handicrafts at the conjuncture of cultural pride and economic profit in two peripheral sites (Finnish Sámiland and rural Québec), under shared conditions of late capitalism and globalising political economies. These conditions (re)structure traditionalist and modernist discourses about artisans' historical bodies, their connections to the local land (nature), and how they interactionally authenticate and sell their products through language. Under these conditions, the commodification of authenticity pushes artisans and handicrafts beyond being emblems of national belonging and collective tradition, and toward individualised, art…