Italian American scholar, teacher, and feminist activist
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Ao longo dos séculos quantos terão contemplado as possibilidades de se livrarem dos seus perversos corpos? Eles mais pelo desejo de que se sentiam adoecer, elas por se verem encurraladas, sendo-lhes dito que os seus corpos carregavam esse ambíguo poder (graça e maldição), enfeitiçando-os a eles. Talvez muito pudesse ter sido diferente se em vez de interrogar o que as mulheres querem, a pergunta fosse feita na negativa: o que não querem? Mas acatar de vez uma recusa é desde logo mais doloroso, e a insistência, o cerco, o acosso, fundou esse prestígio de um sedutor rapace, daquele que entende que é sempre possível negociar um não, criar condições para que este se torne um sim. “Falar, narrar, fabular, assim como lamber, chupar e sugar exigem uma aprendizagem subtil e interminável” (Eliane Robert Moraes), e falar delas é o primeiro dos privilégios do macho, a possibilidade do assalto que começa por pô-lo em palavras, descrevê-las e o que lhes faria, a fazer as rondas, a tocar com os passos esse instrumento chuvoso, para que a língua dê uma volta na fechadura de uma beleza hermética, começando pelo contorno, por alguns traços, da melena lisa com todos os matizes do negro, a “uma pele que é como o fim de uma raça ou o princípio de outra”, “um corpo de criada filipina e adolescente que saiu estilizada dos cruzamentos de raças, de sangue, de toda essa cultura dos sexos, que ignoramos”… Não faltam mitos sobre as fazedoras de chuva, essas figuras cheias de uma deliciosa intimidade feminina, daquele maternal cansaço de amante. Não se livram desse olhar, dessa avaliação, e também por isso Maria Galíndo insiste em fazer notar como há uma continuidade fundadora entre puta e não puta. Mas reivindica esta palavra: “A palavra puta é essencial e representa-nos, abrange do trabalho sexual até à liberdade sexual; a expressão trabalho sexual é também essencial porque obriga-nos a colocar a prostituição na análise histórica dos trabalhos das mulheres”… “Sem trabalhadoras do sexo não há feminismo”, adianta. “Não estou a falar de uma forma de inclusão ‘caridosa', para as ‘salvar', mas sim precisamente o contrário: ela, a puta, tem o bastão para remover sexualidades, quebrar mitos, diluir as estruturas de todas as mulheres e é, por isto, um sujeito imprescindível." Explica ainda que, “tal como em qualquer actividade de subsistência, neste trabalho desenvolve-se um conjunto de saberes; a cozinheira, a padeira, a peixeira, a vendedora ambulante, todas desenvolvem saberes próprios do seu ofício, a trabalhadora do sexo faz o mesmo. O negócio não é simplesmente cobrar por sexo”. E prossegue: “A perigosidade e a importância dos seus saberes, o lugar que ocupam na sua relação com o universo masculino, é o que realmente não se quer discutir quando se fala de trabalho sexual. Os saberes das trabalhadoras do sexo têm um carácter explosivo.” Ora, é isto que, segundo Galíndo, faz da puta a “anfitriã da mudança social e uma protagonista central do questionamento da norma patriarcal em torno do corpo e da sexualidade”. Considerando que está em processo uma guerra contra as mulheres, com o aumento da violência machista, sendo que “as trabalhadoras sexuais estão a funcionar como dique, como parede de primeiro impacto dessas violências, como lugar onde essas violências se apresentam como legítimas”, para esta anarco-feminista boliviana a puta é uma peça chave uma vez que “ela acumula, mais do que qualquer outra mulher, mais que a esposa, mais que a amante, uma quantidade de conhecimentos sobre a afectividade, a sexualidade, o corpo, as dolências e os complexos do macho”. Seria um desperdício tentar usar da galanteria e do latim para intrujar ou converter uma puta numa amante solícita. Ela já ouviu tudo, e, a qualquer combinação de palavras formulada por um príncipe a cavalo no próprio tesão, prefere antes que lhe paguem o preço acordado. Em vez de um elogio, mais vale outra nota. Talvez seja mesmo de preferir que ele se cale. Uma puta dispensa o homem de todo aquele teatro, de toda a falsificação amorosa. Se isso for importante, se ajudar a que se venha de uma vez, fingirá, e, por um preço, fará todos os papéis, irá bater texto, dar-lhe-á as deixas, contribuirá no que for preciso para que ele se comova consigo mesmo, com os seus sentimentos e intenções, com a imagem que julga que pinta. Tem infinitos recursos, a puta. E podemos mesmo antecipar que a tal ficção da “mulher”, dentro de mais uns anos, só venha a ser sustentada pelas prostitutas, isto num momento em que o capitalismo já reconheceu que, para os seus fins, interessa mais uma força de trabalho sem género. Como assinala Silvia Federici, “as áreas de trabalho em que o modelo da feminilidade celebrado (por exemplo) na década de 1950 ainda é requerido estão rapidamente a desaparecer. Do ponto de vista do trabalho, já vivemos num mundo de género fluído, em que se espera que sejamos femininas e masculinas em simultâneo.” Há uma urgência em diluir os géneros por questões de eficácia, e, em breve, a nostalgia do macho possante de outrora será uma dessas fantasias que apenas as putas satisfarão. Mas, por agora, e como assinala Federici, o mais importante é reconhecer que há maneiras de ganhar um salário bem mais degradantes do que a prostituição. “Vender os nossos cérebros poderá ser mais perigoso e degradante do que vender o acesso às nossas vaginas.” Mas para esta como para outras noções, a audiência prefere ainda agarrar-se ao efeito moral, representando para si mesma, e ignorando o que nos foi dizendo Merteuil, a marquesa que teve a morte de uma prostituta, sobre como isso da mulher como esta sociedade a faz foi sempre o pior dos papéis, a mais sufocante das prisões. “Abrirei as minhas veias como um livro que não foi lido. Haveis de aprender a lê-lo, Valmont, depois de mim. Farei isso como uma tesoura, porque sou mulher. Cada profissão tem o seu jeito. Podeis com o meu sangue renovar a vossa maquilhagem. Procurarei um caminho para o meu coração através da minha carne que não haveis encontrado, Valmont, porque sois um homem, porque vazio é o vosso peito e dentre de vós cresce o nada. O vosso corpo é o corpo da vossa morte, Valmont. Uma mulher tem muitos corpos. Se quiserdes ver sangue, tereis que o tirar vós próprio. Ou então uns aos outros. Tendes inveja do leite do nosso peito, o que vos torna carniceiros. Se pudésseis parir. Lamento, Valmont, que devido a uma lei da natureza difícil de compreender vos seja inacessível esta experiência, proibido este jardim. Daríeis a melhor parte de vós mesmo se soubésseis o que vos escapa e a natureza vos desse razão. (…) É bom ser mulher, Valmont, e não um vencedor. (…) Quereis saber mais. Sou uma enciclopédia agonizante, cada palavra um coágulo de sangue.” Neste episódio, parecendo que não, nunca nos afastámos muito da actualidade, mas para escapar aos convulsivos desarranjos e equívocos para os quais nos empurra a mediocracia, quisemos assaltar aquela margem abandonada dos discursos que não abriram mão de um verdadeiro projecto de transformação social. E para irmos seguindo esse fio de lã e não ficarmos perdidos no labirinto, contámos desta vez com a inteligência e graça de Carmo Afonso, advogada que tem empenhado o seu tempo e os seus conhecimentos para defender mulheres que são alvo da perseguição e enxovalhamento do enredo patriarcal.
This episode of The Common Reader podcast is a little different. I spoke to both Jeffrey Lawrence and Julianne Werlin about literature, politics, and the future of the academic humanities. Questions included: what do we mean when we talk about literature and markets? Can we leave politics out of literary discussion? Should we leave it out? If we can't leave it out, can we have nice friendly conversations about it? What is academic Marxism? We also talked about whether Stephen Greenblatt is too ideological and why universities are necessary to literary culture, academics on Substack. Julianne writes Life and Letters. Jeffrey writes Avenues of the Americas. Here is Julianne's interview in The Republic of Letters. Transcript (AI generated, will contain some errors)Henry Oliver (00:00)Today I am talking to Jeffrey Lawrence and Julianne Werlin.Jeffrey is a professor of English literature and comparative literature at Rutgers University. He specializes in the 20th and 21st century and he writes the sub stack, Avenues of America. Julianne probably needs no introduction to a sub stack audience. She writes Life and Letters, one of my favorite sub stacks. She's a professor of English at Duke University, where as well as specializing in early modern poetry, she is interested in sociological and demographic studies of literature.and we are going to have a big conversation about literature and markets, politics, what do we mean when we talk about literature and markets, can we leave politics out of literary discussion, should we leave it out, if we can't leave it out, can we have nice friendly conversations about it, and also maybe what is academic Marxism and what should it be and why is it so confusing? Jeffrey and Julianne, hello.Julianne (00:59)Hi.Jeffrey Lawrence (01:01)Hi, thanks for having us.Julianne (01:02)Yeah, thank you.Henry Oliver (01:04)I am going to start by referencing an interview that you did, Julianne, for Republic of Letters, which everyone has been reading. And you said, I've printed it out wrong, so I can't read the whole quote. But you said something like, you joined Substack because you wanted people to talk with and because you felt a lack of debate in your academic field. There are lots of good things about scholarship being slow and careful, but it also needs to be animated by debate and conversation.and a sense of the stakes of what we're doing, and that is eroding in the academy. So I want you both to talk about that. Why is that happening? How much of a problem is it? How much is Substack or the internet more generally the solution? What should we be doing? Why don't we go to Julianne first, because it's your quote.Julianne (01:54)Sure, I mean, won't go on too long ⁓ since I have already spoken about this, but my sense within English departments is, you know, they're becoming smaller, fewer people are taking our classes, we have much less of a role in public conversation and public debate, except as kind of a stalking horse for certain types of arguments. And certainly, if you are an early modernist, it's very hard to locate a kind of a...Henry Oliver (02:14)YouJulianne (02:25)discrete set of debates within early modern literature because there is so little public salience to literary fields. And I think this is happening in all literature. It's especially pronounced if you're working in the earlier periods. So my sense in joining SUBSTAC was that perhaps there will be debates by people who are not already so deep within the particular professional and disciplinary structures of a field that they canfind new points of connection between literature and public life along different ⁓ axes that we have maybe not explored adequately within English departments and are maybe becoming harder to explore as English departments contract and recede from public life.Henry Oliver (03:04)Mm-hmm.So we're bringing Milton back to the people and also finding out why they care about him at all. ⁓ What do you think about it, Geoff?Julianne (03:16)Well, hopefully. I mean, that's the goal.Jeffrey Lawrence (03:21)Great, ⁓ so I actually restacked that specific quote from Julianne because it resonated so much with me. Yeah, I mean, my sense is that as someone who works on 20th and 21st century literature, there is more crossover there, I would say, between sort of academic scholarship and public debate. But I really wanna just echo what Julianne said there, that ⁓ I have gotten the feeling that withinlet's call it like the legacy media. There are particular arguments that come from academia that are pushed forward and that become representative of the field of 20th and 21st century literature as a whole. And those kind of come to stand in for academic debate more generally. And I think it becomes very difficult. One of the things that I was noticing so much isthat the people who had access to those legacy journals, are places like the Atlantic, the New York Times, that those began to dominate the debates and people just aren't recognizing that in scholarships. So one of the things I particularly like about Substack is that I feel like although it has some of the same problems as social media more generally about kind of like who gets to participate and algorithmic culture and all of that sort of stuff.I did feel like the ideological diversity both left and right compared to the sort of a kind of monoculture, mono, you know, sort of academic argument that I found over and over in these legacy magazines, that Substack was the place where a lot of these debates are happening. And I only joined maybe four or five months ago, but for me,⁓ sort of just in terms of my relationship to the Academy, it's really changed my sense of what can be said and what's being said by academics.Henry Oliver (05:17)feels to me like in some way humanities academia needs deregulating because there's all sorts of things people can't feel like they can't say and can't do. But it's such a tangled mess that the easiest thing is for you all to just go to Substack and do it there and just try and avoid the bureaucracy because it's gone too far. But when you're on Substack...I feel like you're often faced with people saying, these English literature academics, it's all woke BS. They don't know anything. They've killed this, right? You're simultaneously in a kind of semi hostile environment. How do you, how does that seem to you?Julianne (05:56)Yeah, mean, that's certainly true. I think that we are avatars on Substack for a kind of authority that we feel in our own lives we do not possess in any way. So we're in this position where, you know, at least I feel this, I'm responding to comments that are, you know, very much, by people who very much feel that they're attacking authority figures. And I'm, you know, I'm just a person on the internet, you know, talking with them when I'm on Substack. What I like about it is precisely that it levels any kind of authority structures insofar as they exist, which is debatable at this phase. But that's not always the reality on Substack. I also feel there's an additional thing, again, as an early modernist, where you feel like, you you don't have...Henry Oliver (06:27)Yeah.Julianne (06:52)there's not a lot of interest by people who are kind of on the left in contemporary politics in the Renaissance. It's seen as kind of a conservative, canonical thing to study. And there's a lot of pushback. even within English departments, there's a lot of pushback ⁓ surrounding the idea that people should study Shakespeare or study Milton. It's seen as kind of old and fussy and conservative. And then at the same time, you go on the internet and you're the kind of ⁓ exemplar.Henry Oliver (06:59)Mmm. Yeah.Mmm.Julianne (07:22)of woke cultural discourse. So you feel like as a Renaissance scholar, you can't win. You're nobody's idea of what people should be doing intellectually or culturally.Henry Oliver (07:25)HahahaDo you think, someone asked me this the other day about why academics write in this funny way and why no one reads their books and all this. That was the way they phrased it. And I said, I think what you're saying is like, why is there no AC Bradley today? Because Shakespeare in tragedy, so I don't remember the number, of like quarter of a million copies or something that to us just feels like an insane number.Is there some legitimate criticism there that A.C. Bradley wrote in a way that, you know, your grandmother could understand? And a lot of what comes out of the Academy today is much more cut off from the ordinary reading experience.Julianne (08:18)Yeah, I mean, think that's not debatable. think there have been quantitative studies, ⁓ DH studies that have shown that academic prose has become more difficult. I think it's much more a consequence of how literary culture has become this sort of narrow and marginalized field that is preserved within academic debate and academic structures of argument and disciplinarity. Stephen Greenblatt certainly tries to benew A.C. Bradley and he does reach readers outside of academia but his audience is you know especially as a share of the population is not A.C. Bradley's audience and I don't think that's a fault of his prose. Well that's true.Henry Oliver (08:59)might be the fault of some of his ideas.Well, Jeff, I want to come to you on that. A.C. Bradley was not politically ideological. Maybe he's a crazy Hegelian and he's insane on that level. But is the problem that Stephen Greenblatt's just obviously kind of a bit cranky in some ideological way, is this a general problem of the modern humanities academia?Jeffrey Lawrence (09:24)Yeah, I mean, I tend to see the problem as it's kind of being a dual problem. One, I think, is the fact that we are facing in a lot of the academy a kind of scarcity politics. there are very, if you look at just academic hiring since the financial crisis in 2008, there's just much less of it that's happening. And so I think, I mean, part of what I see is this sense that there are certainI mean, we could say certain ideological lines that over the past 10 years, but even let's say over the past 15 years ⁓ have been the ones that have become dominant in the academy. And I think my problem is not that people connect politics to literature. I think that that's something that we all do to a certain degree. think the part of the problem is that we are now entering a situation in whichif you deviate from a particular political line, which I have sort of identified with the Democratic Party, because I think you can follow a foul of it to the right, you can also follow a foul of it to the left, then you are seen as someone who is saying something that is not in line with the contemporary academy. And I think it used to be that when there were many jobs and many different departments that you could go to,Henry Oliver (10:28)Mm, mm.Jeffrey Lawrence (10:48)there were fewer consequences for making those types of statements that were out of sync with the dominant. And now I think it's it's become very, very punitive. And this is also reinforced again by the fact that what public scholarship we do have tends to be in line with this because the institutions that are kind of the elite, I would say Ivy league.institutions are also the ones that are feeding people into ⁓ sort of that public legacy discourse.Henry Oliver (11:23)Let's talk about politics and literature because I don't like making literature political as such. But whenever I read, Julianne's probably read the Lisa Liebes substack. I don't know if you've got to that yet, Jeff. She's like, there should be no politics at all and it's all aesthetics, which I kind of sympathize with. But then it just makes me think like, well, what about Edmund Spenser?Like there's a certain extent to which a lot of poetry is political and we have to be political when we talk about it, otherwise we're just ignoring a big part of it. ⁓ So how do we solve that problem? Like are we like badly trained in thinking about politics in the humanities academy or is it like what's going on?have we got to a point where you can say there should be no politics about explicitly political writers?Julianne (12:19)Do you want to begin, Jeff?Jeffrey Lawrence (12:20)Yeah, I mean, I can just say briefly because I mean, I teach courses, a number of courses that are about politics and literature. I actually think, I mean, I started doing this in 2016, right after Trump's election. I taught Steve Bannon's film about the financial crisis alongside ⁓ the Big Short and a couple of kind of like trying to show kind of like the left and right responses. I mean, that's not literature, that's film, but many of thethe literary works that we look at in those courses. There are conservatives, there are more classic liberals, there are Marxists. I mean, my personal feeling is that we need to talk about politics and literature, that it is a fair, it is a reasonable object of study. The problem, I think, is partially when you act as if certain...certain political writers or certain topics are simply out of bounds for study. And so there was actually a post by Dan Silver today about why I teach conservative thinkers and a response from the points John Baskin saying, who would think that you wouldn't teach conservative thinkers in a sociology course? But I do think that it's become par for the course thatHenry Oliver (13:20)Mmm.Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.Jeffrey Lawrence (13:37)teaching someone, whether you're on the right and you're teaching someone who's a Marxist or you're a Marxist and you're teaching conservatives, that somehow this is kind an ethical failure. And I think that's a real problem of not assuming that what you're teaching is kind of necessarily what you believe in or talking about politics means necessarily taking an ideological stance.Julianne (14:04)Yeah, I think that's completely right. I think there's this very pervasive confusion between ⁓ talking about the politics of literature andarticulating an authoritative political perspective on that literature. Almost everybody who studies literature, especially in a historical context or in a contemporary context, honestly, is going to be talking about politics. Spencer, course, right? Milton. ⁓ How do you talk about somebody who was a literal revolutionary who wrote in favor of regicide and not talk about politics? You have to talk about politics.Henry Oliver (14:31)YouJulianne (14:37)⁓ But then there's become this confusion where people assume that if you are talking about the politics of literature, you have not just a political, but actually an ethical ⁓ teaching that you are imparting by way of that literature. And that if you're not doing that, you're somehow not talking about literature, you're not teaching the literature. That's the confusion that has been so devastating to us and I think so devastating to literary study.Henry Oliver (15:03)So what's the alternative? What should we be doing instead?Julianne (15:07)I I think that we should be talking about the politics of literature while acknowledging that literature raises political debates, not endless debates. know, there's not any given author is going to raise, you know, a certain salient set of questions that we can talk about, that we can debate and acknowledging that people historically have had different responses to these, that it has been used in different ways in different moments and that it is still used in different ways today. That doesn't mean that as intellectuals and scholars, we won't have our own positions that may inform our scholarshipin our writing and even our teaching, it just means that our positions do not shut down conversation and do not exhaust the range of possible positions.Henry Oliver (15:48)Yeah, and we should say, we're saying about, you you should teach conservative thought and stuff. I don't think either of you would identify as being on the right or conservative. So you're saying that from a, from that position. ⁓ How do we, how do we get out of this then? How do we leave politics at the door? Because when I read modern ⁓ literary scholarship, to me, it's either like very useful because it's not political.Julianne (16:01)Yeah.Henry Oliver (16:17)Or I just, as I did with that book that we all, or that Jeff and I, sort of disagreed about. I just find it almost unreadable because it's not scholarship anymore. It's just partisanship. How do we move past this? Like, what's the solution?Jeffrey Lawrence (16:33)I mean, if I can jump in just there, I mean, I would say one of the issues is having an ideological litmus test for scholars. And I think I see this in 20th and 21st century literature in a very strong way. And so what I would say is that, you know, allowing people to occupy different political positions, and I really meanJulianne (16:33)I mean, if I could jump in just there, I mean, I would say one of the issues is having an ideological litmus test for scholars. And I think I see this in 20th and 21st century literature in a very strong way. And so what I would say is that allowing people to occupy different political positions, and I really mean,Henry Oliver (16:36)Yeah.Jeffrey Lawrence (17:03)like people who I know on the left because they're not toeing a particular line are also not welcome or are also kind of meat pushback in contemporary humanities departments that I think we need to get rid of that. And my thought about the Adam Kelly book, ⁓ the New Sincerity book is that to me, I think that what he's trying to do in that bookHenry Oliver (17:10)Yeah, yeah.Jeffrey Lawrence (17:31)is to understand neoliberalism as an economic and political philosophy that has effects on culture and to try to understand how authors themselves are dealing with that in their prose.To me, that is somewhat different from the way that neoliberalism is occasionally bandied about in the academy, where it doesn't just, it isn't just another word for saying, okay, this is the Chicago school or the Austrian school, and we're gonna kind of take it seriously as a mode of thought. if just saying like, neoliberalism is like our ontological condition in the 21st century, and therefore everything is.necessarily an expression of neoliberalism and we don't need to necessarily define it. So I mean, I think that may be where the disagreement extends is that I think that ⁓ Adam Kelly is trying to sort of be precise about that politics in order to understand how contemporary writers generally on the left are using it. Whereas I think that the kind of more wishy washy version of that isHenry Oliver (18:37)Mm-hmm.Jeffrey Lawrence (18:44)You know, just to say that neoliberalism is the air that we breathe. And there, I think I agree with you that it's just not super helpful.Henry Oliver (18:49)Mmm.Yeah, my problem with the book was that he would not tell you what did Hayek think or say. He would say Hayek was a cheerleader for the free market. Or he would not tell you what is the Gary Becker view of human capital. He would say human capital is an ideology that infuses itself into every aspect of your life so that you can no longer be separate from the market. And it's all this stuff, and it's like, well, that's nothing to do with Hayek and Gary Becker. ⁓Jeffrey Lawrence (19:19)Can I just,just one thing on that, is that, I mean, I did go back and I mean, he has these moments where he's talking specifically about Hayek and the road to serfdom and saying, I think that this is a worldview in which, he'll quote Hayek talking about the problem with representative democracy and say, the real moral choices are choices that are made in the market.To me, I think that that is to engage to a certain degree with the thought. It is true, I think, as often happens in scholarship that you have the people who are defining a phenomenon from the perspective that you may be interested in. So there are a number of people from the left who are criticizing neoliberalism. I see him as engaging a little bit more than you do.Henry Oliver (20:11)Mmm.Jeffrey Lawrence (20:11)in that in that direct thought and particularly compared to other humanities scholars who do I think what you're saying which is to just do that. So that's where I think I see him as doing.Henry Oliver (20:18)sure, yeah.I guess you could summy critique up as being like, if this is the good version, things are worse than I thought. Yeah. Yeah. So from here, let's go to the question of what is academic Marxism?Jeffrey Lawrence (20:27)Okay, well.Henry Oliver (20:35)Because I think a lot of people think that there's a lot of Marxism in the academy and that if they're not woke, they're Marxists or maybe they're both, right? And ⁓ personally, I spend a lot of time trying to work out what these Marxists think and it's quite confusing. And there seem to be lots of, and Julianne, you and I have talked about this, all the different, some Marxists aren't Marxists, as it were. tell us, give us a quick overview of how Marxist things really are.Julianne (21:04)Yeah, I mean it's a very complicated question to answer.because Marxism is too, well, debatably a living tradition. ⁓ And there's a huge amount of disagreement about what constitutes Marxism, ⁓ what is a legitimate form of Marxism, what is not, where do the boundaries lie, what is reconcilable with other schools of thought, what is not. But I think the big picture is that beginning, even in the 60s, Marxism moved into academia. This is a story that is told very inflectionallyHenry Oliver (21:11)youJulianne (21:37)and Perry Anderson's considerations on Western Marxism, where he argues that in the West, Marxism becomes alienated from actual political, economic, and social movements. It moves into academia. And as a result, it becomes much more philosophical, much more abstruse, much less concerned with the traditional concerns of Marxism, labor and the politics of labor and the politics and economics of labor. And that this continues and is accelerated, in fact, in the Cold War. So what you get atthe same time, you have something called the cultural turn in history and in sociology, ⁓ the rise of what is, debatably called identity politics. so Marxism remains a current within that, but it's far less of an influential current as time goes by. ⁓ And I think that many, many people...use the word Marxism and would say that there are Marxist influences in their work, but they're not viewing it as a kind of systematic approach to economics or to economic history. And so at that point, I do think you have to ask, well, what does Marxism actually mean? There are certainly people that work with, you know, ideas that they refer to as Marxist, but that have implications that to my mind are entirely antithetical to Marxism. And so I kind of feelas somebody who does work within what I would call the historical materialist tradition.⁓ in a very sort of straightforwardly economic sense, know, are markets becoming more efficient in Renaissance England? Those kinds of questions. How much does bread cost? How much do books cost? Those kinds of questions. ⁓ If you're interested in that tradition within Marxist thought, you feel that it's actually really incredibly peripheral within academia in comparison to, say, the politics of gender ⁓ or other considerations of that kind. And there's just not always sensitivityHenry Oliver (23:16)Mm-hmm.Julianne (23:35)to whether these different schools of thought actually cohere in any meaningful or deep way. What would you say, Jeff?Jeffrey Lawrence (23:44)Yeah, that's, I mean, just to pick up on that, think that that's really helpful in that trajectory, which I also, know, the Perry Anderson, a lot of people who have talked about how Marxism.moves into the academy after the 1960s, I think it is just really important to say it becomes a different thing. And I think part of the confusion, Henry, may also be that it's like, so the Christopher Ruffo version of this is it's like, it's all Marxism, it's all everywhere. But then I think that becomes, it's so broad a definition of Marxism that what we're really talking about is aof progressive politics or sort of an amalgam of different ideas that may have some roots in Marxism of previous periods, but really don't, as Julianne is saying, really don't align with like Marxist thought or Marxian thought as such. And also as someone who does take that tradition very seriously, I think a lot about Silvia Federici, who's a feminist, know, a Marxist feminist. Like these are people who are absolutely steeped.in a Marxist political tradition. And in some ways, these are figures that may be very important to the contemporary tradition. But if you actually read what they're writing, it's like, it's an extremely watered down version that we get in the academy in part, and I'll just end with this, in part because to Julianne's point, I think it like when Marxism also becomesHenry Oliver (24:59)Mmm.Jeffrey Lawrence (25:10)a kind of one discourse among many that you are using in what are often very bourgeois institutions, then it becomes a kind of intellectual tool and sometimes even an intellectual weapon, as many of these things are, where the question of how it relates to practical politics, working class politics,politics outside of the academy becomes sort of secondary. And so then really we're not talking about someone who's a Marxist as in they're like fighting for the working class. You're talking about someone who's just using Marx as a tool, which is fine, but that certainly shouldn't give them any sort of like, you know, moral high ground when speaking from the position of the left is my view.Henry Oliver (25:53)Is there some inherent aspect of literature that means it has been more amenable to Marxist study of any description than it has been to, you know, ⁓systems of thought that come more from a kind of Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek tradition. Because it's very striking to me how few liberals and libertarians they're currently, publicly currently, I know a lot of them keep it to themselves, some of them have said as much to me. ⁓ But is there some good literary reason for this? Or is it just an institutional ⁓ problem?Julianne (26:33)That's an interesting question. ⁓ I mean, there are sort of traditional reasons for this in thatMarxism from, you know, in Marxist writing from very early on was interested in the relationship between culture and historical change. So there's a very, even by the time you get to the beginning of the 20th century, there's already a very well developed materialist tradition for thinking about cultural change and cultural transformation over the long run in a way that I don't think is true ⁓ of rival ideologies. Not that there isn't great literary work, but that there's not the sameHenry Oliver (27:09)Sure, sure, sure.Julianne (27:11)kind of sense of a methodological tradition. So there's a lot of momentum there.⁓ But in terms of more intrinsic reasons, I don't know. I mean, it doesn't seem obvious. Certainly at other times and places, we haven't had the situation that we have now. I often find myself thinking of, know, Piketty's arguments, which this does not pertain to Marxism, but this does pertain to the ⁓ difference between the political parties in the US, which is just that ⁓ education has become the means of differentiating between two rival elites, you know, not...Henry Oliver (27:27)Mm.Julianne (27:47)a difference between a working class and an elite, but two rival elites that are actually distinguished by the university itself. So as long as the university plays that structural role, it seems unlikely that its politics are going to drift to the other side, because that is actually precisely what the university has become. ⁓ I don't know, what do you think, Jeff?Jeffrey Lawrence (28:06)Yeah, I mean, it's a really good question. I mean, I share the sense that, I mean, I think that there is an extraordinary ⁓ Marxist literary tradition that goes back to, you know, sort of Lukacs and these debates, Adorno, Horkheimer. These are critics that are important to me, cultural studies with people like Stuart Hall and Raymond Williams. I mean, they very much, I think, were, though,Henry Oliver (28:20)Mm-hmm.Jeffrey Lawrence (28:30)That was a kind of insurgent force, we could say, within the academy that has now become, I would say, almost entirely dominant. I personally, mean, one of the things when I was writing my first book was on US and Latin American literature. I was very interested in a certain liberal tradition that comes from, you know, John Dewey. We would now say that, I mean, it's not the liberalism of, you know, Milton Friedman and von Hayek, but it is,Dewey, think, was for many people the most important philosopher, aesthetic philosopher of the early part of the 20th century. And he was a sort of radical liberal who thought a lot about the liberal tradition. I people like Lionel Trilling with the liberal imagination, these were, I think, writers who were very important.Henry Oliver (29:16)Mm-hmm.Jeffrey Lawrence (29:19)in a particular moment. And I guess, you this is, you may see this as a dodge, I, Henry, but I definitely feel like these are books that are really important to my formation and whether or not I associate with a certain particular strain of contemporary ⁓ liberalism, I don't tend to think of myself necessarily in those terms. And so,Henry Oliver (29:26)HahahaJeffrey Lawrence (29:43)I think we really should be reading those because those types of people, people like John Dewey, people like Lionel Trilling, know, Philip Rav, these kind of mid-century intellectuals, they were really engaging in major debates and they were foundational for the field, even if now I think there may be some desire to take distance from them.Henry Oliver (30:07)It's the bigger problem that we should just get back to more for literature as literature.And once we allow a kind of methodological approach from one tradition or another, we're just no longer really studying literature. We're using literature to, like I had a professor once and they said an essay about Anglo-Saxon poetry with some Harold Bloom quote saying, none of this is any good. It's like the great age before the flood, that kind of thing. And I basically wrote an essay saying, yes, that's correct. And she did not like that. And I said, look, I bet you don't actually love anyof this poetry. I bet you don't care about any of this. You know, I just sort of... And she said, that's not the point. The point is that we can use it to impose the... You we can use it as a way of dealing with the ideas we want to deal with and having methodological... And I was just like, I'm never coming back. You know, goodbye. And that to me is kind of... Is that the more foundational problem, right? Some people want to take a kind of...Northrop Frye, Christopher Ricks, literature as literature approach, and some people want to have an extra literary methodology. Be it Freudian, be it feminist, be it identity politics, be it whatever. And that is the bigger sort of division here, and is the solution to just say Shakespeare is Shakespeare and you can keep the other stuff for your other classes.Julianne (31:33)Well, I don't know because, I mean, in terms of what actually goes into the classroom, I think that's a different question. I don't teach very much theory in the classroom. ⁓ But I don't think that we can just say that because the ability to say, you know, these are great works, this is part of a canon, it came with its own set of ideological commitments that are now...Henry Oliver (31:40)Show. Show, show, show.Julianne (31:57)sort of vanishing, right? So we need some kind of framework for making sense of why we read literary history at all, what its coherence is, what its shape is, what its structure is. A lot of those frameworks were implicit. didn't, you know, they were articulated, they didn't need to be articulated every single time because they were so woven into the whole system of education. As that becomes increasingly untrue, I think we do find ourselves in a position where we need to explain why we care about this object literature at all.in the first place. And I don't think just saying, you know, literature for literature's sake without situating it within some kind of wider account of culture really works. I don't know that situating it within some wider account of culture really works either in terms of persuading anyone, but I don't think you can say to people, look, Shakespeare is Shakespeare, we have to read him because he's great. I think you need to...Jeffrey Lawrence (32:45)Mm-hmm.Henry Oliver (32:45)HahahaJulianne (32:53)have an argument about the place that Shakespeare has in culture ought to have ⁓ because that is increasingly not true.Henry Oliver (33:02)So I mostly agree, but it is very striking to me. I mean, I sort of half agree. It is very striking to me that the just read it because it's great argument is winning a lot of ⁓ admirers on the internet, while some version of what you've just said is sort of dying in the academy. And I'm not saying that therefore that's a decisive factor and we should just do this. But in terms of getting people interested,that does see something on the internet among the new humanities culture on Substack and other places, does just seem to be resistant to these methodologies and ideology, right? Do you see what I'm saying? ⁓Jeffrey Lawrence (33:43)Can I, I mean, yeah, Imean, I would say, and we may just disagree on this, but I agree with Julianne that, I mean, the ideological context of a work, the historical context of work seems incredibly important. I saw Henry, yeah, yeah. And so I think that there, yeah, yeah, but I think that's not, I mean, I think we can't totally gloss over that because all three of us have had long educational sort of,Henry Oliver (33:58)sure, yeah. We're all historicists, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.Jeffrey Lawrence (34:11)a long educational formation that has allowed us to even have this conversation, let alone read these works. I, you you, you, I think you had a post about this on, on Austin about like, you know, sort of there, there are certain things that are helpful for you to know in order, once you're going into work. I think that that's different from the thing that you're pointing to and where I think I would agree with you, which is that when, when methodology becomes the TrumpHenry Oliver (34:15)Yes.Yeah, yeah, yeah.Jeffrey Lawrence (34:41)card over literature. think that that is that is an important cultural shift. And I think we are now at the point in which this is my formulation for it. It's like if you're just going to read literature for, you know, for a particular political thing, for Marxism, let's say, in order to understand, you know, sort of like a Marxist conception of society, why not just read Marxism?Henry Oliver (34:42)Hmm.Jeffrey Lawrence (35:11)like Marxist theory. mean, so I do think that that is a real problem and the failure, and to be fair to humanities scholars, this is, has been a big debate over the past five or 10 years. I think it's just more contested in the academic space than it is on Substack, where I think Substack is kind of demonstrating to my mind also that some of the more frank, I, I sweat, some of the more BS, yeah.Henry Oliver (35:11)Yes.Say what you want.Jeffrey Lawrence (35:39)Some of the more b******t arguments that I see about like, ⁓ well, there aren't X people, like there aren't white men who are writing and reading, and then you just see the tremendous number of people who are reading, they may just feel alienated from certain ways of doing things. And that, I think, that's a wide range of people. And I think it's a wide range of people who are turned off by certain things in the academy.Henry Oliver (35:49)yeah.Jeffrey Lawrence (36:07)I think a lot of that though has to do with a general problem that we need people in literary studies who deeply care about literature, regardless of what ideological thing, you know, where they're coming from. And if you are always just interested in the methodology that you're bringing to it, as opposed to literature, then this is going to be a long-term problem because people are going to start asking, why is it that we are reading literature?Henry Oliver (36:34)To what extent is that the basic problem that the universities have right now? To me that just seems to be it's that, right?Julianne (36:39)I think that's a huge problem. Yeah, I think it's a huge problem.Yeah, it's a huge problem. guess, you know, while sort of agreeing with you and definitely agreeing with Jeff, I guess what I would say to sort of refine what I was saying earlier is, no, I don't think you should study the methodologies instead of studying literature. Of course not.⁓ But the questions that the methodologies ask are really basic to the questions that we need to ask about the study of literature. So it's not that you should be studying Marxism or feminism or this or that instead of studying literature, but I don't think you can...totally do away with the questions of, what is this thing? What is its role in culture? What does it mean? Why do we study it over long, long periods of time? ⁓ It is, it has become very hard to make that, that case. And it's not that I think making that case explicitly is going to win converts as opposed to talking about the literature itself. In the end, it's going to be the literature itself, if it's going to be anything at all. But to have an account of the meaning of what we're doing, even for our own sakes, we do need to be thinking about questions like what is this thing?and why, right, which are supposed to be questions that methods help us ask.Jeffrey Lawrence (37:53)And can I just add to that kind of the, I mean, a word that we haven't used so far is specialization. And I think to a certain degree, like what may unite us in this conversation is a sense too, that like, that literature is not just like this particular corner that you're studying and that you're interested in because it's your field. And so,Henry Oliver (38:13)Mmm.Jeffrey Lawrence (38:16)Those type of turf battles, I think, are also really important to this. The sense that your topic is the thing that you specifically focus on and the difficulty of communicating that is an issue. And also just the sense that, like, I mean, my sense is you can be interested in history and sociology. Julianne and I are both interested in that. And also literature, so that it doesn't, I mean, part of it is, I think, restoring the notion that a kind of broadHenry Oliver (38:19)Yeah.Jeffrey Lawrence (38:46)like intellectual training is not a liability, but is actually something that you need in order to understand literature and that heightens your appreciation.Henry Oliver (38:57)Somewhere in one of Iris Murdoch's interviews, she talks about the state of literary undergraduates today, because obviously she was married to John Bailey and had a lot of, and this is like in the 80s or something, ⁓ and she said, well, they're not interested in just reading the literature and understanding the history of it anymore. They want to have all these crazy theories.It's very striking when you see stuff like that from 50 years ago. Did the cannon wars ever end? Did we ever change the arguments? In some ways, is this not just the Harold Bloom thing? It's still going, right? And one route out that I think you've identified is just ⁓ be broader. Just read more outside your own area.The people who everyone loves on Twitter, like CS Lewis and Harold Bloom, are the ones who weren't in their public facing work. They weren't narrow specialists. CS Lewis would do everything from some random Latin medieval writer to Jane Austen. And in a way, is that what we need? We just need to have more of that appreciation of the long history of literature.Jeffrey Lawrence (40:10)I mean, just one thing, then Julianna, I'd be curious to like from like a ⁓ 20th and 21st century perspective. Like I agree with that, but I also think that like that was Toni Morrison as well. I mean, talking about the classics, mean, part of the problem I think is that we have these readings of figures that become then sort of symbolic or totemic of.Henry Oliver (40:23)Yeah.Jeffrey Lawrence (40:33)like a contemporary, you know, whatever that may be, an identity category or whatever it may be. Whereas if you actually read Toni Morrison, absolutely voracious, absolutely thinking about like, you know, the classics, you know, thinking through Greek drama, ⁓ know, Faulkner, you know, ⁓ master's thesis on the outsider in Faulkner and Virginia Woolf. I mean, I think some of this also has to dowith something that has happened very specifically in the past 10 years of also subjecting figures of the past who were interested in that more Catholic notion of culture to these kind of like very selective readings. I mean, it's true of James Baldwin. I thought about this a lot. Like a lot of these figures who just didn't want to be boxed in in a particular identity way get then taken up asHenry Oliver (41:11)Hmm.Jeffrey Lawrence (41:26)kind of figures for that when actually, mean, in some ways they were, you know, I'm sure Toni Morrison and Harold Bloom wouldn't have agreed on everything, but there was actually, I mean, but really there is actually more alignment there than like the 2025 reading of them would give credit for.Henry Oliver (41:40)Yeah, yeah, yeah.Jeffrey Lawrence (41:47)Yeah, don't know, Julianne, if yeah.Julianne (41:49)Yeah, no, mean, I obviously I agree so, so entirely with.everything you're saying, but especially with your comments about longer literary histories, more capacious reading, know, longer, wider. Obviously you read cross linguistically and do work cross linguistically. So both broader and longer literary histories, much more than kind of a focus on methodology. Part of the reason I'm defending methodology here is because methodology, if used well, forces you outside of disciplinary specialization or can, has that capacity. In my field, the problem is not thatpeople are adhering to big sweeping methodologies anymore. In my field, the problem is that the big questions have almost disappeared, replaced by, in many cases, extremely excellent, detailed, narrow, pointillist empiricist work. I think that work is...valuable and it's foundational, but you can't have a field that just has that. You have to have something that makes the field cohere. You have to have questions that the field coheres around. know, and increasingly, I'm a historicist. I got into this because I love this kind of like, ⁓ you know,tell me everything about this particular edition of the Fairy Queen. ⁓ I love that kind of thing. ⁓ And yet at the same time, there is part of me that is starting to wonder.Henry Oliver (43:09)YouJeffrey Lawrence (43:10)YouJulianne (43:17)is it actually more relevant even for being a Renaissance literary scholar to have read every single person writing in England in 1592 and then maybe instead of Dante or going the other way, right? Instead of...Richardson or Voltaire. Like maybe we should be reading more Voltaire instead of every non-entity. And I'm guilty of this because my whole project is every non-entity who published a book in 1592. So this is very much self-critique. But that more capacious sense, and that more capacious sense exactly as Jeff says, is very much aligned with how writers themselves, especially great writers, approach literature. I teach Toni Morrison in my Shakespeare class sometimes because she has a short play on Desdemona.Jeffrey Lawrence (43:47)If you ⁓Henry Oliver (44:06)So we're obviously all going to await your blog about the different editions of the Fairy Queen and your favorite things about each of them. Just give us some examples of what the big questions would be and what these empirical questions that people are. Just make it sort of concrete for us what you're talking about there.Julianne (44:11)Hawell i mean there are a lot of people who have big ideas ⁓that maybe make their way into their own work, that show up in the introduction of their own work, but that are not defining the field in a meaningful way. There are a few debates that think are actually happening within my field that are interesting, like the extent to which ⁓ Renaissance literature should be understood on national versus international lines. I think that's quite an active one that's very interesting. ⁓ But I think a lot of books written in the Renaissance, and I don't wantHenry Oliver (44:39)Mm-hmm.Julianne (45:03)topoint to any one book because these are all you know good books and books that I like but a lot of books will be have a very narrow date range a set there you know the typical organization of a book in literary studies is to have a sort of thematic topic not always thematics sometimes it'sbook historical or cultural, but ⁓ often it will be a thematic topic. Say a topic like ⁓ shame in Renaissance literature, right? So you'll take shame in Renaissance literature. This is fictional. This isn't anybody's book. If it is accidentally somebody's book, I apologize. Shame in Renaissance literature, okay? And then you'll have this ⁓ contextualizing introduction where you might bring in a bit of Foucault and you might bring in various other theorists.Henry Oliver (45:23)Mm-hmm.Sure, sure,Jeffrey Lawrence (45:39)YouJulianne (45:52)But you will also go very, very deeply into, say, sermons, right, the sermon literature. And then you'll have five chapters. you know, one will be like Shakespeare play, and then maybe one will be Spencer. And then maybe one will be somebody, you know, more marginal or be Ben Johnson or there'll be Webster, you know. ⁓ And then you will put them, you know, this is the method of New Hizorizis. You'll put them beside legal documents and you'll put them beside sermons and you'll put them beside other very, very contextualized and often very well contextualized.works from the period. But you won't write a book that is like, you know, literature and shame, you know, across three centuries ⁓ that would then maybe potentially think about, you know, is there a fundamentally different way that drama versus the novel represent shame? Does this help us understand long range debates about interiority? And again, it's not that nobody ever does this. It's that the feelI feel English literature used to be more aligned over around these kind of shared long-term questions and debates and they're much less aligned around them now because of specialization and because of the sort of dynamic of know decline and and narrowing of prospects that Jeff has mentioned.Henry Oliver (47:11)A lot of people complain about the administrators, the way funding is done, the way you can only get funding for certain types of work, career structures, all these structural factors that make life either difficult as an academic or just force you into certain decisions and activities. ⁓ To what extent is writing on Substack actually going to be a beneficial solution?to get around those problems and to what extent is it just going to be a sort of useful addition and is going to be very stimulating for you all but might not, you know, might not actually change things. What's your sense of that?Jeffrey Lawrence (47:54)This was something I've thought about this a lot because I wrote for the Chronicle of Higher Education. think Julianne and I have both write or have written for the Chronicle and something that was on the public humanities and I very specifically this is 2022 or 2023 said like, sub stack is not going to be the solution. Partially and my point there was something that I still believe to a certain extent which is thatas someone who has worked in different public humanities ⁓ programs, as someone who knows to a certain degree the publishing industry in the US and Latin America and has done work on that, I think that it's hard to ⁓ exaggerate the degree to which funding for this type of research, it's just really expensive and the existing funding models that exist for something like Substack or I mean any other sort of ⁓platform economy, even public humanities projects, it's just really hard to do. So I'm much more in favor. So I think Substack is really important as a venue. I think that as a potential model for, you know, a sustainable model for doing academic scholarship, I see a lot more limitations. And that's why I've said, I mean, I think in some ways, if the types of conversations that happen on Substack,could be then imported back into our fields. Like, I don't think we should just destroy the institutions and get rid of these departments. I think that there needs to be a sort of infusion of these types of debates that are happening on Substack in the university, because the universities have funding, you know, have funding. And I think it's partially about fighting for that, this kind of holistic thing that we've been talking about up to this point.Julianne (49:49)Yeah, I completely agree. That's my view as well. I don't think that Substack's funding model would actually be good for scholarship. I'm not saying that you couldn't get a few people making it viable, but for a scholarship as a whole, I think it would be terrible for scholarship as a whole. At the same time, for the reasons we've been discussing here, we need to be talking with other people and not just with people in our subfield of a subfield of a subfield. And Substack is great for that.Henry Oliver (50:18)I sometimes think that if you can draw a distinction between scholarship and criticism, the academy can keep the scholarship and the criticism needs to come outside. You can all still write it, right? But it needs to be done in a way that is free of all the institutional incentives and constraints and just all that problem and you can all just be free to say other things online.Jeffrey Lawrence (50:43)I mean, just very quickly on that, I mean, I do think that in my personal case, because I came to Substack partially because I had a very bad experience with a kind of ⁓ a piece that I had pitched to like a venue that was, you know, sort of like progressive venue where I felt like I was saying things about contemporary author that everyone else was saying, right? It was a kind of public secret, a kind of critique of this writer.And I felt like it was not going to be published in any of those venues and in the Academy itself, that would be a problem. And not because this was something that even, you know, sort of ⁓ departed so much from things that people would say, but just because of kind of like the power structures. And since I've been on Substack, I've had multiple people, particularly with the first Substack piece that I wrote, but with other ones as well.Henry Oliver (51:11)Mmm.Jeffrey Lawrence (51:35)people in academia telling me, thank you for saying this. And also I'm reading your sub stack as an academic right now. But I also, do think that there remains, I mean, it's changing, but I do think that there's speaking of shame, like there are people who they're just not sure as graduate students.what they can say and what they can't say. And I think that's a real issue. So I agree, criticism is important, but even for scholarships too, I think that there need to be taboos that are broken in order for scholarship, as Julianne said, to kind of like return to that more sort of vibrant feel that it once had.Julianne (52:20)Yeah, I think that's right. Obviously those taboos are less present in my field than in yours because the contemporary stakes are much less clear. ⁓ And sometimes I'm jealous of people who work in the contemporary field because there are stakes. And then I hear things like what you just said and I'm no longer so jealous. But yeah, no, do think that...Henry Oliver (52:35)YouJeffrey Lawrence (52:35)YouJulianne (52:46)People, even beyond what you would think that they would plausibly need to be, people are very cautious and graduate students especially are very cautious and even having the example of people saying things publicly is incredibly important and helpful.Henry Oliver (53:02)It's interesting how many PhD students there are on Substack. There are several English literature PhD students and I find it amazing actually that they're writing a Substack ⁓ rather than writing something academic. This to me is a very clear signal of something is changing, right? Something important is changing.Jeffrey Lawrence (53:28)I would say it's pragmatic too. I mean, I don't think that there's any reason people shouldn't graduate students. I don't think that they necessarily need to have a substack, but I also, I just think that there's a kind of recognition that, you know, especially at this moment, mean, frankly, with a lot of this does have to do with the Trump administration and kind of the way that it's been directed very specifically at, you know, sort of the humanities andHenry Oliver (53:47)Mm-hmm.Jeffrey Lawrence (53:53)So I do think that there's a kind of sense that the hiring isn't happening. And so it's like, well, why am I going to invest in this very small possibility of getting an, an academic job or even better yet, I'm going to build my own audience. I'm going to talk about these things because that's going to empower me at the moment in which I'm actually looking for jobs. So I, I, I'm like, I agree with you that I think it's just like, ⁓ it's a pretty astonishing thing.in the sense of the sort of initiative, but it also kind of makes sense given the world that exists.Julianne (54:30)Yeah, mean, you know, our graduate students are not.coming in, I'm sure yours are the same way, they're not coming in thinking they're going to get jobs ⁓ anymore. So they're coming in thinking, I have six years to build the kind of intellectual life to become the kind of writer and the kind of thinker that I want to be. And that's the priority, much more than anything sort of pragmatic about what they might do in terms of future career prospects, because most of them have absolutely no idea. It's much more about how can I find an intellectual community? How can I become the kindintellectual I want to be. And if academia is not going to be their home long term for that, it cannot be in academia. It has to be elsewhere. In addition, now that there are fewer conferences, journals, you know, are delayed by years. That was another thing that got me on Substack is I wrote a review.And I wrote the review as soon as I got the book. I wrote the review that I was asked to review. Then like, you know, six weeks, sent it back. ⁓ It took four years for the review to appear in that journal. And I was like, why, how can we possibly have a conversation when this journal has just been sitting on this copy edited review until they could find a slot for it in their, you know, in this day and age? How can that be the case? You know, so I think, you know, that's also part of what's going on.Henry Oliver (55:49)Yes.So are you running introduction to sub-stack classes for your graduate students? This is not yet, yes.Julianne (55:59)No, not yet, not yet.Jeffrey Lawrence (56:00)Yeah, yeah. I mean,interestingly, we had an event with Lincoln Michelle, who's a very popular at Rutgers, who's a very popular Substack writer. I mean, that was one of our, was a hugely well attended event. I mean, I do think, and it doesn't necessarily need to be just Substack, but I think public intellectual work, think graduate students and also undergraduates, they want to understand this because they know ⁓Henry Oliver (56:08)Mm-mm.Jeffrey Lawrence (56:29)precisely what Julianne said, that it's not gonna work for them to just stay in their lane and keep the blinders on and keep going. Even if they want a career in academia, they know that they need to be involved in these other things. so, I mean, to the extent that I think we can do that in our institutions and give them a sense of what's going on, I mean, definitely we're thinking about that at Rutgers.Henry Oliver (56:55)If the humanities goes into some sort of terminal decline and there are fewer departments and the student numbers never recover and all these blah blah blah, all these bad things, ⁓ does it matter?Julianne (57:08)Well, for what? mean...Jeffrey Lawrence (57:10)Ha ha.Henry Oliver (57:10)Well, because everyone talksabout it like, the humanities are dying, this is terrible. And I'm like, what's the problem? We had like English literature was the number one subject for undergraduates, and now it's not, right? What is the actual problem if the humanities are in this terminal decline? No, I get that it's all bad for you. Yeah, no, for all of you, of course, right? But like, what's the what's the actual problem here? Yeah.Jeffrey Lawrence (57:27)You mean besides the jobs of, mean, because part of that, right, right, Yeah, for us. But for society.Henry Oliver (57:38)Obviously when someone doesn't have a job or can't get a job, like of course, of course. But can you give us a succinct explanation of why people who are not involved in it should care about the decline of the humanities or should recognize that it's something that we don't want to happen in some way?Julianne (57:56)I mean, I think the sort of simplest thing is that we still do have, it's fading, but we still do have some shared cultural literary heritage ⁓ or basis. Yeah, I don't use the word heritage since it's a kind of nationally charged word, but some kind of shared basis that allows us to talk with each other about literature. ⁓ And most of this, think, is predicated not on the university, but on the high school canon.Henry Oliver (58:11)Sure.Julianne (58:25)is an extension of that. So I think our number one thing should be the high school curriculum. ⁓ But then our number two thing should be ⁓ ensuring that people have some kind of foundation in, you know, a...as wide a range as we can give them of literary texts that they get in university because that is the basis of a shared literary culture. I don't think you get, you know, I don't think you get a wider literary culture where people can talk about things, ⁓ you know, like 18th century books or, you know, 19th or 20th century books across the world ⁓ without having some kind of institutional basis, having some kind of shared institutional structure that people have passed through. Otherwise, what you will get is people, you know, picking up thingsyou know, a bit here, a bit there. Some of them will be so unfamiliar that they will be put off by it. Some of them maybe won't. ⁓ But you won't get anything like a common culture. And for me, that's sort of intrinsically good. But there is also this kind of idealistic ⁓ democratic aspect to this that you got in the mid-20th century in the post-war expansion of higher education and also the expansion of public education. This idea that you would have a citizenship thatbe participating in intellectual, philosophical, and political culture at a very high level. I don't see how you get that without having some kind of shared institutional basis for it.Jeffrey Lawrence (59:50)Yeah, mean, would just, yeah, I think everything and then maybe the only like word that I would use that you didn't use there is just kind of like literacy. mean, cultural literacy, but actual literacy, because I do think that beyond the culture wars, like the one thing that I think I'd like across the political spectrum is that there is this sense that a certain ability to read and to engage in civic life is declining.⁓ And so, yeah, I mean, I think that reading all sorts of texts is important and having cultural literacy is important to having an informed citizenry. So that to me seems like the reason for doing it. But as Julianne says, and maybe this doesn't totally answer the question, because I do think some of these are perhaps like for us at the college level, it's a little bit downstream of these sort of.broader issues, which is one more reason I think that making the case about why we should care about literature is also on us. It shouldn't just be assumed, as you're saying, Henry, that because we want jobs that this is good for everyone. I think we need to make that case.Henry Oliver (1:01:05)Will you be making that case on Substack?Jeffrey Lawrence (1:01:09)Yeah, mean, don't know, I mean, I think, you know, sort of more and more, I do think that, you know, that we need to be doing this. I mean, for me, everything that's happened over the past couple of years, I think the way my sense of kind of like the failure of a certain liberal project after the Trump election, you know, last year was really important to me in saying there is a way that we're going about the assumptions that we have aboutHenry Oliver (1:01:10)HahahaJulianne (1:01:11)ThankJeffrey Lawrence (1:01:38)literacy and what we should be doing and the role of academic scholarship. I mean, that I feel like was a turning point, at least personally for me. And I think engaging in places like Substack, but just generally in like public culture, to me, seems like it's just like it is the one avenue that we have. So yes, I guess.Henry Oliver (1:02:00)If your colleagues are listening and you both want to say something to them to encourage them onto Substack, what would you say?Julianne (1:02:10)Jeff, your colleagues, ⁓ do they subscribe to your Substack? Because one of the things that has happened is at first nobody, you know, I told a couple friends, but nobody else knew about this. But now more and more members of my department have subscribed to my Substack, which feels like, which does make it feel sort of high stakes in a different way. Has that happened to you?Henry Oliver (1:02:28)YouJeffrey Lawrence (1:02:32)I'm still pretty under the radar. ⁓ I have some colleagues, I know that there's some graduate students who also read it, ⁓ I mean, and colleague is a small thing. I'm more like, you my colleagues, have a great relationship with my department. I talk to them and sort of, but I think it's more like colleagues in general in terms of the academy that is important.Right? mean, and it again, I don't think it necessarily has to be sub-stacked, but it just shouldn't be Twitter. mean, I think that the long form writing that one finds in the debates for me, at least this is where it's happening right now. And so that would be my pitch is that I just think that the debates that are happening are better than they are anywhere else on the internet.Henry Oliver (1:03:18)Thank you both. I thought this was very interesting and I hope it encourages more of your peers to come and join us on Substack This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk
durée : 00:58:21 - Entendez-vous l'éco ? - par : Aliette Hovine - Quel rôle peuvent jouer les économistes dans la conservation du vivant ? Nous en parlons avec Lauriane Mouysset et son ancien doctorant, Simon Jean. Retour ensuite dans les années 1970, quand le collectif féministe Wages for Housework faisait sortir le travail domestique de l'impensé économique. - réalisation : Benjamin Hû - invités : Lauriane Mouysset Chargée de recherche CNRS au Centre international de recherche sur l'environnement et le développement (CIRED) ; Simon Jean Professeur d'économie à AgroParisTech; Maud Simonet Chargée de recherche en sociologie au CNRSà l'IDHE.S et directrice adjointe à l'IDHE.S-Nanterre
durée : 00:33:39 - Entendez-vous l'éco ? - par : Aliette Hovine - Dans les années 1970, le collectif féministe international Wages for Housework perce l'impensé du travail domestique. Dialoguant avec la théorie marxiste, nombre de féministes redéfinissent le concept même de valeur, et avec lui les lieux de l'exploitation. - réalisation : Benjamin Hû - invités : Maud Simonet Chargée de recherche en sociologie au CNRSà l'IDHE.S et directrice adjointe à l'IDHE.S-Nanterre
Today I have the privilege and pleasure of speaking with Nicholas Mirzoeff and Priscilla Wathington about the genocide in Gaza, and how developing a new way of seeing and writing is demanded of us to address this historical moment. In the words of Silvia Federici, “Palestine is the World.” We take Nick's recent book, To See in the Dark, and animate it by having Priscilla read from her poetry. Nick writes: “After a year of genocide, I think politics is now the meeting of the visible and the unspeakable. Unspeakable in that what is visible is so awful as to be beyond ordinary words. Unspeakable in that what is visible is forbidden to be said.What has been sayable about the unspeakable? It has been poets who have found ways to make language do what it should not have to do.”The goal behind this dynamic interplay is to create the grounds for solidarity with Palestine, and with all other oppressed peoples in the world, and with the planet itself.Nicholas Mirzoeff is Professor and chair in the Department of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University. To See In The Dark: Palestine and Visual Activism (2025) is being translated into Czech, Italian and Spanish. It is the most recent of more than a dozen books, including How To See The World (2015), translated into eleven languages. Since Occupy Wall Street (2011), his work has been in dialogue with social movements, including Black Lives Matter (The Appearance of Black Lives Matter) and #MeToo. His writing has appeared in the Guardian, The Nation and LARB. He lives in New York.Priscilla Wathington is a Palestinian American poet/editor and the author of the chapbook, Paper and Stick, which draws from her past human rights advocacy work. She is asking you to resist the lie that you are too helpless, or too busy, or too small to change anything. Take your small hand and your small voice and add it to this symphony against the genocide taking place in Gaza; and speak up not only about Gaza but also Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and your own backyard, and everywhere that humanity is at risk.
Cześć! Po przerwie wracamy z nowym odcinkiem i... z nowymi półkami! W ostatnich tygodniach zajmowałyśmy się porządkowaniem naszego księgozbioru, co poskutkowało tym, że udało nam się zebrać na potrzeby tego odcinka książki już dawno przeczytane i takie, które niedawno do nas trafiły. Co je łączy? Wszystkie te książki to pozycje non-fiction. Payę ostatnio interesują czarownice i powody, dla których na świecie obserwujemy zwrot ku prawicowym i faszystowskim politykom, a Ela czytała kilka książek o Azji i pewien reportaż, w którym trzeba było uzupełniać luki pozostawione przez historię. Zobaczcie, czy znacie któryś z tych tytułów i zostawcie nam swoje polecajki! Książki, o których mówimy w podkaście:Silvia Federici, „Kaliban i czarownica. Kobiety, ciało i akumulacja pierwotna”, tłum. Krzysztof Król, KarakterJason Stanley, „Wymazywanie historii. Jak faszyści manipulują przeszłością, by kontrolować przyszłość”, tłum. Dawid Krawczyk, Krytyka Polityczna Arlie Russell Hochschild, „Skradziona duma. Strata, wstyd i triumf prawicy”, tłum. Hanna Pustuła-Lewicka, Krytyka Polityczna.;Tiya Miles, „Wszystkie rzeczy na drogę. Dzieje worka Ashley, dziedzictwa jej czarnych potomkiń”, tłum. Teresa Tyszowiecka-Blask!, Dowody;Anna Sawińska, „Kraina jednej szansy. O edukacji w Korei Południowej”, Czarne;Yuan Yang, „Prywatne rewolucje. Dorastanie w nowych Chinach”, tłum. Dorota Konowrocka-Sawa, W.A.B.Serdecznie dziękujemy wydawnictwom za przysłanie nam „Kalibana i czarownicy”, „Skradzionej dumy” i „Prywatnych rewolucji” [współpraca reklamowa].Jeśli spodobał Ci się ten odcinek, możesz nam podziękować na Suppi. Zapłacisz bezpiecznie i bez prowizji Blikiem, przelewem czy kartą.A jeśli chcesz zostać z nami na dłużej: wejdź na nasz profil Patronite! Jeżeli chcesz dołączyć do naszego grona Matronek i Patronów, będziemy zaszczycone! Dla tych, którzy zdecydują się nas wspierać, mamy spersonalizowane książkowe rekomendacje, newslettery głosowe, podziękowania na stronie i wiele więcej.Zachęcamy do odwiedzin na naszym profilu na Instagramie i na Facebooku, na naszym kanale YouTube oraz na naszej stronie internetowej.Intro: http://bit.ly/jennush
(Icaria, 2025). Con Rita Segato, autora; María Eugenia R. Palop, jurista y autora. En este libro, María Eugenia R. Palop conversa con doce pensadoras clave del pensamiento feminista contemporáneo. Son entrevistas profundas, vivas, que atraviesan los temas más urgentes de nuestro tiempo: las violencias patriarcales, la crisis ecosocial, el trabajo de los cuidados, las migraciones, la justicia feminista, el amor, la identidad, la esperanza. Rita Segato, Silvia Federici, Seyla Benhabib, Rosi Braidotti, Eva Illouz, Maristella Svampa, Alda Facio, Patricia Hill Collins, Alessandra Facchi, Yayo Herrero, Kajsa Ekis Ekman y Morena Herrera comparten aquí sus ideas, sus experiencias y sus apuestas políticas, en un cruce de saberes que rehúye el dogma y apuesta por el diálogo.
Across the globe in the 1970s, a network of feminists distilled their struggles into a single demand: Wages for Housework! Today, it remains a provocative idea, and an unfulfilled promise. In Wages for Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise (Penguin/Seal Press 2025), historian Emily Callaci tells the story of this campaign by exploring the lives and ideas of its key creators – Selma James, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Silvia Federici, Wilmette Brown, and Margaret Prescod - tracing their wildly creative political vision over the past five decades. Drawing on new archival research and extensive interviews, Callaci takes us deep inside the heart of the movement as it reached across Europe, America, Africa and the Caribbean. For these women, the wage was more than a demand for money: it was a starting point for remaking the world as we know it, imagining potential futures under capitalism – and beyond. Then as now, Wages for Housework poses profound questions. What would it be like to live in a society that prioritizes care rather than production? How would this change our relationship with the natural world? And what would women do with their lives if they had more time? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
Rita Segato estuvo en Barcelona de la mano de editorial Icaria para presentar junto María Eugenia R. Palop, el libro: Conversaciones urgentes. Doce pensadoras para un presente crítico, donde la docente e investigadora indaga en las mujeres indispensables de este tiempo: Rita Segato, Silvia Federici, Seyla Benhabib, Rosi Braidotti, Eva Illouz, Maristella Svampa, Alda Facio, Patricia Hill Collins, Alessandra Facchi, Yayo Herrero, Kajsa Ekis Ekman y Morena Herrera ¿Qué tienen en común una filósofa posthumana, una jurista feminista, una teórica de las emociones, una activista contra el extractivismo o una socióloga pionera en el feminismo interseccional y antirracista?¿Qué tienen en común una filósofa posthumana, una jurista feminista, una teórica de las emociones, una activista contra el extractivismo o una socióloga pionera en el feminismo interseccional y antirracista?“No quiero ser ms humana”, dice Rita Segato y la necesidad de repensar el mundo desde la justicia, la vida y los cuidados.Séptima temporada. Seguimos en pie por las tardes. Desde El Prat Radio en directo martes de 15 a 16h en 91.6. Y también en Radio Universidad en Argentina 103.3. Los Domingos de 19 a 20h. Con Javiera Tapia Torra y Flor Coll
Across the globe in the 1970s, a network of feminists distilled their struggles into a single demand: Wages for Housework! Today, it remains a provocative idea, and an unfulfilled promise. In Wages for Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise (Penguin/Seal Press 2025), historian Emily Callaci tells the story of this campaign by exploring the lives and ideas of its key creators – Selma James, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Silvia Federici, Wilmette Brown, and Margaret Prescod - tracing their wildly creative political vision over the past five decades. Drawing on new archival research and extensive interviews, Callaci takes us deep inside the heart of the movement as it reached across Europe, America, Africa and the Caribbean. For these women, the wage was more than a demand for money: it was a starting point for remaking the world as we know it, imagining potential futures under capitalism – and beyond. Then as now, Wages for Housework poses profound questions. What would it be like to live in a society that prioritizes care rather than production? How would this change our relationship with the natural world? And what would women do with their lives if they had more time? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Across the globe in the 1970s, a network of feminists distilled their struggles into a single demand: Wages for Housework! Today, it remains a provocative idea, and an unfulfilled promise. In Wages for Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise (Penguin/Seal Press 2025), historian Emily Callaci tells the story of this campaign by exploring the lives and ideas of its key creators – Selma James, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Silvia Federici, Wilmette Brown, and Margaret Prescod - tracing their wildly creative political vision over the past five decades. Drawing on new archival research and extensive interviews, Callaci takes us deep inside the heart of the movement as it reached across Europe, America, Africa and the Caribbean. For these women, the wage was more than a demand for money: it was a starting point for remaking the world as we know it, imagining potential futures under capitalism – and beyond. Then as now, Wages for Housework poses profound questions. What would it be like to live in a society that prioritizes care rather than production? How would this change our relationship with the natural world? And what would women do with their lives if they had more time? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
Across the globe in the 1970s, a network of feminists distilled their struggles into a single demand: Wages for Housework! Today, it remains a provocative idea, and an unfulfilled promise. In Wages for Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise (Penguin/Seal Press 2025), historian Emily Callaci tells the story of this campaign by exploring the lives and ideas of its key creators – Selma James, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Silvia Federici, Wilmette Brown, and Margaret Prescod - tracing their wildly creative political vision over the past five decades. Drawing on new archival research and extensive interviews, Callaci takes us deep inside the heart of the movement as it reached across Europe, America, Africa and the Caribbean. For these women, the wage was more than a demand for money: it was a starting point for remaking the world as we know it, imagining potential futures under capitalism – and beyond. Then as now, Wages for Housework poses profound questions. What would it be like to live in a society that prioritizes care rather than production? How would this change our relationship with the natural world? And what would women do with their lives if they had more time? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies
Across the globe in the 1970s, a network of feminists distilled their struggles into a single demand: Wages for Housework! Today, it remains a provocative idea, and an unfulfilled promise. In Wages for Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise (Penguin/Seal Press 2025), historian Emily Callaci tells the story of this campaign by exploring the lives and ideas of its key creators – Selma James, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Silvia Federici, Wilmette Brown, and Margaret Prescod - tracing their wildly creative political vision over the past five decades. Drawing on new archival research and extensive interviews, Callaci takes us deep inside the heart of the movement as it reached across Europe, America, Africa and the Caribbean. For these women, the wage was more than a demand for money: it was a starting point for remaking the world as we know it, imagining potential futures under capitalism – and beyond. Then as now, Wages for Housework poses profound questions. What would it be like to live in a society that prioritizes care rather than production? How would this change our relationship with the natural world? And what would women do with their lives if they had more time? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Across the globe in the 1970s, a network of feminists distilled their struggles into a single demand: Wages for Housework! Today, it remains a provocative idea, and an unfulfilled promise. In Wages for Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise (Penguin/Seal Press 2025), historian Emily Callaci tells the story of this campaign by exploring the lives and ideas of its key creators – Selma James, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Silvia Federici, Wilmette Brown, and Margaret Prescod - tracing their wildly creative political vision over the past five decades. Drawing on new archival research and extensive interviews, Callaci takes us deep inside the heart of the movement as it reached across Europe, America, Africa and the Caribbean. For these women, the wage was more than a demand for money: it was a starting point for remaking the world as we know it, imagining potential futures under capitalism – and beyond. Then as now, Wages for Housework poses profound questions. What would it be like to live in a society that prioritizes care rather than production? How would this change our relationship with the natural world? And what would women do with their lives if they had more time? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
„Postava čarodějnice se periodicky zjevuje vždy, když je třeba vzdorovat patriarchátu,“ říká pedagožka a filozofka věnující se teorii práce Ľubica Kobová, která je společně s magii praktikujícím umělcem Alex Sihelsk* hoststvem 8. dílu podcastu Raut. Když Karl Marx zformuloval teorii původní akumulace, která provázela nástup kapitalismu, opomněl zmínit vyvraždění statisíců žen, převzetí kontroly nad jejich těly a upevnění patriarchální moci. Silvia Federici ve své knize Kaliban a čarodějnice přepisuje dějiny úsvitu kapitalismu z feministické perspektivy. Poslechněte si diskuzi věnovanou této knize, ale také současným podobám čarodějnictví a jeho propojení s uměleckou praxí. Kniha vyjde v českém překladu Sylvy Ficové v nakladatelství tranzit v prosinci 2025. Knihu je nyní možné zakoupit v předprodeji na Donio.donio.cz/kaliban-a-trans-girl-tranzit-cz—Epizodou vás provází Ester Grohová a Nela Pietrová. Dramaturgem podcastu je Max Dvořák. Zvukový obal vytvořila Ester Grohová. Zvukový mix a mastering dělal Ondřej Holý. Vizuální identitu pro celou sérii navrhlo studio Day Shift Office, food design pro doprovodné fotografie připravila Barbora Gábová ve spolupráci s Františkou Malaskovou, Annou Kameníkovou a Natálií Košťálovou (Bláznivé bruschetty). Fotografkou série je Viktorie Macánová. Podcast vzniká díky finanční podpoře Ministerstva kultury České republiky. Hlavním partnerem tranzit.cz je nadace ERSTE.IG @tranzit.cz@biennale.matterof.artFB @tranzit.cz@biennale.matterof.artWEB matterof.art/cz/podcast-raut-2025
„Postava čarodějnice se periodicky zjevuje vždy, když je třeba vzdorovat patriarchátu,“ říká pedagožka a filozofka věnující se teorii práce Ľubica Kobová, která je společně s magii praktikujícím umělcem Alex Sihelsk* hoststvem 8. dílu podcastu Raut. Když Karl Marx zformuloval teorii původní akumulace, která provázela nástup kapitalismu, opomněl zmínit vyvraždění statisíců žen, převzetí kontroly nad jejich těly a upevnění patriarchální moci. Silvia Federici ve své knize Kaliban a čarodějnice přepisuje dějiny úsvitu kapitalismu z feministické perspektivy. Poslechněte si diskuzi věnovanou této knize, ale také současným podobám čarodějnictví a jeho propojení s uměleckou praxí. Kniha vyjde v českém překladu Sylvy Ficové v nakladatelství tranzit v prosinci 2025. Knihu je nyní možné zakoupit v předprodeji na Donio. — Epizodou vás provází Ester Grohová a Nela Pietrová. Dramaturgem podcastu je Max Dvořák. Zvukový obal vytvořila Ester Grohová. Zvukový mix a mastering dělal Ondřej Holý. Vizuální identitu pro celou sérii navrhlo studio Day Shift Office, food design pro doprovodné fotografie připravila Barbora Gábová ve spolupráci s Františkou Malaskovou, Annou Kameníkovou a Natálií Košťálovou (Bláznivé bruschetty). Fotografkou série je Viktorie Macánová. Podcast vzniká díky finanční podpoře Ministerstva kultury České republiky. Hlavním partnerem tranzit.cz je nadace ERSTE. IG @tranzit.cz @biennale.matterof.art FB @tranzit.cz @biennale.matterof.art WEB https://matterof.art/cz/podcast-raut-2025
Os nossos instrumentos de trabalho são a humilhação e a angústia, cada vez mais aperfeiçoadas, submetidos como somos a cada dia a rituais de aviltamento empregados para quebrar qualquer vontade de resistência. O cerco tornou-se especialmente cruel a partir do momento em que se concentrou em produzir uma fissura e assaltar-nos moralmente, espalhando em nós esse veneno obsidiante que é o medo, armado de uma ideia todo-poderosa que se limita a compor algo que se assemelha a uma política paranóica. Com a influência cada vez mais forte do sentimento de rivalidade, a maior das nossas vulnerabilidades é anteciparmos a traição dos nossos semelhantes, não podendo contar com a firmeza do carácter, nem mesmo do nosso. Espiamo-nos cheios de suspeita, pois, como alguém notava, ao fim de décadas de anestesia democrática e de gestão dos acontecimentos, de uma série de crises concatenadas, que enfraqueceram em nós uma certa percepção abrupta do real, desvaneceu-se o sentido resistente da guerra em curso. Em nenhum dos momentos das nossas vidas conhecemos o vigor da batalha, mas atravessamos um território imerso na escória de tantos sonhos, sem vislumbrar os confins deste mundo de pó e ilusões, sendo que em nós o tempo é sentido já como agonia, pelo hábito destas vidas de empregados cada vez mais subtraídas pelo aumento do tempo de trabalho e pela perda de autonomia. Estamos dominados por esse abandono da realidade, à medida que a técnica exerce o seu poder planetário, nivelando, homogeneizando, massificando, dessacralizando, uma técnica que nos mergulha em ritmos que estendem a irrealidade. Somos tomados pelas funções automáticas, pelos gestos que nos escapam, que fazem de nós espectadores da nossa própria actividade e funções. No entender de Silvia Federici, o automatismo tem sido “o produto de uma vida de trabalho infinitamente repetitiva, uma vida ‘Sem Saída', como a da jornada laboral das nove às cinco numa fábrica ou num escritório, em que mesmo as férias são mecanizadas e se transformam numa rotina devido ao seu tempo limitado e à sua previsibilidade”. Federici vem demonstrando como um dos principais projectos do capitalismo tem sido a transformação dos nossos corpos em máquinas de trabalho, o que significa que “a necessidade de maximizar a exploração do trabalho vivo, também por meio da criação de formas diferenciadas de trabalho e coerção, tem sido o facto que, acima de qualquer outro, tem moldado os nossos corpos na sociedade capitalista”. O pior é que corremos o risco de sermos dilacerados por uma ordem económica que tem sempre no seu horizonte este regime do pleno emprego, uma sociedade que se organizou em função da centralidade do trabalho, ainda que todos os indicadores apontem para uma tendência de redução drástica do trabalho humano, que em tantos sectores passou a ser levado a cabo com maior eficiência por máquinas. Assim, como antevia Hannah Arendt, em 1958, em A Condição Humana, “o que temos à nossa frente é a perspectiva de uma sociedade de trabalhadores sem trabalho, isto é, privados da única actividade que lhes resta”. Enquanto isso, toda esta dinâmica vai impedindo que se repensem as políticas de distribuição da riqueza, promovendo um alívio desta carga punitiva do trabalho, ainda entendido na sua função redentora, reduzindo o horário laboral e distribuindo de outra forma as funções que ainda estão a cargo dos humanos. Em vez de se implementar uma redução drástica do tempo de trabalho, assegurando a todos os cidadãos os meios e recursos necessários à sua vida, estamos submetidos a uma ordem cada vez mais opressiva, beneficiando a acumulação e radicalizando um princípio de degradação daquele que se vende em troca de um salário. Assim, não só as conquistas tecnológicas e todos os avanços na automatização e na inteligência artificial não revertem no sentido de um benefício comum e de adaptações no plano da organização social e política, como cada vez mais se promove esse salário moral em que aqueles que têm emprego, vivendo exaustos e sem tempo, tomados de uma fadiga até ao limite do esgotamento, ansiedade, stress, incapazes de estabelecer fronteiras entre o trabalho e a vida, neste efeito de despersonalização e de impotência, requerem como consolo e forma de justificar todo o seu ressentimento uma possibilidade de assumir a denúncia e a perseguição àqueles que se encontram em situações de maior vulnerabilidade social e que passam a ser o alvo constante de políticas persecutórias e de ajuste de contas. Neste sentido, os sacrifícios humanos que são feitos nos nossos dias já não são pensados de forma a requerer o favor dos deuses, para apaziguar as suas fúrias, já não se entende que o sangue humano possa ser esse veículo de força vital, um tributo à altura do poder divino, mas tornou-se uma forma de saciar a própria necessidade de cada homem lidar com a sua devastação íntima lançando-a sobre outros. Assim, ao analisar as consequências da automatização, Bernard Stiegler vê uma sucessiva desintegração de todos os aspectos da vida social, sendo que a sociedade automática significa também a automatização dos espíritos e a prossecução de um modelo de irracionalidade vingativa. Deste modo, o que nos deve preocupar não é apenas o progressivo desaparecimento dos empregos, mas como a miséria crescente se irá saldar num clima de conflito difuso, em que não será possível já definir propriamente lados, mas irá gerar-se um quadro de predação e agressão constantes. Neste episódio, e para nos ajudar a reconhecer esse território cheio de paradoxos que é o mundo do trabalho, numa altura em que se preparam uma série de alterações à lei laboral no sentido de fragilizar ainda mais aquela que é já a parte fraca da equação, contámos com a orientação de José Soeiro, sociólogo e antigo deputado pelo Bloco de Esquerda, que se tem especializado na área do trabalho, precariedade e acção colectiva.
Aos versos que tantos bolçam por aí, elevando-os a mantras e slogans de campanha, repetidos numa aleivosia alegre e acrítica, até deles só restar esse tinir irritante, essa sanha das frases motivacionais na sua correspondência mais cretina com a existência, perante esses pedaços mastigados, nauseantes, como esse que nos diz que “o poema ensina a cair”, temos vontade de responder: mas e se deixa de haver chão? E se ninguém tem sequer a oportunidade de se estatelar propriamente, e, por isso, também já ninguém se levanta? E se a queda se tornou um estado constante, gerando uma resposta nervosa, uma coreografia patética, uma indiferença em que tudo vale o mesmo? Com a morte de toda a mediação, para quê insistir em categorias como a de poesia? Face a um enredo que tudo dilui, em que se rejeita todo o crivo crítico pelo risco de que este possa melindrar uns quantos, deixar alguns desamparados, desfazendo-lhes as ilusões, muitos preferem esta meia-cultura com as suas suposições ociosas, a sua função piedosa, o seu constante logro. A todo o momento, cada ser suplica aos demais que não ofendam a sua precária composição espasmódica, esse carrinho de supermercado onde recolhe quinquilharia, restos, tudo o que sirva à fancaria literária, acatando esse impulso de uma mentira alargada às dimensões de uma cultura inteira. E, no fim, o que soma isto? Não será a tal cultura que, no entender Adorno, serve apenas para dar “a ilusão de uma sociedade que seria digna do homem, mas que não existe; ela dissimula as condições materiais na base das quais se edifica toda a vida dos homens; e com as consolações e os apaziguamentos que dispensa, serve para conservar a nossa existência nas más condições económicas que a determinam”. Prisioneiros de um inescapável teatro de imposturas, vivemos subjugados a esse estado de tutela (Kant), que se reflecte na incapacidade de cada um se servir do seu próprio discernimento sem a condução de um outro. Seres que abdicam da sua volição, incapazes de arriscar um juízo, de fazer sair o pensamento em si mesmo, esquivando-se a esse estado que o precede e oprime. A cultura não reflecte valores, é incapaz de manifestar um desejo autêntico, pulsões desaustinadas, de nutrir novas e ousadas linguagens simbólicas, aquela impulsividade e tensão do imaginário, elaborando constelações de fantasia. Pelo contrário, tornou-se ela mesma uma forma de bloqueio, um modo de coerção, por isso ninguém exige dos poetas essa capacidade de assaltar o leitor pela obscenidade, de o sobressaltar pelo choque do imprevisto e do irrepresentável, de o precipitar na ambivalência da repulsa e do gozo. Todos pedem simplesmente que continuem a dar-lhes corda, a produzir ritmos e imagens de acordo com as prescrições gerais. Tudo se presume, à medida que uma forma de narração superficial toma conta de todos os temas e assuntos, vulgarizando as experiências, e, assim, se gera uma cumplicidade desoladora, enquanto os discursos de ordem psicologizante adquirem uma tonalidade cada vez mais ligeira, adequando-se aos padrões de informação e programação computacional, alisando o terreno, uma vez que o desenvolvimento capitalista da inteligência artificial requer toda uma disponibilidade para adquirir novas habilitações, conduzindo também a um remodelamento das subjectividades. A tudo isto ajuda a compreensão dos nossos corpos essencialmente como discursivos, dessas personalidades e identidades performativas, adaptadas um regime de transferência de planos, a troca da realidade pelo simulacro, ignorando como as funções essenciais da crítica estão ligadas às capacidades, necessidades e desejos do corpo humano, esses limites mas também impulsos, essa força radical do que remonta sempre a uma raiz, sendo tudo isso o efeito de um longo processo de co-evolução com o nosso ambiente natural. Ora, o que se tornou imperativo é cortar essa ligação, produzir que, arrancado pela raiz, e transplantado, seja infinitamente adaptável, manipulável, dócil. Como nos lembra Silvia Federici, a verdade é que “mesmo sem a edição genética, já somos mutantes, capazes, por exemplo, de prosseguir com o nosso quotidiano mesmo sabendo que acontecimentos catastróficos ocorrem à nossa volta, incluindo a destruição do nosso ambiente ecológico e a morte lenta das muitas pessoas que hoje vivem nas nossas ruas, por quem passamos diariamente sem pensarmos muito nem demonstrarmos algum tipo de emoção”. “O que nos ameaça não é apenas que as máquinas estejam a assumir o controlo, mas também que nos estejamos a tornar como elas.” Neste episódio, de forma a abordarmos algumas das transformações que se têm operado numa dinâmica em que se procura “optimizar” os corpos e os ciclos biológicos no sentido de retirar destes toda a força de trabalho e os efeitos que aumentam a acumulação capitalista, contámos com a orientação de Patrícia Câmara, psicoterapeuta e psicanalista, alguém que tem aprofundado o impacto em termos de saúde mental de todo o contexto coercivo a que estamos sujeitos não apenas no mundo laboral como na engenharia que tem levado a uma precarização das nossas vidas, deixando-nos tenrinhos e à mercê das lógicas repressivas dos novos aparelhos totalitários.
In Wages for Housework (Allen Lane) Emily Callaci, professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells the story of a movement that shot to prominence in the 1970s, distilling a century of feminist struggle and critique into a single bold slogan. Focusing on five women who helped forge and fight for it – Selma James, Mariarosa Della Costa, Silvia Federici, Wilmette Brown and Margaret Prescod – Callaci takes us deep inside the heart of the movement as it reached across Europe, America, Africa and the Caribbean. For these women, the wage was more than a demand for money: it was a starting point for remaking the world as we know it. Callaci was in conversation with Helen Charman, author of Mother State: A Political History of Motherhood. More from the Bookshop: Discover our author of the month, book of the week and more: https://lrb.me/bkshppod From the LRB: Subscribe to the LRB: https://lrb.me/pod Close Readings podcast: https://lrb.me/crlrbpod LRB Audiobooks: https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: https://lrb.me/storelrbpod Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
This is a preview — for the full episode, subscribe: https://newmodels.io https://patreon.com/newmodels https://newmodels.substack.com Theorists Marek Poliks & Roberto Alonso Trillo (co-hosts of the Dis.integrator pod) come on New Models to talk us through their highly anticipated new book, Exocapitalism: Economies with Absolutely No Limits, which is out this month from Becoming Press. Through their radical rethinking of capitalism — its indifference to human scale, its endless appetite for complexity, its rapacious transformation of everything into betting surfaces — Marek and Roberto relieve us of old Leftist frameworks, supplying a decoder ring for the growing incoherence of everyday contemporary life. Exocapitalism: Economies With Absolutely No Limits (Becoming Press, 2025) https://becoming.press/exocapitalism-economies-with-absolutely-no-limits-(2025)-by-marek-poliks-roberto-alonso-trillo Authors: Marek Poliks & Roberto Alonso Trillo https://www.marekpoliks.com/ https://robertoalonsotrillo.com/ https://open.spotify.com/show/4AcGAXHIdRu1toaZYnK3kB Foreward: Charles Mudede Afterward: Alex Quicho Art & Design: Palais Sinclaire Illustrations: Avocado Ibuprofen Names cited: AMD, Amazon/AWS, Amanda Askell, American Express, BlackRock, Bogna Konior, Charles Mudede, ChatGPT, Citadel, Cortical Labs, Daniel Felstead & Jenn Leung, David Graeber, DraftKings, Dunkin', SNAP (US food stamps), Elena Esposito, Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, GUS (Global University Systems), Helen Hester & Nick Srnicek, Hilton Worldwide, Jürgen Habermas, K Allado-McDowell, Karl Marx, Kraft Singles, Luciana Parisi, Luigi Mangione, Nick Land, Nvidia, OpenAI, Ray Brassier, René Benko, Robinhood, Salesforce, Silvia Federici, SpaceX, Starbucks, TSMC
Julia Myara (PUC-Rio) compartilha sua trajetória filosófica, que começa com Platão e chega a Górgias, cujo texto O Elogio de Helena a leva a refletir sobre gênero na mitologia. A partir daí, ela se aproxima de figuras como Helena, Medeia e Circe. Em seus cursos livres, conecta filosofia antiga a autoras contemporâneas como Margaret Atwood, Elena Ferrante e Silvia Federici. No segundo bloco, apresenta Circe, sua genealogia e sua relação com o phármakon. Circe é vista como uma divindade transformadora, que revela a essência dos seres. Myara interpreta Circe como símbolo da superação do narcisismo e da preservação da identidade. Mesmo poderosa, Circe permite que Odisseu parta, reconhecendo a alteridade. Ao final, Julia lê um trecho da Odisseia em que há a representação de Circe.
Capitalism is typically treated as a force for relentless commodification. Yet it consistently fails to place value on vital aspects of the nonhuman world, whether carbon emissions or entire ecosystems. In Free Gifts, Alyssa Battistoni explores capitalism's persistent failure to value nature, arguing that the key question is not the moral issue of why some kinds of nature shouldn't be commodified, but the economic puzzle of why they haven't been. To understand contemporary ecological problems from biodiversity collapse to climate change, she contends, we have to understand how some things come to have value under capitalism—and how others do not. To help us do so, Battistoni recovers and reinterprets the idea of the free gift of nature used by classical economic thinkers to describe what we gratuitously obtain from the natural world, and builds on Karl Marx's critique of political economy to show how capitalism fundamentally treats nature as free for the taking. This novel theory of capitalism's relationship to nature not only helps us understand contemporary ecological breakdown, but also casts capitalism's own core dynamics in a new light.Battistoni addresses four different instances of the free gift in political economic thought, each in a specific domain: natural agents in industry, pollution in the environment, reproductive labor in the household, and natural capital in the biosphere. In so doing, she offers new readings of major twentieth-century thinkers, including Friedrich Hayek, Simone de Beauvoir, Garrett Hardin, Silvia Federici, and Ronald Coase. Ultimately, she offers a novel account of freedom for our ecologically troubled present, developing a materialist existentialism to argue that capitalism limits our ability to be responsible for our relationships to the natural world, and imagining how we might live freely while valuing nature's gifts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics
Capitalism is typically treated as a force for relentless commodification. Yet it consistently fails to place value on vital aspects of the nonhuman world, whether carbon emissions or entire ecosystems. In Free Gifts, Alyssa Battistoni explores capitalism's persistent failure to value nature, arguing that the key question is not the moral issue of why some kinds of nature shouldn't be commodified, but the economic puzzle of why they haven't been. To understand contemporary ecological problems from biodiversity collapse to climate change, she contends, we have to understand how some things come to have value under capitalism—and how others do not. To help us do so, Battistoni recovers and reinterprets the idea of the free gift of nature used by classical economic thinkers to describe what we gratuitously obtain from the natural world, and builds on Karl Marx's critique of political economy to show how capitalism fundamentally treats nature as free for the taking. This novel theory of capitalism's relationship to nature not only helps us understand contemporary ecological breakdown, but also casts capitalism's own core dynamics in a new light.Battistoni addresses four different instances of the free gift in political economic thought, each in a specific domain: natural agents in industry, pollution in the environment, reproductive labor in the household, and natural capital in the biosphere. In so doing, she offers new readings of major twentieth-century thinkers, including Friedrich Hayek, Simone de Beauvoir, Garrett Hardin, Silvia Federici, and Ronald Coase. Ultimately, she offers a novel account of freedom for our ecologically troubled present, developing a materialist existentialism to argue that capitalism limits our ability to be responsible for our relationships to the natural world, and imagining how we might live freely while valuing nature's gifts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Capitalism is typically treated as a force for relentless commodification. Yet it consistently fails to place value on vital aspects of the nonhuman world, whether carbon emissions or entire ecosystems. In Free Gifts, Alyssa Battistoni explores capitalism's persistent failure to value nature, arguing that the key question is not the moral issue of why some kinds of nature shouldn't be commodified, but the economic puzzle of why they haven't been. To understand contemporary ecological problems from biodiversity collapse to climate change, she contends, we have to understand how some things come to have value under capitalism—and how others do not. To help us do so, Battistoni recovers and reinterprets the idea of the free gift of nature used by classical economic thinkers to describe what we gratuitously obtain from the natural world, and builds on Karl Marx's critique of political economy to show how capitalism fundamentally treats nature as free for the taking. This novel theory of capitalism's relationship to nature not only helps us understand contemporary ecological breakdown, but also casts capitalism's own core dynamics in a new light.Battistoni addresses four different instances of the free gift in political economic thought, each in a specific domain: natural agents in industry, pollution in the environment, reproductive labor in the household, and natural capital in the biosphere. In so doing, she offers new readings of major twentieth-century thinkers, including Friedrich Hayek, Simone de Beauvoir, Garrett Hardin, Silvia Federici, and Ronald Coase. Ultimately, she offers a novel account of freedom for our ecologically troubled present, developing a materialist existentialism to argue that capitalism limits our ability to be responsible for our relationships to the natural world, and imagining how we might live freely while valuing nature's gifts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
Capitalism is typically treated as a force for relentless commodification. Yet it consistently fails to place value on vital aspects of the nonhuman world, whether carbon emissions or entire ecosystems. In Free Gifts, Alyssa Battistoni explores capitalism's persistent failure to value nature, arguing that the key question is not the moral issue of why some kinds of nature shouldn't be commodified, but the economic puzzle of why they haven't been. To understand contemporary ecological problems from biodiversity collapse to climate change, she contends, we have to understand how some things come to have value under capitalism—and how others do not. To help us do so, Battistoni recovers and reinterprets the idea of the free gift of nature used by classical economic thinkers to describe what we gratuitously obtain from the natural world, and builds on Karl Marx's critique of political economy to show how capitalism fundamentally treats nature as free for the taking. This novel theory of capitalism's relationship to nature not only helps us understand contemporary ecological breakdown, but also casts capitalism's own core dynamics in a new light.Battistoni addresses four different instances of the free gift in political economic thought, each in a specific domain: natural agents in industry, pollution in the environment, reproductive labor in the household, and natural capital in the biosphere. In so doing, she offers new readings of major twentieth-century thinkers, including Friedrich Hayek, Simone de Beauvoir, Garrett Hardin, Silvia Federici, and Ronald Coase. Ultimately, she offers a novel account of freedom for our ecologically troubled present, developing a materialist existentialism to argue that capitalism limits our ability to be responsible for our relationships to the natural world, and imagining how we might live freely while valuing nature's gifts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies
Capitalism is typically treated as a force for relentless commodification. Yet it consistently fails to place value on vital aspects of the nonhuman world, whether carbon emissions or entire ecosystems. In Free Gifts, Alyssa Battistoni explores capitalism's persistent failure to value nature, arguing that the key question is not the moral issue of why some kinds of nature shouldn't be commodified, but the economic puzzle of why they haven't been. To understand contemporary ecological problems from biodiversity collapse to climate change, she contends, we have to understand how some things come to have value under capitalism—and how others do not. To help us do so, Battistoni recovers and reinterprets the idea of the free gift of nature used by classical economic thinkers to describe what we gratuitously obtain from the natural world, and builds on Karl Marx's critique of political economy to show how capitalism fundamentally treats nature as free for the taking. This novel theory of capitalism's relationship to nature not only helps us understand contemporary ecological breakdown, but also casts capitalism's own core dynamics in a new light.Battistoni addresses four different instances of the free gift in political economic thought, each in a specific domain: natural agents in industry, pollution in the environment, reproductive labor in the household, and natural capital in the biosphere. In so doing, she offers new readings of major twentieth-century thinkers, including Friedrich Hayek, Simone de Beauvoir, Garrett Hardin, Silvia Federici, and Ronald Coase. Ultimately, she offers a novel account of freedom for our ecologically troubled present, developing a materialist existentialism to argue that capitalism limits our ability to be responsible for our relationships to the natural world, and imagining how we might live freely while valuing nature's gifts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics
Capitalism is typically treated as a force for relentless commodification. Yet it consistently fails to place value on vital aspects of the nonhuman world, whether carbon emissions or entire ecosystems. In Free Gifts, Alyssa Battistoni explores capitalism's persistent failure to value nature, arguing that the key question is not the moral issue of why some kinds of nature shouldn't be commodified, but the economic puzzle of why they haven't been. To understand contemporary ecological problems from biodiversity collapse to climate change, she contends, we have to understand how some things come to have value under capitalism—and how others do not. To help us do so, Battistoni recovers and reinterprets the idea of the free gift of nature used by classical economic thinkers to describe what we gratuitously obtain from the natural world, and builds on Karl Marx's critique of political economy to show how capitalism fundamentally treats nature as free for the taking. This novel theory of capitalism's relationship to nature not only helps us understand contemporary ecological breakdown, but also casts capitalism's own core dynamics in a new light.Battistoni addresses four different instances of the free gift in political economic thought, each in a specific domain: natural agents in industry, pollution in the environment, reproductive labor in the household, and natural capital in the biosphere. In so doing, she offers new readings of major twentieth-century thinkers, including Friedrich Hayek, Simone de Beauvoir, Garrett Hardin, Silvia Federici, and Ronald Coase. Ultimately, she offers a novel account of freedom for our ecologically troubled present, developing a materialist existentialism to argue that capitalism limits our ability to be responsible for our relationships to the natural world, and imagining how we might live freely while valuing nature's gifts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What is the state of feminism today? What are the movement's goals, aims, and demands? Is it even right to speak of a feminist “movement” at all?This one gets pretty feisty as Helen, Glen, and Matt debate the different strains of feminist thought of the past 50 years. We talk about TERFs, obviously, but also try to point modern feminism in a more socialist, materialist direction. We discuss Silvia Federici and the Wages For Housework movement, and Glen and Helen have a fight. Also, we forgot to mention on the pod, but thank you to everyone who donated to our GoFundMe for podcast equipment. The whole process was incredibly embarrassing for us but we were genuinely humbled by your generosity. You can all look forward to (hopefully) better audio quality in the near future. Love you lots xxSupport the show
Women's bodies have always been the cornerstone of reproduction. So has Earth's. It's why the enclosure and appropriation of both is fundamental to the accumulation of the capitalist class.On this extraordinary episode, I interview Marxist-feminist scholar, Silvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch, a phenomenal book which articulates how capitalism did not naturally evolve from feudalism, but necessitated the violent displacement of women's power in their communities and control over their own reproduction. We discuss this in the context of women's rights being violated all around the world today as we enter a period of resource scarcity, and why it is therefore imperative that the Western feminist movement recover this analysis to create an effective resistance movement. Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe
The influence and impact of capitalism across the globe on violence against women, especially with witch hunts, cannot be understated. Listen as Aaron and Damien discuss the book Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women by Silvia Federici (and published by PM Press), which outlines and analyzes the root causes and impact of interpersonal and institutional violence against witches and women across the globe throughout history and into our present day, as well as the necessary work to resist and combat this violence, and what we learn and take away from this book in our continued learning and unlearning work and fight for collective liberation. Follow us on social media and visit our website! Patreon, Website, Instagram, Bluesky, TikTok, Threads, Facebook, YouTube, Leave us a voice message, Merch store
Yesterday, the self-styled San Francisco “progressive” Joan Williams was on the show arguing that Democrats need to relearn the language of the American working class. But, as some of you have noted, Williams seems oblivious to the fact that politics is about more than simply aping other people's language. What you say matters, and the language of American working class, like all industrial working classes, is rooted in a critique of capitalism. She should probably read the New Yorker staff writer John Cassidy's excellent new book, Capitalism and its Critics, which traces capitalism's evolution and criticism from the East India Company through modern times. He defines capitalism as production for profit by privately-owned companies in markets, encompassing various forms from Chinese state capitalism to hyper-globalization. The book examines capitalism's most articulate critics including the Luddites, Marx, Engels, Thomas Carlisle, Adam Smith, Rosa Luxemburg, Keynes & Hayek, and contemporary figures like Sylvia Federici and Thomas Piketty. Cassidy explores how major economists were often critics of their era's dominant capitalist model, and untangles capitalism's complicated relationship with colonialism, slavery and AI which he regards as a potentially unprecedented economic disruption. This should be essential listening for all Democrats seeking to reinvent a post Biden-Harris party and message. 5 key takeaways* Capitalism has many forms - From Chinese state capitalism to Keynesian managed capitalism to hyper-globalization, all fitting the basic definition of production for profit by privately-owned companies in markets.* Great economists are typically critics - Smith criticized mercantile capitalism, Keynes critiqued laissez-faire capitalism, and Hayek/Friedman opposed managed capitalism. Each generation's leading economists challenge their era's dominant model.* Modern corporate structure has deep roots - The East India Company was essentially a modern multinational corporation with headquarters, board of directors, stockholders, and even a private army - showing capitalism's organizational continuity across centuries.* Capitalism is intertwined with colonialism and slavery - Industrial capitalism was built on pre-existing colonial and slave systems, particularly through the cotton industry and plantation economies.* AI represents a potentially unprecedented disruption - Unlike previous technological waves, AI may substitute rather than complement human labor on a massive scale, potentially creating political backlash exceeding even the "China shock" that contributed to Trump's rise.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Full TranscriptAndrew Keen: Hello, everybody. A couple of days ago, we did a show with Joan Williams. She has a new book out, "Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back." A book about language, about how to talk to the American working class. She also had a piece in Jacobin Magazine, an anti-capitalist magazine, about how the left needs to speak to what she calls average American values. We talked, of course, about Bernie Sanders and AOC and their language of fighting oligarchy, and the New York Times followed that up with "The Enduring Power of Anti-Capitalism in American Politics."But of course, that brings the question: what exactly is capitalism? I did a little bit of research. We can find definitions of capitalism from AI, from Wikipedia, even from online dictionaries, but I thought we might do a little better than relying on Wikipedia and come to a man who's given capitalism and its critics a great deal of thought. John Cassidy is well known as a staff writer at The New Yorker. He's the author of a wonderful book, the best book, actually, on the dot-com insanity. And his new book, "Capitalism and its Critics," is out this week. John, congratulations on the book.So I've got to be a bit of a schoolmaster with you, John, and get some definitions first. What exactly is capitalism before we get to criticism of it?John Cassidy: Yeah, I mean, it's a very good question, Andrew. Obviously, through the decades, even the centuries, there have been many different definitions of the term capitalism and there are different types of capitalism. To not be sort of too ideological about it, the working definition I use is basically production for profit—that could be production of goods or mostly in the new and, you know, in today's economy, production of services—for profit by companies which are privately owned in markets. That's a very sort of all-encompassing definition.Within that, you can have all sorts of different types of capitalism. You can have Chinese state capitalism, you can have the old mercantilism, which industrial capitalism came after, which Trump seems to be trying to resurrect. You can have Keynesian managed capitalism that we had for 30 or 40 years after the Second World War, which I grew up in in the UK. Or you can have sort of hyper-globalization, hyper-capitalism that we've tried for the last 30 years. There are all those different varieties of capitalism consistent with a basic definition, I think.Andrew Keen: That keeps you busy, John. I know you started this project, which is a big book and it's a wonderful book. I read it. I don't always read all the books I have on the show, but I read from cover to cover full of remarkable stories of the critics of capitalism. You note in the beginning that you began this in 2016 with the beginnings of Trump. What was it about the 2016 election that triggered a book about capitalism and its critics?John Cassidy: Well, I was reporting on it at the time for The New Yorker and it struck me—I covered, I basically covered the economy in various forms for various publications since the late 80s, early 90s. In fact, one of my first big stories was the stock market crash of '87. So yes, I am that old. But it seemed to me in 2016 when you had Bernie Sanders running from the left and Trump running from the right, but both in some way offering very sort of similar critiques of capitalism. People forget that Trump in 2016 actually was running from the left of the Republican Party. He was attacking big business. He was attacking Wall Street. He doesn't do that these days very much, but at the time he was very much posing as the sort of outsider here to protect the interests of the average working man.And it seemed to me that when you had this sort of pincer movement against the then ruling model, this wasn't just a one-off. It seemed to me it was a sort of an emerging crisis of legitimacy for the system. And I thought there could be a good book written about how we got to here. And originally I thought it would be a relatively short book just based on the last sort of 20 or 30 years since the collapse of the Cold War and the sort of triumphalism of the early 90s.But as I got into it more and more, I realized that so many of the issues which had been raised, things like globalization, rising inequality, monopoly power, exploitation, even pollution and climate change, these issues go back to the very start of the capitalist system or the industrial capitalist system back in sort of late 18th century, early 19th century Britain. So I thought, in the end, I thought, you know what, let's just do the whole thing soup to nuts through the eyes of the critics.There have obviously been many, many histories of capitalism written. I thought that an original way to do it, or hopefully original, would be to do a sort of a narrative through the lives and the critiques of the critics of various stages. So that's, I hope, what sets it apart from other books on the subject, and also provides a sort of narrative frame because, you know, I am a New Yorker writer, I realize if you want people to read things, you've got to make it readable. Easiest way to make things readable is to center them around people. People love reading about other people. So that's sort of the narrative frame. I start off with a whistleblower from the East India Company back in the—Andrew Keen: Yeah, I want to come to that. But before, John, my sense is that to simplify what you're saying, this is a labor of love. You're originally from Leeds, the heart of Yorkshire, the center of the very industrial revolution, the first industrial revolution where, in your historical analysis, capitalism was born. Is it a labor of love? What's your family relationship with capitalism? How long was the family in Leeds?John Cassidy: Right, I mean that's a very good question. It is a labor of love in a way, but it's not—our family doesn't go—I'm from an Irish family, family of Irish immigrants who moved to England in the 1940s and 1950s. So my father actually did start working in a big mill, the Kirkstall Forge in Leeds, which is a big steel mill, and he left after seeing one of his co-workers have his arms chopped off in one of the machinery, so he decided it wasn't for him and he spent his life working in the construction industry, which was dominated by immigrants as it is here now.So I don't have a—it's not like I go back to sort of the start of the industrial revolution, but I did grow up in the middle of Leeds, very working class, very industrial neighborhood. And what a sort of irony is, I'll point out, I used to, when I was a kid, I used to play golf on a municipal golf course called Gotts Park in Leeds, which—you know, most golf courses in America are sort of in the affluent suburbs, country clubs. This was right in the middle of Armley in Leeds, which is where the Victorian jail is and a very rough neighborhood. There's a small bit of land which they built a golf course on. It turns out it was named after one of the very first industrialists, Benjamin Gott, who was a wool and textile industrialist, and who played a part in the Luddite movement, which I mention.So it turns out, I was there when I was 11 or 12, just learning how to play golf on this scrappy golf course. And here I am, 50 years later, writing about Benjamin Gott at the start of the Industrial Revolution. So yeah, no, sure. I think it speaks to me in a way that perhaps it wouldn't to somebody else from a different background.Andrew Keen: We did a show with William Dalrymple, actually, a couple of years ago. He's been on actually since, the Anglo or Scottish Indian historian. His book on the East India Company, "The Anarchy," is a classic. You begin in some ways your history of capitalism with the East India Company. What was it about the East India Company, John, that makes it different from other for-profit organizations in economic, Western economic history?John Cassidy: I mean, I read that. It's a great book, by the way. That was actually quoted in my chapter on these. Yeah, I remember. I mean, the reason I focused on it was for two reasons. Number one, I was looking for a start, a narrative start to the book. And it seemed to me, you know, the obvious place to start is with the start of the industrial revolution. If you look at economics history textbooks, that's where they always start with Arkwright and all the inventors, you know, who were the sort of techno-entrepreneurs of their time, the sort of British Silicon Valley, if you could think of it as, in Lancashire and Derbyshire in the late 18th century.So I knew I had to sort of start there in some way, but I thought that's a bit pat. Is there another way into it? And it turns out that in 1772 in England, there was a huge bailout of the East India Company, very much like the sort of 2008, 2009 bailout of Wall Street. The company got into trouble. So I thought, you know, maybe there's something there. And I eventually found this guy, William Bolts, who worked for the East India Company, turned into a whistleblower after he was fired for finagling in India like lots of the people who worked for the company did.So that gave me two things. Number one, it gave me—you know, I'm a writer, so it gave me something to focus on a narrative. His personal history is very interesting. But number two, it gave me a sort of foundation because industrial capitalism didn't come from nowhere. You know, it was built on top of a pre-existing form of capitalism, which we now call mercantile capitalism, which was very protectionist, which speaks to us now. But also it had these big monopolistic multinational companies.The East India Company, in some ways, was a very modern corporation. It had a headquarters in Leadenhall Street in the city of London. It had a board of directors, it had stockholders, the company sent out very detailed instructions to the people in the field in India and Indonesia and Malaysia who were traders who bought things from the locals there, brought them back to England on their company ships. They had a company army even to enforce—to protect their operations there. It was an incredible multinational corporation.So that was also, I think, fascinating because it showed that even in the pre-existing system, you know, big corporations existed, there were monopolies, they had royal monopolies given—first the East India Company got one from Queen Elizabeth. But in some ways, they were very similar to modern monopolistic corporations. And they had some of the problems we've seen with modern monopolistic corporations, the way they acted. And Bolts was the sort of first corporate whistleblower, I thought. Yeah, that was a way of sort of getting into the story, I think. Hopefully, you know, it's just a good read, I think.William Bolts's story because he was—he came from nowhere, he was Dutch, he wasn't even English and he joined the company as a sort of impoverished young man, went to India like a lot of English minor aristocrats did to sort of make your fortune. The way the company worked, you had to sort of work on company time and make as much money as you could for the company, but then in your spare time you're allowed to trade for yourself. So a lot of the—without getting into too much detail, but you know, English aristocracy was based on—you know, the eldest child inherits everything, so if you were the younger brother of the Duke of Norfolk, you actually didn't inherit anything. So all of these minor aristocrats, so major aristocrats, but who weren't first born, joined the East India Company, went out to India and made a fortune, and then came back and built huge houses. Lots of the great manor houses in southern England were built by people from the East India Company and they were known as Nabobs, which is an Indian term. So they were the sort of, you know, billionaires of their time, and it was based on—as I say, it wasn't based on industrial capitalism, it was based on mercantile capitalism.Andrew Keen: Yeah, the beginning of the book, which focuses on Bolts and the East India Company, brings to mind for me two things. Firstly, the intimacy of modern capitalism, modern industrial capitalism with colonialism and of course slavery—lots of books have been written on that. Touch on this and also the relationship between the birth of capitalism and the birth of liberalism or democracy. John Stuart Mill, of course, the father in many ways of Western democracy. His day job, ironically enough, or perhaps not ironically, was at the East India Company. So how do those two things connect, or is it just coincidental?John Cassidy: Well, I don't think it is entirely coincidental, I mean, J.S. Mill—his father, James Mill, was also a well-known philosopher in the sort of, obviously, in the earlier generation, earlier than him. And he actually wrote the official history of the East India Company. And I think they gave his son, the sort of brilliant protégé, J.S. Mill, a job as largely as a sort of sinecure, I think. But he did go in and work there in the offices three or four days a week.But I think it does show how sort of integral—the sort of—as you say, the inheritor and the servant in Britain, particularly, of colonial capitalism was. So the East India Company was, you know, it was in decline by that stage in the middle of the 19th century, but it didn't actually give up its monopoly. It wasn't forced to give up its monopoly on the Indian trade until 1857, after, you know, some notorious massacres and there was a sort of public outcry.So yeah, no, that's—it's very interesting that the British—it's sort of unique to Britain in a way, but it's interesting that industrial capitalism arose alongside this pre-existing capitalist structure and somebody like Mill is a sort of paradoxical figure because actually he was quite critical of aspects of industrial capitalism and supported sort of taxes on the rich, even though he's known as the great, you know, one of the great apostles of the free market and free market liberalism. And his day job, as you say, he was working for the East India Company.Andrew Keen: What about the relationship between the birth of industrial capitalism, colonialism and slavery? Those are big questions and I know you deal with them in some—John Cassidy: I think you can't just write an economic history of capitalism now just starting with the cotton industry and say, you know, it was all about—it was all about just technical progress and gadgets, etc. It was built on a sort of pre-existing system which was colonial and, you know, the slave trade was a central element of that. Now, as you say, there have been lots and lots of books written about it, the whole 1619 project got an incredible amount of attention a few years ago. So I didn't really want to rehash all that, but I did want to acknowledge the sort of role of slavery, especially in the rise of the cotton industry because of course, a lot of the raw cotton was grown in the plantations in the American South.So the way I actually ended up doing that was by writing a chapter about Eric Williams, a Trinidadian writer who ended up as the Prime Minister of Trinidad when it became independent in the 1960s. But when he was younger, he wrote a book which is now regarded as a classic. He went to Oxford to do a PhD, won a scholarship. He was very smart. I won a sort of Oxford scholarship myself but 50 years before that, he came across the Atlantic and did an undergraduate degree in history and then did a PhD there and his PhD thesis was on slavery and capitalism.And at the time, in the 1930s, the link really wasn't acknowledged. You could read any sort of standard economic history written by British historians, and they completely ignored that. He made the argument that, you know, slavery was integral to the rise of capitalism and he basically started an argument which has been raging ever since the 1930s and, you know, if you want to study economic history now you have to sort of—you know, have to have to address that. And the way I thought, even though the—it's called the Williams thesis is very famous. I don't think many people knew much about where it came from. So I thought I'd do a chapter on—Andrew Keen: Yeah, that chapter is excellent. You mentioned earlier the Luddites, you're from Yorkshire where Luddism in some ways was born. One of the early chapters is on the Luddites. We did a show with Brian Merchant, his book, "Blood in the Machine," has done very well, I'm sure you're familiar with it. I always understood the Luddites as being against industrialization, against the machine, as opposed to being against capitalism. But did those two things get muddled together in the history of the Luddites?John Cassidy: I think they did. I mean, you know, Luddites, when we grew up, I mean you're English too, you know to be called a Luddite was a term of abuse, right? You know, you were sort of antediluvian, anti-technology, you're stupid. It was only, I think, with the sort of computer revolution, the tech revolution of the last 30, 40 years and the sort of disruptions it's caused, that people have started to look back at the Luddites and say, perhaps they had a point.For them, they were basically pre-industrial capitalism artisans. They worked for profit-making concerns, small workshops. Some of them worked for themselves, so they were sort of sole proprietor capitalists. Or they worked in small venues, but the rise of industrial capitalism, factory capitalism or whatever, basically took away their livelihoods progressively. So they associated capitalism with new technology. In their minds it was the same. But their argument wasn't really a technological one or even an economic one, it was more a moral one. They basically made the moral argument that capitalists shouldn't have the right to just take away their livelihoods with no sort of recompense for them.At the time they didn't have any parliamentary representation. You know, they weren't revolutionaries. The first thing they did was create petitions to try and get parliament to step in, sort of introduce some regulation here. They got turned down repeatedly by the sort of—even though it was a very aristocratic parliament, places like Manchester and Leeds didn't have any representation at all. So it was only after that that they sort of turned violent and started, you know, smashing machines and machines, I think, were sort of symbols of the system, which they saw as morally unjust.And I think that's sort of what—obviously, there's, you know, a lot of technological disruption now, so we can, especially as it starts to come for the educated cognitive class, we can sort of sympathize with them more. But I think the sort of moral critique that there's this, you know, underneath the sort of great creativity and economic growth that capitalism produces, there is also a lot of destruction and a lot of victims. And I think that message, you know, is becoming a lot more—that's why I think why they've been rediscovered in the last five or ten years and I'm one of the people I guess contributing to that rediscovery.Andrew Keen: There's obviously many critiques of capitalism politically. I want to come to Marx in a second, but your chapter, I thought, on Thomas Carlyle and this nostalgic conservatism was very important and there are other conservatives as well. John, do you think that—and you mentioned Trump earlier, who is essentially a nostalgist for a—I don't know, some sort of bizarre pre-capitalist age in America. Is there something particularly powerful about the anti-capitalism of romantics like Carlyle, 19th century Englishman, there were many others of course.John Cassidy: Well, I think so. I mean, I think what is—conservatism, when we were young anyway, was associated with Thatcherism and Reaganism, which, you know, lionized the free market and free market capitalism and was a reaction against the pre-existing form of capitalism, Keynesian capitalism of the sort of 40s to the 80s. But I think what got lost in that era was the fact that there have always been—you've got Hayek up there, obviously—Andrew Keen: And then Keynes and Hayek, the two—John Cassidy: Right, it goes to the end of that. They had a great debate in the 1930s about these issues. But Hayek really wasn't a conservative person, and neither was Milton Friedman. They were sort of free market revolutionaries, really, that you'd let the market rip and it does good things. And I think that that sort of a view, you know, it just became very powerful. But we sort of lost sight of the fact that there was also a much older tradition of sort of suspicion of radical changes of any type. And that was what conservatism was about to some extent. If you think about Baldwin in Britain, for example.And there was a sort of—during the Industrial Revolution, some of the strongest supporters of factory acts to reduce hours and hourly wages for women and kids were actually conservatives, Tories, as they were called at the time, like Ashley. That tradition, Carlyle was a sort of extreme representative of that. I mean, Carlyle was a sort of proto-fascist, let's not romanticize him, he lionized strongmen, Frederick the Great, and he didn't really believe in democracy. But he also had—he was appalled by the sort of, you know, the—like, what's the phrase I'm looking for? The sort of destructive aspects of industrial capitalism, both on the workers, you know, he said it was a dehumanizing system, sounded like Marx in some ways. That it dehumanized the workers, but also it destroyed the environment.He was an early environmentalist. He venerated the environment, was actually very strongly linked to the transcendentalists in America, people like Thoreau, who went to visit him when he visited Britain and he saw the sort of destructive impact that capitalism was having locally in places like Manchester, which were filthy with filthy rivers, etc. So he just saw the whole system as sort of morally bankrupt and he was a great writer, Carlyle, whatever you think of him. Great user of language, so he has these great ringing phrases like, you know, the cash nexus or calling it the Gospel of Mammonism, the shabbiest gospel ever preached under the sun was industrial capitalism.So, again, you know, that's a sort of paradoxical thing, because I think for so long conservatism was associated with, you know, with support for the free market and still is in most of the Republican Party, but then along comes Trump and sort of conquers the party with a, you know, more skeptical, as you say, romantic, not really based on any reality, but a sort of romantic view that America can stand by itself in the world. I mean, I see Trump actually as a sort of an effort to sort of throw back to mercantile capitalism in a way. You know, which was not just pre-industrial, but was also pre-democracy, run by monarchs, which I'm sure appeals to him, and it was based on, you know, large—there were large tariffs. You couldn't import things in the UK. If you want to import anything to the UK, you have to send it on a British ship because of the navigation laws. It was a very protectionist system and it's actually, you know, as I said, had a lot of parallels with what Trump's trying to do or tries to do until he backs off.Andrew Keen: You cheat a little bit in the book in the sense that you—everyone has their own chapter. We'll talk a little bit about Hayek and Smith and Lenin and Friedman. You do have one chapter on Marx, but you also have a chapter on Engels. So you kind of cheat. You combine the two. Is it possible, though, to do—and you've just written this book, so you know this as well as anyone. How do you write a book about capitalism and its critics and only really give one chapter to Marx, who is so dominant? I mean, you've got lots of Marxists in the book, including Lenin and Luxemburg. How fundamental is Marx to a criticism of capitalism? Is most criticism, especially from the left, from progressives, is it really just all a footnote to Marx?John Cassidy: I wouldn't go that far, but I think obviously on the left he is the central figure. But there's an element of sort of trying to rebuild Engels a bit in this. I mean, I think of Engels and Marx—I mean obviously Marx wrote the great classic "Capital," etc. But in the 1840s, when they both started writing about capitalism, Engels was sort of ahead of Marx in some ways. I mean, the sort of materialist concept, the idea that economics rules everything, Engels actually was the first one to come up with that in an essay in the 1840s which Marx then published in one of his—in the German newspaper he worked for at the time, radical newspaper, and he acknowledged openly that that was really what got him thinking seriously about economics, and even in the late—in 20, 25 years later when he wrote "Capital," all three volumes of it and the Grundrisse, just these enormous outpourings of analysis on capitalism.He acknowledged Engels's role in that and obviously Engels wrote the first draft of the Communist Manifesto in 1848 too, which Marx then topped and tailed and—he was a better writer obviously, Marx, and he gave it the dramatic language that we all know it for. So I think Engels and Marx together obviously are the central sort of figures in the sort of left-wing critique. But they didn't start out like that. I mean, they were very obscure, you've got to remember.You know, they were—when they were writing, Marx was writing "Capital" in London, it never even got published in English for another 20 years. It was just published in German. He was basically an expat. He had been thrown out of Germany, he had been thrown out of France, so England was last resort and the British didn't consider him a threat so they were happy to let him and the rest of the German sort of left in there. I think it became—it became the sort of epochal figure after his death really, I think, when he was picked up by the left-wing parties, which are especially the SPD in Germany, which was the first sort of socialist mass party and was officially Marxist until the First World War and there were great internal debates.And then of course, because Lenin and the Russians came out of that tradition too, Marxism then became the official doctrine of the Soviet Union when they adopted a version of it. And again there were massive internal arguments about what Marx really meant, and in fact, you know, one interpretation of the last 150 years of left-wing sort of intellectual development is as a sort of argument about what did Marx really mean and what are the important bits of it, what are the less essential bits of it. It's a bit like the "what did Keynes really mean" that you get in liberal circles.So yeah, Marx, obviously, this is basically an intellectual history of critiques of capitalism. In that frame, he is absolutely a central figure. Why didn't I give him more space than a chapter and a chapter and a half with Engels? There have been a million books written about Marx. I mean, it's not that—it's not that he's an unknown figure. You know, there's a best-selling book written in Britain about 20 years ago about him and then I was quoting, in my biographical research, I relied on some more recent, more scholarly biographies. So he's an endlessly fascinating figure but I didn't want him to dominate the book so I gave him basically the same space as everybody else.Andrew Keen: You've got, as I said, you've got a chapter on Adam Smith who's often considered the father of economics. You've got a chapter on Keynes. You've got a chapter on Friedman. And you've got a chapter on Hayek, all the great modern economists. Is it possible, John, to be a distinguished economist one way or the other and not be a critic of capitalism?John Cassidy: Well, I don't—I mean, I think history would suggest that the greatest economists have been critics of capitalism in their own time. People would say to me, what the hell have you got Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek in a book about critics of capitalism? They were great exponents, defenders of capitalism. They loved the system. That is perfectly true. But in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, middle of the 20th century, they were actually arch-critics of the ruling form of capitalism at the time, which was what I call managed capitalism. What some people call Keynesianism, what other people call European social democracy, whatever you call it, it was a model of a mixed economy in which the government played a large role both in propping up demand and in providing an extensive social safety net in the UK and providing public healthcare and public education. It was a sort of hybrid model.Most of the economy in terms of the businesses remained in private hands. So most production was capitalistic. It was a capitalist system. They didn't go to the Soviet model of nationalizing everything and Britain did nationalize some businesses, but most places didn't. The US of course didn't but it was a form of managed capitalism. And Hayek and Friedman were both great critics of that and wanted to sort of move back to 19th century laissez-faire model.Keynes was a—was actually a great, I view him anyway, as really a sort of late Victorian liberal and was trying to protect as much of the sort of J.S. Mill view of the world as he could, but he thought capitalism had one fatal flaw: that it tended to fall into recessions and then they can snowball and the whole system can collapse which is what had basically happened in the early 1930s until Keynesian policies were adopted. Keynes sort of differed from a lot of his followers—I have a chapter on Joan Robinson in there, who were pretty left-wing and wanted to sort of use Keynesianism as a way to shift the economy quite far to the left. Keynes didn't really believe in that. He has a famous quote that, you know, once you get to full employment, you can then rely on the free market to sort of take care of things. He was still a liberal at heart.Going back to Adam Smith, why is he in a book on criticism of capitalism? And again, it goes back to what I said at the beginning. He actually wrote "The Wealth of Nations"—he explains in the introduction—as a critique of mercantile capitalism. His argument was that he was a pro-free trader, pro-small business, free enterprise. His argument was if you get the government out of the way, we don't need these government-sponsored monopolies like the East India Company. If you just rely on the market, the sort of market forces and competition will produce a good outcome. So then he was seen as a great—you know, he is then seen as the apostle of free market capitalism. I mean when I started as a young reporter, when I used to report in Washington, all the conservatives used to wear Adam Smith badges. You don't see Donald Trump wearing an Adam Smith badge, but that was the case.He was also—the other aspect of Smith, which I highlight, which is not often remarked on—he's also a critic of big business. He has a famous section where he discusses the sort of tendency of any group of more than three businessmen when they get together to try and raise prices and conspire against consumers. And he was very suspicious of, as I say, large companies, monopolies. I think if Adam Smith existed today, I mean, I think he would be a big supporter of Lina Khan and the sort of antitrust movement, he would say capitalism is great as long as you have competition, but if you don't have competition it becomes, you know, exploitative.Andrew Keen: Yeah, if Smith came back to live today, you have a chapter on Thomas Piketty, maybe he may not be French, but he may be taking that position about how the rich benefit from the structure of investment. Piketty's core—I've never had Piketty on the show, but I've had some of his followers like Emmanuel Saez from Berkeley. Yeah. How powerful is Piketty's critique of capitalism within the context of the classical economic analysis from Hayek and Friedman? Yeah, it's a very good question.John Cassidy: It's a very good question. I mean, he's a very paradoxical figure, Piketty, in that he obviously shot to world fame and stardom with his book on capital in the 21st century, which in some ways he obviously used the capital as a way of linking himself to Marx, even though he said he never read Marx. But he was basically making the same argument that if you leave capitalism unrestrained and don't do anything about monopolies etc. or wealth, you're going to get massive inequality and he—I think his great contribution, Piketty and the school of people, one of them you mentioned, around him was we sort of had a vague idea that inequality was going up and that, you know, wages were stagnating, etc.What he and his colleagues did is they produced these sort of scientific empirical studies showing in very simple to understand terms how the sort of share of income and wealth of the top 10 percent, the top 5 percent, the top 1 percent and the top 0.1 percent basically skyrocketed from the 1970s to about 2010. And it was, you know, he was an MIT PhD. Saez, who you mentioned, is a Berkeley professor. They were schooled in neoclassical economics at Harvard and MIT and places like that. So the right couldn't dismiss them as sort of, you know, lefties or Trots or whatever who're just sort of making this stuff up. They had to acknowledge that this was actually an empirical reality.I think it did change the whole basis of the debate and it was sort of part of this reaction against capitalism in the 2010s. You know it was obviously linked to the sort of Sanders and the Occupy Wall Street movement at the time. It came out of the—you know, the financial crisis as well when Wall Street disgraced itself. I mean, I wrote a previous book on all that, but people have sort of, I think, forgotten the great reaction against that a decade ago, which I think even Trump sort of exploited, as I say, by using anti-banker rhetoric at the time.So, Piketty was a great figure, I think, from, you know, I was thinking, who are the most influential critics of capitalism in the 21st century? And I think you'd have to put him up there on the list. I'm not saying he's the only one or the most eminent one. But I think he is a central figure. Now, of course, you'd think, well, this is a really powerful critic of capitalism, and nobody's going to pick up, and Bernie's going to take off and everything. But here we are a decade later now. It seems to be what the backlash has produced is a swing to the right, not a swing to the left. So that's, again, a sort of paradox.Andrew Keen: One person I didn't expect to come up in the book, John, and I was fascinated with this chapter, is Silvia Federici. I've tried to get her on the show. We've had some books about her writing and her kind of—I don't know, you treat her critique as a feminist one. The role of women. Why did you choose to write a chapter about Federici and that feminist critique of capitalism?John Cassidy: Right, right. Well, I don't think it was just feminist. I'll explain what I think it was. Two reasons. Number one, I wanted to get more women into the book. I mean, it's in some sense, it is a history of economics and economic critiques. And they are overwhelmingly written by men and women were sort of written out of the narrative of capitalism for a very long time. So I tried to include as many sort of women as actual thinkers as I could and I have a couple of early socialist feminist thinkers, Anna Wheeler and Flora Tristan and then I cover some of the—I cover Rosa Luxemburg as the great sort of tribune of the left revolutionary socialist, communist whatever you want to call it. Anti-capitalist I think is probably also important to note about. Yeah, and then I also have Joan Robinson, but I wanted somebody to do something in the modern era, and I thought Federici, in the world of the Wages for Housework movement, is very interesting from two perspectives.Number one, Federici herself is a Marxist, and I think she probably would still consider herself a revolutionary. She's based in New York, as you know now. She lived in New York for 50 years, but she came from—she's originally Italian and came out of the Italian left in the 1960s, which was very radical. Do you know her? Did you talk to her? I didn't talk to her on this. No, she—I basically relied on, there has been a lot of, as you say, there's been a lot of stuff written about her over the years. She's written, you know, she's given various long interviews and she's written a book herself, a version, a history of housework, so I figured it was all there and it was just a matter of pulling it together.But I think the critique, why the critique is interesting, most of the book is a sort of critique of how capitalism works, you know, in the production or you know, in factories or in offices or you know, wherever capitalist operations are working, but her critique is sort of domestic reproduction, as she calls it, the role of unpaid labor in supporting capitalism. I mean it goes back a long way actually. There was this moment, I sort of trace it back to the 1940s and 1950s when there were feminists in America who were demonstrating outside factories and making the point that you know, the factory workers and the operations of the factory, it couldn't—there's one of the famous sort of tire factory in California demonstrations where the women made the argument, look this factory can't continue to operate unless we feed and clothe the workers and provide the next generation of workers. You know, that's domestic reproduction. So their argument was that housework should be paid and Federici took that idea and a couple of her colleagues, she founded the—it's a global movement, but she founded the most famous branch in New York City in the 1970s. In Park Slope near where I live actually.And they were—you call it feminists, they were feminists in a way, but they were rejected by the sort of mainstream feminist movement, the sort of Gloria Steinems of the world, who Federici was very critical of because she said they ignored, they really just wanted to get women ahead in the sort of capitalist economy and they ignored the sort of underlying from her perspective, the underlying sort of illegitimacy and exploitation of that system. So they were never accepted as part of the feminist movement. They're to the left of the Feminist Movement.Andrew Keen: You mentioned Keynes, of course, so central in all this, particularly his analysis of the role of automation in capitalism. We did a show recently with Robert Skidelsky and I'm sure you're familiar—John Cassidy: Yeah, yeah, great, great biography of Keynes.Andrew Keen: Yeah, the great biographer of Keynes, whose latest book is "Mindless: The Human Condition in the Age of AI." You yourself wrote a brilliant book on the last tech mania and dot-com capitalism. I used it in a lot of my writing and books. What's your analysis of AI in this latest mania and the role generally of manias in the history of capitalism and indeed in critiquing capitalism? Is AI just the next chapter of the dot-com boom?John Cassidy: I think it's a very deep question. I think I'd give two answers to it. In one sense it is just the latest mania the way—I mean, the way capitalism works is we have these, I go back to Kondratiev, one of my Russian economists who ended up being killed by Stalin. He was the sort of inventor of the long wave theory of capitalism. We have these short waves where you have sort of booms and busts driven by finance and debt etc. But we also have long waves driven by technology.And obviously, in the last 40, 50 years, the two big ones are the original deployment of the internet and microchip technology in the sort of 80s and 90s culminating in the dot-com boom of the late 90s, which as you say, I wrote about. Thanks very much for your kind comments on the book. If you just sort of compare it from a financial basis I think they are very similar just in terms of the sort of role of hype from Wall Street in hyping up these companies. The sort of FOMO aspect of it among investors that they you know, you can't miss out. So just buy the companies blindly. And the sort of lionization in the press and the media of, you know, of AI as the sort of great wave of the future.So if you take a sort of skeptical market based approach, I would say, yeah, this is just another sort of another mania which will eventually burst and it looked like it had burst for a few weeks when Trump put the tariffs up, now the market seemed to be recovering. But I think there is, there may be something new about it. I am not, I don't pretend to be a technical expert. I try to rely on the evidence of or the testimony of people who know the systems well and also economists who have studied it. It seems to me the closer you get to it the more alarming it is in terms of the potential shock value that there is there.I mean Trump and the sort of reaction to a larger extent can be traced back to the China shock where we had this global shock to American manufacturing and sort of hollowed out a lot of the industrial areas much of it, like industrial Britain was hollowed out in the 80s. If you, you know, even people like Altman and Elon Musk, they seem to think that this is going to be on a much larger scale than that and will basically, you know, get rid of the professions as they exist. Which would be a huge, huge shock. And I think a lot of the economists who studied this, who four or five years ago were relatively optimistic, people like Daron Acemoglu, David Autor—Andrew Keen: Simon Johnson, of course, who just won the Nobel Prize, and he's from England.John Cassidy: Simon, I did an event with Simon earlier this week. You know they've studied this a lot more closely than I have but I do interview them and I think five, six years ago they were sort of optimistic that you know this could just be a new steam engine or could be a microchip which would lead to sort of a lot more growth, rising productivity, rising productivity is usually associated with rising wages so sure there'd be short-term costs but ultimately it would be a good thing. Now, I think if you speak to them, they see since the, you know, obviously, the OpenAI—the original launch and now there's just this huge arms race with no government involvement at all I think they're coming to the conclusion that rather than being developed to sort of complement human labor, all these systems are just being rushed out to substitute for human labor. And it's just going, if current trends persist, it's going to be a China shock on an even bigger scale.You know what is going to, if that, if they're right, that is going to produce some huge political backlash at some point, that's inevitable. So I know—the thing when the dot-com bubble burst, it didn't really have that much long-term impact on the economy. People lost the sort of fake money they thought they'd made. And then the companies, obviously some of the companies like Amazon and you know Google were real genuine profit-making companies and if you bought them early you made a fortune. But AI does seem a sort of bigger, scarier phenomenon to me. I don't know. I mean, you're close to it. What do you think?Andrew Keen: Well, I'm waiting for a book, John, from you. I think you can combine dot-com and capitalism and its critics. We need you probably to cover it—you know more about it than me. Final question, I mean, it's a wonderful book and we haven't even scratched the surface everyone needs to get it. I enjoyed the chapter, for example, on Karl Polanyi and so much more. I mean, it's a big book. But my final question, John, is do you have any regrets about anyone you left out? The one person I would have liked to have been included was Rawls because of his sort of treatment of capitalism and luck as a kind of casino. I'm not sure whether you gave any thought to Rawls, but is there someone in retrospect you should have had a chapter on that you left out?John Cassidy: There are lots of people I left out. I mean, that's the problem. I mean there have been hundreds and hundreds of critics of capitalism. Rawls, of course, incredibly influential and his idea of the sort of, you know, the veil of ignorance that you should judge things not knowing where you are in the income distribution and then—Andrew Keen: And it's luck. I mean the idea of some people get lucky and some people don't.John Cassidy: It is the luck of the draw, obviously, what card you pull. I think that is a very powerful critique, but I just—because I am more of an expert on economics, I tended to leave out philosophers and sociologists. I mean, you know, you could say, where's Max Weber? Where are the anarchists? You know, where's Emma Goldman? Where's John Kenneth Galbraith, the sort of great mid-century critic of American industrial capitalism? There's so many people that you could include. I mean, I could have written 10 volumes. In fact, I refer in the book to, you know, there's always been a problem. G.D.H. Cole, a famous English historian, wrote a history of socialism back in the 1960s and 70s. You know, just getting to 1850 took him six volumes. So, you've got to pick and choose, and I don't claim this is the history of capitalism and its critics. That would be a ridiculous claim to make. I just claim it's a history written by me, and hopefully the people are interested in it, and they're sufficiently diverse that you can address all the big questions.Andrew Keen: Well it's certainly incredibly timely. Capitalism and its critics—more and more of them. Sometimes they don't even describe themselves as critics of capitalism when they're talking about oligarchs or billionaires, they're really criticizing capitalism. A must read from one of America's leading journalists. And would you call yourself a critic of capitalism, John?John Cassidy: Yeah, I guess I am, to some extent, sure. I mean, I'm not a—you know, I'm not on the far left, but I'd say I'm a center-left critic of capitalism. Yes, definitely, that would be fair.Andrew Keen: And does the left need to learn? Does everyone on the left need to read the book and learn the language of anti-capitalism in a more coherent and honest way?John Cassidy: I hope so. I mean, obviously, I'd be talking my own book there, as they say, but I hope that people on the left, but not just people on the left. I really did try to sort of be fair to the sort of right-wing critiques as well. I included the Carlyle chapter particularly, obviously, but in the later chapters, I also sort of refer to this emerging critique on the right, the sort of economic nationalist critique. So hopefully, I think people on the right could read it to understand the critiques from the left, and people on the left could read it to understand some of the critiques on the right as well.Andrew Keen: Well, it's a lovely book. It's enormously erudite and simultaneously readable. Anyone who likes John Cassidy's work from The New Yorker will love it. Congratulations, John, on the new book, and I'd love to get you back on the show as anti-capitalism in America picks up steam and perhaps manifests itself in the 2028 election. Thank you so much.John Cassidy: Thanks very much for inviting me on, it was fun.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Mi entrevistado en este episodio es Ernest Cañada. Es coordinador de Alba Sud y docente de la Universidad de Barcelona. Investiga en torno al trabajo, los conflictos socioecológicos y las alternativas en el desarrollo turístico. Ha publicado: Viajar a todo tren. Turismo, desarrollo y sostenibilidad (Icaria, 2005, con Jordi Gascón); Turismo en Centroamérica: un nuevo escenario de conflictividad social (Enlace Editorial, 2010); Turismo placebo. Nueva colonización turística: del Mediterráneo a Mesoamérica y El Caribe. Lógicas espaciales del capital turístico (Enlace Editorial, 2011, con Macià Blàzquez); El turismo en el inicio del milenio: una lectura crítica a tres voces (FTR, 2012, con Jordi Gascón y Joan Buades); Turismos en Centroamérica. Un diagnóstico para el debate (Enlace Editorial, 2013); Turismo comunitario en Centroamérica. Experiencias y aprendizajes (Enlace Editorial, 2014).Notas del Episodio* Alba Sud y su historia* El despojo en Nicaragua* El surgimiento de turismo en Costa Rica como una herramienta neoliberal* El Malestar en la Turistificación: Pensamiento Crítico Para Una Transformación de Turismo* El fin de turismo barato y el policrisis de hoy* Postcapitalismo y terminos complementarios* Monstruos peores* Aprender poner limites* La pluralidad de posibilidades de turismos postcapitalistasTarea* El malestar en la turistificación. Pensamiento crítico para una transformación del turismo - Icaria Editorial* Alba Sud - Facebook - Instagram - Twitter* #TourismPostCOVID19. Turistificación confinada* Ernest Cañada - Facebook - Instagram - TwitterTranscripcion en espanol (English Below)Chris: [00:00:00] Bienvenido Ernest, al podcast del fin de turismo. Ernest: Muchas gracias. Muy encantado estar aquí. Chris: igual es un gran honor poder hablar finalmente contigo. Mi pregunto si, pues, para empezar, si podrías decirnos de este, dónde hablas hoy y cómo es el mundo allá por ti? Ernest: Yo habitualmente resido en Barcelona, entre Barcelona y Mallorca, porque estoy entre la universidad de las Islas Baleares y Alba Sud, y en estos momentos estoy en Buenos Aires que estoy trabajando en una investigación sobre experiencias de gestión distinta, fuera de las lógicas del capitalismo. Y esto nos llevo a identificar distintas experiencias. Y ahora estoy empezando una investigación con el Hotel Bauen, a lo que fue el Hotel Bauen y a cerrado y la cooperativa que lo gestionó durante 20 años, Es parte el proceso que estamos haciendo, identificación [00:01:00] de experiencias diversas plurales que tienen que ver con como pensar la posibilidad de organizar el turismo bajo otros modos y esto nos elevado por caminos distintos de América Latina, de España. Y ahora estoy aquí.Chris: Pues gracias Ernest. Y si vamos a estar hablando de ese tema pero más allá de las vision que que hay, que existe, que podemos imaginar sobre un turismo post-capitalista o algo alrededor, algo así. Pero antes de meternos en eso, pues tú y yo hemos estado en contacto durante los últimos dos años, en parte debido a tu trabajo en el ámbito de los estudios críticos de turismo y a tu proyecto Alba Sud que en algunos de nuestros invitados anteriores incluidos de Ivan Murray, Robert Fletcher y Macia Blasquez ha participado.Me encantaría que pudieras contarme un poco [00:02:00] sobre Alba Sud, Ernest, su misión, su historia y su situación actual Ernest: Con mucho gusto. Ah, mira, Alba Sud nace en 2008. Legalmente lo habíamos legalizado antes por si algún grupo de compañeros por si algún día nos hacía falta, pero formalmente empieza a funcionar el año 2008 y empieza a funcionar en Managua, Nicaragua, que era donde yo residía en ese momento.Y fundamentalmente fue un acuerdo de personas que nos dedicábamos a la investigación y a la comunicación para trabajar con análisis críticos y al mismo tiempo propositivos en torno al turismo. Esto fue algo que fue original desde el principio, esta doble preocupación, por cómo pensar los impactos, los efectos que tenía el desarrollo turístico bajo el capitalismo y que tipo de dinámicas de violencia estructural y directa generaban y al mismo tiempo, cómo pensar posibilidades de salir de ese [00:03:00] marco de esas lógicas. Y eso fue un sello que desde el principio empezamos. Con los años Alba Sud fue creciendo, integrándose como una red de investigadoras e investigadores en turismo. Ahora tenemos presencia en 10 países en España, en Francia, en Europa, y luego en América latina, en la República Dominicana, en México, en El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Brasil, Uruguay y Argentina.Entonces es una red que conformamos gentes que nos dedicamos a distintos ámbitos de la análisis turístico y que compartimos espacios de trabajo y análisis e intervención política. Para nosotros, Alba Sud es un centro de investigación, pero no es un centro académico si nos preocupa menos las dinámicas académicas, aunque hay una parte de nuestro equipo de personas que colaboran que están en la universidad, distintas universidades. Lo que nos preocupa es cómo generar [00:04:00] conocimiento que sea útil para las comunidades, para las organizaciones comunitarias, para las asociaciones civiles, para sindicatos, para cuando es posible la administración pública. Es decir, intentamos generar conocimiento, análisis sistematización, propuestas que de alguna manera contribuyen a hacer visible las cosas que funcionan mal, que son un desastre que generan dolor en este mundo en relación con el turismo y al mismo tiempo, a pensar horizontes de esperanza.Este es un poco el propósito. Para ello, nos dotamos de eso de un equipo amplio de personas que colaboran unas más estrechamente con el día a día, otras que puntualmente colaboran y montamos básicamente nuestros trabajos se articula en torno a una web, la www.AlbaSud.Org, y lo estructuramos en trabajos de investigación que salen después en un formato [00:05:00] escrito por distintas formas, que luego te cuento un trabajo, además de la forma de la investigación, vinculado a la formación a poner a generar procesos de diálogo que nos permitan escuchar, reflexionar conjuntamente, poniendo en el mismo nivel personas que vienen de la academia con personas que tienen experiencias concretas de trabajo. Y finalmente, un ámbito más de incidencia política, más de acompañamiento organizaciones y de acompañarles para incidir políticamente. En el ámbito de la investigación, luego lo expresamos, básicamente a través de unos artículos cortos que hacemos, publicamos alrededor de 100, 110, 120 al año, que son artículos cortos de 2000-2500 palabras, que sabemos que son muy usados en las universidades, como material de discusión. Y un poco del propósito es este que se hiervan como pequeñas artículos bien escritos o intentamos que estén bien [00:06:00] escritos, que estén en un lenguaje simple, que la complejidad no tiene que ver con las palabrotas académicas que usamos, sino la profundidad del pensamiento que incorporan, pero que tienen que estar poder ser leídas por mucha gente.Tenemos esto. Luego, pusimos en marcha un sello editorial propio que es Alba Sud Editorial, en el cual tenemos una colección de libros, una de informes y recientemente una de policy brief más dirigidos a recomendaciones de política. Y básicamente Alba Sud eso. Es un espacio de encuentro entre personas que no nos resignamos a pensar que el desarrollo turístico necesariamente tenga que comportar esto, que estamos acompañando las resistencias, las luchas de los muchos males y violencias que genera este desarrollo capitalista a través del turismo y que al mismo tiempo, intentamos construir lo que decía antes "horizontes de esperanza" que nos permitan estimular la lucha y la resistencia, [00:07:00] pensando en en futuros más deseables que es creo que en estos momentos también necesitamos.Chris: Gracias, Ernest. Sí. Pues por lo que he visto, lo que he leído, lo que he encontrado ahi en el sitio de Alba Sud. Pues es, es una organización y sitio único en el mundo. Y pues yo tengo mucho honor de estar contigo hoy hablando de estas cosas y especialmente contigo como el fundador, Y entonces, para agregar, para profundizar un poco más de la historia, de tu historia, la próxima pregunta viene de nuestro amigo mutuo compañero Macía Blasquez a quien entrevisté en la temporada cuatro. Europa. Y el pregunta, "afirma que tú has sido entre muchas otras cosas activista en Centroamérica, como nos dijiste, y entonces él quiere saber cómo han cambiado tus opiniones y tu carrera de este [00:08:00] entonces?" Ernest: Buena pregunta.Ah, yo empecé a trabajar en Centroamérica acompañando. Bueno, primero pasé seis años que iba y venía. Estaba medio año en Centroamérica más o menos a otro medio en España. Y finalmente me quedé a trabajar en Nicaragua con una organización que se le llamaba "Luciérnaga" ahora "Ilegalizada," dedicada a la comunicación.Y desde ahí empezamos a organizar campañas de comunicación en distintos temas que tenían que ver con las necesidades y los derechos de la mayoría de la gente y de como estaban sufriendo procesos de despojo de posesión. Y trabajamos en torno a temas que tenían que ver con la salud y los derechos sexuales o reproductivos o la soberanía alimentaria. Y en una de estas, organizamos una campaña que duró cuatro años de investigación y comunicación sobre turismo. En un contexto, estoy hablando del año [00:09:00] 2004-2008, en el cual Nicaragua se estaba abriendo al turismo en esos momentos. Y entonces identificábamos claramente los altos niveles de violencia que eso podía comportar con procesos de desplazamiento.Y había que acompañar a las comunidades en esas dinámicas, y que además eran compartidas en El Salvador, en Guatemala, en Honduras, en Costa Rica y al mismo tiempo, empezar a pensar posibilidades de "si era posible utilizar el turismo bajo el control de las propias comunidades." Esa fue mi mi inserción en el mundo fundamentalmente del turismo.Y a partir de ahí, después de trabajar unos cuatro años en Luciérnaga y pusimos en marcha Alba Sud y en parte recuperamos en Alba Sud esa especialización vinculado con el turismo. Pensábamos, y es algo que hemos reflectado muchas veces con Ivan Murray que también le entrevistaste que no nos estábamos dando cuenta desde el mundo de las [00:10:00] izquierdas de la importancia que tenía el turismo para el funcionamiento al capitalismo.Y a veces cuando decíamos que nos necesitábamos al turismo, la gente lo tomaba como algo como irrelevante, como algo superficial, incluso casi jocoso como te gusta viajar, verdad? Y entonces era como, como no darse cuenta de, por un lado, como sobre todo desde la aplicación de los programas neoliberales, cómo el el turismo estaba ayudando a expandir los procesos de desarrollo capitalista, pero al mismo tiempo, como tenía una segunda función muy importante que era, cómo ayudaba a a estabilizar los desórdenes que provocaba ese mismo programa neoliberal? Recuerdo que me impresionó mucho trabajando en Costa Rica cuando me di cuenta que el año 1985, cuando se aplican los programas de ajuste estructural, [00:11:00] una de las cosas que se hace es desmontar el CNP, que era el consejo nacional de producción, que era lo que permitía durante bastantes años, que el campesinado costarricense tuviera la seguridad de que los granos básicos, frijoles, arroz, maíz tenía donde venderlos con precios estables. Y esto le daba seguridad al campesinado. Esto el año en el marco de la aplicación de esas políticas neoliberales que eran de hecho un chantaje, decir bueno, en un contexto de crisis de la deuda o aplicas determinadas programas políticos para liberalizar el comercio o no tienes apoyo en ese contexto, la contrapartida de achicar el estado y reducirlo.Y uno de los ejes de disminución del gasto público fue, por ejemplo, desmontar el CNP, este consejo nacional de producción. Y a cambio, lo que se pedía al campesinado estimularlo en la producción [00:12:00] de cultivos que tuvieran supuestamente mejor inserción en el mercado internacional para atraer la llegada de divisas.Y ahí se promovía la vainilla, la curcuma, la pimienta, productos que al final no acabaron de funcionar. Pero al mismo tiempo se promovió el turismo rural como un mecanismo para que el campesinado, por una parte, aportara con esa desarrollo de servicios turísticos divisas, al mismo tiempo le permitiera estabilizarse y no comprometerse en una dinámica que tenía que ver con el sufrimiento que estaban viviendo, que estaban generando procesos migratorios muy grandes.Entonces, con Iván, una de las cosas que reflexionábamos es, esto del turismo empieza a ser muy importante para el capitalismo. Y después de la crisis de 2008 creo que tuvimos bastante conciencia de que la dinámica de solución que encuentre el capitalismo para su [00:13:00] reproducción en parte tiene que ver con la expansión del turismo.Y esto lo hemos visto después de la crisis de la COVID con la pandemia que tuvimos en la cual... recuerdo perfectamente una llamada que nos hicimos con Iván, decíamos no nos puede pasar en 2020 lo mismo que nos pasó en 2008, que no nos dimos cuenta hasta mucho después de lo que estaba ocurriendo. Y por tanto, dijimos "paremos todas las publicaciones que tenemos pendientes y pidamos a todo el equipo amplio que está en torno de Alba Sud, pongámonos a reflexionar y analizaron que nos equivoquemos, pero pongámonos a analizar que cambios supone esto." Y en ese memento, alguna gente se reía de nosotros. Decía que seamos futurologia, que si habíamos convertido Alba Sud en una bola de cristal y que pretendíamos invocar el futuro. Y de hecho, lo que intentábamos hacer era el análisis desde la economía política para entender qué es lo que nos venía encima y de alguna manera, respondiendo a la pregunta que nos hacía [00:14:00] Macia, yo creo que lo que ha cambiado mi pensamiento es la intuición.O sea lo que antes era una intuición de que debíamos trabajar, generando conocimiento fuera de las lógicas de la reproducción académica y teníamos que generar conocimiento vinculado a los problemas sentidos por la gente más desfavorecida, que esa institución estaba en lo cierto y que había un espacio para hacer eso y que era necesario hacerlo.Y que este era un espacio que debíamos construir en relación con el mundo de las universidades de la academia, pero independiente de él, pero también independiente de las empresas, que es lo que vimos que también les había ocurrido algunas ONGs que durante años trabajaron tratando de generar algún tipo de pensamiento en torno de turismo, pero que rápidamente habían caído en una cierta trampa de pensar que era posible incidir en las empresas, generar dinámicas de responsabilidad, etcétera. Y nosotros pensamos que la cosa no iba por ahí, que la cosa tenía que ver con cómo [00:15:00] fortalecíamos otros actores para que pudieran combatir, resistir y construir cosas fuera de los marcos del capitalismo. Entonces, yo creo que, no sé si cambiaron muchas las cosas en términos de pensamiento, pero si se consolidó una convicción de lo que empezamos a hacer de una forma un poco intuitiva, se acabó convirtiendo en un espacio de investigación, de colaboración, de acompañamiento, de formación, de ciencia política para para un montón de gente que está vinculado con el turismo.Chris: Yeah. Gracias, Ernest. Pues yo siento que esa intuicion ha abierto un montón en los últimos años. Y hay un montón de gente en muchos lados, normalmente los lugares turisteados o sobreturisteados dando cuenta y dando cuenta no solo de [00:16:00] las consecuencias, pero de los patrones y pues, a dónde vamos con los patrones o canales de turismo convencional, pero también, como dijiste, en el turismo, como un gran factor dentro de la expansión y destrucción del capitalismo en nuestro tiempo. Entonces, a través de Alba Sud y Icaria Editorial en España, ustedes han publicado recientemente una antología titulada El Malestar en la Turistificación: Pensamiento Crítico Para Una Transformación de Turismo. Hay toneladas de capítulos fascinantes, tengo que decir, de excelentes autores y investigadores, incluidos trabajos que hacen referencia Silvia Federici y David Harvey, Pierre Biourdeau, Donna Haraway, Foucault, Graeber, y Ursula Le Guin, entre otros. [00:17:00] Estoy curioso, Ernest, cuál fue el impulso detrás de la creación de este antología? Ernest: Muchas veces, buena parte de las cosas que hacemos o que impulsamos de que son más grandes, vienen de una llamada telefónica con Ivan Murray y nos llamamos decimos, "tenemos que hacer esto, tenemos que hacerlo otro."Y de estas llamadas, lo que acabamos, y luego es algunos elevándolas a cabo. En este caso concreto, recurrentemente, teníamos una reflexión que cada vez era menos interesante leer sobre el turismo o que nos interesaba menos leer sobre turismo y que para entender el turismo, necesitábamos leer otras cosas. Y incluso la gente que nos dedicamos a los análisis críticos del turismo, nos dábamos cuenta de que estábamos leyendo mucho solamente entre nosotros.Y que de alguna manera estábamos reproduciendo lo mismo que le pasaba la academia vinculada al turismo. Es una academia muy endogámica, [00:18:00] muy auto concentrada que discute los mismos temas que se cita unos a otros y nos dábamos cuenta que de alguna manera, los que nos dictábamos a la crítica y a la propuesta fuera de esos marcos, teníamos el riesgo de no estar captando parte de la complejidad que tenía el desarrollo turístico en la medida que este se estaba haciendo cada vez más grande y que estaba penetrando en más esferas de la vida. Y ahí la idea fue, necesitamos hacer cuando compartíamos con Iván y luego se sumó Clément Marie dit Chirot, que es un profesor de la Universidad de Angers, que colabora también con con Alba Sud.De ahí surgió la idea de decir bueno, nos compartíamos tú que estás leyendo, que te está interesando. Y ahí empezamos a compartir autores y autoras. Y nació la idea deberíamos hacer algo con esto. Hicimos un primer seminario en Barcelona sobre la obra de David Harvey y en Lefevbre de qué nos pueden aportar estos dos autores a la comprensión [00:19:00] actual del desarrollo turístico.Y fue un seminario por eso el libro en parte, a veces la gente dice, por qué tanto Harvey y tanto Lefevbre, porque el origen del libro tenía que ver con este primer seminario que fue una prueba, un ensayo, de cómo podemos hacer que autores que no necesariamente han hablado sobre turismo, cómo podemos hacer que dialogan con nuestro objeto de de análisis?Y ahí hicimos un poco el mismo llamado que habíamos hecho en 2020 en cuando empezamos a trabajar en torno de la pandemia, que eso se convirtió en dos libros. Uno que fue Turistificación Confinada y otro Turismos de Proximidad, que fue el mismo proceso de empezar a preguntar a nuestros colegas, amigos, compañeros y compañeras, en qué estaban trabajando, que estaban viendo que estaban...Pues hicimos lo mismo, empezar a preguntar en nuestro entorno del equipo de Alba Sud, personas que colaboran, qué autores estaban leyendo que les interesaba y que no hubieran hablado antes de turismo? Y como [00:20:00] podíamos hacer el ejercicio de llevarlos a los análisis turísticos con el fin de robustecerlos, de hacerlos más sólidos, de incorporar dimensiones que si solamente nos fijábamos en lo que veníamos leyendo y escribiendo sobre el turismo, a lo mejor se nos estaban escapando. Por supuesto, nos quedaron un montón de trabajos de referencias fuera de este marco, es decir nos salía un volumen con 25 capítulos y nos podía haber salido perfectamente un segundo volumen, que es algo que no descartamos, pero no en términos inmediatos por el cantidad de trabajo que también supone.Pero si logramos poner en diálogo una serie de personas que nos permitían, de alguna manera, enriquecer el análisis turístico y brindar a gente que se estaban metiendo en determinados temas desde el ámbito de la comprensión, de lo como funciona el turismo, encontrar referencias teóricas, críticas con el capitalismo que le pudieran ayudar a [00:21:00] como mínimo, abrir caminos, entender qué lecturas podríamos hacer a partir de ellas.Seguro que hay autoras o autores que podrían haber tenido otro tipo de lectura, pero es la que hicieron las personas que colaboran con nosotros y de alguna manera era una de las posibles lecturas. Y bueno, ese es el origen del libro y la motivación. Chris: Ajá. Y me gustaría preguntarte sobre, pues, tu capítulo sobre Eric Ollin Wright, pero antes de eso, me gustaría preguntarte qué tipo de reflexiones te sorprendiste más fuera de tus propios investigaciones? Ernest: Sí, Ivan, Clemente y yo no solo lemos, sino que editamos y discutimos todos los capítulos.Tuvimos que rechazar lamentablemente también algunos. En algunos casos, había gente que nos mandó escritos que eran más complejos que el propio autor. Elegimos necesitamos que se entienda o en otros casos, la lectura no nos interesaba mucho. [00:22:00] No fue que aceptáramos todo, en este proceso.Y para mí, uno de los descubrimientos fue Jason Moore y el trabajo que hizo Iván con él para pensar o plantear la hipótesis del fin del turismo barato. Esto ha dado lugar un proyecto de investigación en el que estamos en la Universidad de Las Islas Baleares, con el grupo CRIGUST en el que estoy trabajando, pensando decir, bueno, qué significa este escenario de emergencias crónicas, esta dinámica, la cual el capitalismo ha funcionado a partir de la lógica de disponer de naturalezas baratas... qué significa si esto empieza a acabarse? Y hasta qué punto este modelo de desarrollo turístico que hemos tenido las últimas décadas en realidad no está objeto a demasiadas tensiones? Está demasiado en crisis y habría que tal vez plantear la hipótesis del fin del turismo barato, pero la [00:23:00] apertura de nuevos escenarios y sobre esta hipótesis estamos estamos desarrollando un proyecto de investigación y de alguna manera también ha servido para nosotros desde Alba Sud para pensar los escenarios de esta dinámica de reactivación. Decir no, no todo es igual a lo que venía siendo antes. Yo creo que para entender el memento actual del desarrollo turístico a nivel global, hay que situarnos en dos crisis:ya antes mencionamos el programa neoliberal y como el neoliberalismo incorpora el turismo con un mecanismo de expansión por al mismo tiempo de estabilización. Pero las dos últimas crisis la de 2008 y 2020 generan un salto de escala en términos de turistificación, un proceso turistificación global como nunca habíamos vivido, siendo un salto exponencial, en parte porque después de la crisis de 2008 se produce una situación en la cual las vías que habían optado a través de los préstamos [00:24:00] bancarios, la construcción, hipotecas, etcétera, colapsa y no es posible seguir reproduciendo el capital a través de esas vías. Y esto necesita encontrar otros mecanismos a traves de los cuales el capital se puede reproducir. Ahí, david Harvey ha hablado muchas veces de la importancia que tiene la urbanización de China en este proceso de salida de la crisis de 2008. Nosotros entendemos que, además de esto, el papel del turismo es clave. No es casualidad que una empresa como Airbnb nazca en 2008, que se produzca esta expansión del turismo urbano. Es decir, tiene que ver con esta lógica. Y la pandemia de alguna manera lo que hace es detener, pero al mismo tiempo, una salida, una reacción de los capitales muy agresiva por recuperar lo que no han ganado en los años anteriores.Y por tanto, se produce como una vuelta de tuerca más en esta dinámica. En este punto, para eso no es útil el pensamiento de Jason Moore, que yo lo leo fundamentalmente [00:25:00] como aportación de Iván Murray en esta obra que hacemos, en el malestar de la turistificación. Esta hipótesis del fin del turismo barato que planteamos a partir de la relectura de Jason Moore, lo que nos permite pensar es, o interpretar más bien , la dinámica de redituación es igual que la anterior a la crisis o hay algo cualitativamente distinto? Y hay algo cualitativamente distinto, porque estamos ante un escenario de riesgo para este desarrollo capitalista vinculado a las naturalezas baratas.Y ahí es donde nos damos cuenta que, en parte hay un efecto champagne, que cerca las reactuaciones no has podido viajar durante dos años y cuando hay la apertura, la gente sale. Pero más allá de esto y que nos expresa en estos últimos años de una forma desmesurada de tenemos turismo en los destinos más purificados, turismo de todo tipo, desde lujo a despedidas de [00:26:00] soltero o de soltero, que no alquilan ni una habitación, que sencillamente pasan de noche el viernes y el sábado de fiesta y se va en el domingo y ya está. O sea, tenemos de todo.Y ahí es donde recupero a Jason Moore y la ideas del fin de las del turismo barato, este riesgo de fin de turismo barato, lo que nos empezamos a dar cuenta es que empieza a ver una mayor competencia entre territorios, entre ciudades, por atraer un turismo de mayor poder adquisitivo. Se dan cuenta que hemos salido de la crisis y hay una serie de emergencias crónicas o lo que algunos le llaman policrisis que siguen estando presentes, que tienen que ver con el cambio climático, con la crisis de combustibles o la crisis energética y la crisis de materiales con las interrupciones a las cadenas globales de suministros, con las tensiones geopolíticas. Y todo esto nos ponen alerta de los riesgos que tiene el [00:27:00] desarrollo turístico. Si estamos en un escenario muy vulnerable. Además, después de la salida, empezamos a ver que hay un nivel de destrucción de los ecosistemas enorme, que no decir, esta lógica de crecimiento constante es inviable, porque hemos superado con mucho la capacidad del planeta y en ese contexto también vemos otro naturaleza barata que empieza a ser cuestionada, que es el trabajo, es decir la idea de la renuncia, de la dimisión, y uno de los grandes problemas que tienen las empresas en estos momentos es la falta de personal, gente que no quiere trabajar ahí y que busca trabajo en otros sitios.Entonces, en ese contexto que llamamos de emergencias crónicas que además se retroalimentan unas con otras, lo que empezamos a ver es que los capitales, a través de las autoridades públicas en distintos territorios, empiezan a competir por atraer un turista de mayor poder adquisitivo. Buscan cómo concentrar esa franja de segmento [00:28:00] turístico que va a ser menos sensibles a situaciones de crisis, que va a seguir viajando y cómo traerlo.Y implica un programa de gasto público enorme en términos de infraestructuras para traerlos en términos de promoción internacional, términos de macro-eventos para consolidar esa atracción. El problema es que, por definición, los turistas de mayor poder adquisitivo son mucho menos que la clase media o las clases trabajadoras en las que se ha sentado el turismo en las últimas décadas.Y por tanto, esa competencia entre territorios, por atraer ese segmento turístico de mayor poder adquisitivo, se incrementan. Es una competencia feroz por atraer a ese tipo de turistas y yo creo que estamos en este en este contexto. Y yo creo que no nos hubiéramos dado cuenta si una de las hipótesis posibles que formulamos a partir del libro en Malestar en la Turistificación no fuera precisamente esta [00:29:00] idea que extraemos de Jason Moore sobre el fin de las naturalezas baratas.La otra hipótesis tiene que ver con el trabajo que desarrolla a partir de Erik Ollin Wright sobre las posibilidades y cómo de transformar el sistema capitalista, hablando también desde el turismo, que es algo que Erik Ollin Wright nunca hizo, pero no sé si querías que habláramos ahora de él o o como quieres que lo planteemos.Chris: Pues sí, sí, me encantaría si podrías platicar un poco sobre Erik Ollin Wright, porque escogiste el específicamente, pero también para empezar, porque el capítulo que escribiste está titulado como un Turismo Postcapitalista: Siguiendo Los Pasos de Erik Ollin Wright.Entonces, antes de meternos en sus obras y su trabajo me gustaría preguntarte, pues, cómo defines Postcapitalismo?Ernest: Yo parto un posicionamiento anticapitalista. Y no tengo ninguna duda. Si me [00:30:00] opongo a a este modelo de producción, creo que nos lleva el desastre tanto en términos humanos como planetarios. Desde esa posición de esa convicción anticapitalista, lo que plantea es la necesidad de encontrar salidas que nos lleven a otro escenario.Podríamos llamarle socialismo. Podríamos llamarle ecosocialismo. No lo sé. Me interesa más pensar la posibilidad de pensar horizontes que escapen del capitalismo. Este es el posicionamiento. A veces hay gente que duda, porque una cosa o la otra. No una cosa o la otra. Si partimos del anticapitalismo para intentar construir algo fuera del capitalismo, pero no es algo tampoco mecánico, es algo que construimos. No es una fase superior del capitalismo. Después del capitalismo podría ser formas de violencia y de explotación mucho mayores. Es algo que tenemos que construir. Entonces, la idea es no resistimos, confrontamos con las lógicas capitalistas y desde [00:31:00] intentamos construir algo distinto, algo que podemos llamarle metafóricamente del momento postcapitalismo, pero no es contradictorio una posición con la otra. A partir de ahí, yo, sinceramente, estoy en este camino de buscar como pensar las posibilidades de transformación. Esto lo tenía claro. Y cuando me acerco a distintos autores, Erik Ollin Wright no era un autor que me resultaba especialmente simpático. Venía de una tradición socialdemócrata. Venía del marxismo analítico, que era algo que no especialmente me seducía.Si me interesaba una cosa especialmente de su obra, que era el rigor metodológico en las formas de analizar la sociedad. Esto me a atrevía especialmente. Es decir, salir fuera de las metáforas y del lenguaje a veces tan obtuso del marxismo y empezar a construir utilizando las mejores herramientas de las que disponemos en un determinado memento desde las ciencias [00:32:00] sociales.Esto reconozco que era algo que sí que me atraía, pero no es necesariamente todo el pensamiento de Erik Ollin Wright y Erik Ollin Wright me interesa partir de leer Utopía Reales y después Como Ser Anticapitalista en el Siglo XXI, por la visión que tiene. El lo que hace es un intento de recuperar distintas tradiciones de la izquierda para pensar un programa de acción complementario.Y a mi, esta idea me seduce especialmente, cómo pensamos en términos complementarios. Es decir cómo la acción de uno es la que uno puede hacer, la que uno desea hacer o la que las condiciones le han marcado, pero no son mejores ni peores que las que hace el otro compañero que está desde otra trinchera y como dejamos de competir por cuál es la mejor idea y empezamos a reconocernos que unos están intentando transformaciones desde el ámbito, de la lucha política parlamentaria, otros lo hacen desde del mundo sindical, otros desde del mundo [00:33:00] ecologistas y otros de cooperativismo. Reintegrar, repensar conjuntamente esas distintas tradiciones de acción de la izquierda.Me parecía que era algo necesario. Discrepo en una posición de Erik Ollin Wright que no acabo compartir, que es esta idea de negar la posibilidad de la revolución. Y me explico, Erik Ollin Wright dice en parte como buen social demócrata, lo que viene a decir es, después de las experiencias históricas, es fácilmente reconocible que cuando hemos tomado el poder después de un proceso revolucionario, las dinámicas que hemos generado después casi han sido peores que contra lo que combatíamos. Y probablemente tenga razón.Y yo he vivido 11 años en Nicaragua y sé de lo que estoy hablando. Se de qué significa los supuestos nuestros cuando están en el poder. Entonces, cuidado con esta idea, la simple toma del poder en [00:34:00] nombre de una bandera, de una determinada cristalización ideológica es ya un futuro deseable y mejor. Cuidado porque efectivamente generamos monstruos peores.Pero lo que discrepo con Erik Ollin Wright es que, si bien, en sí misma la toma del poder no te garantiza una sociedad ni mucho más justa, ni mucho más equitativa, sino que al final, muchas veces lo que te encuentras son dinámicas de estabilización de nuevos grupos que ascienden al poder y desde ahí ejercen el control.Pero lo que sí, quiero que no podemos renunciar a la idea de la movilización social, incluso de la toma del poder político como un mecanismo defensivo, como un mecanismo de respuesta ante el desorden que genera el capitalismo. En estos contextos, aunque fuera para salvaguardar dinámicas democráticas, aunque fuera para salvaguardar, creo que no podemos renunciar a la herramienta [00:35:00] revolución, pensado probablemente en términos defensivos no ofensivos, si no pensando que vamos a cambiar y vamos a generar un mundo mejor a partir de la toma del poder inmediata. Pero sí, salvaguardarlo como un mecanismo defensivo ante la lógica del avance del desorden que genera el capitalismo, la posibilidad de restaurar ciertos equilibrios a través de procesos revolucionarios.Creo que esta es la idea que recuperamos de Walter Benjamin cuando dicen que a veces se marca como la revolución, como la locomotora de la historia y el dice más bien, es el freno de mano. Es decir, es ante el despeñadero pensar en esto. Bueno, esto mi distancia de esta posición tan categórica de Erik Ollin Wright, pero en cambio, me parece interesante cómo construir una posibilidad de un mundo post capitalista a partir de cuatro grandes estrategias o vías de lo que ella denomina erosión del [00:36:00] capitalismo. O sea si no es posible darle la vuelta de inmediato, probablemente habrá que pensar en un tránsito a largo plazo en el cual este orden capitalista he agujereado desde distintos ámbitos de intervención y fundamentalmente desde el estado y desde fuera del estado.Y él plantea esta idea del desmantelar, domesticar, huir y resistir como formas de intervención. Y yo lo que hago en el capítulo es subir, bueno, si el turismo es tan importante en el capitalismo, cómo podríamos pensar estas categorías, estas dinámicas de ejes de intervención que contribuyen a erosionar el capitalismo de ir agujereándolo, de ir creando nuevas lógicas, aunque sean frágiles, aunque sean temporales, pero como mostrar, y como de algún modo ir asentando y que iba creciendo áreas de funcionamiento social que no reproducen las lógicas del capitalismo, sino que [00:37:00] avancen en otras direcciones. Y esto en un largo proceso que nos vaya avanzando, que nos permite avanzar.Y yo lo que intento hacer es cómo podría ser esto desde el turismo? Y ahí implica, por una parte, la intervención desde el estado, es decir por un lado, desde el estado, entendiendo al estado cómo la cristalización de una determinada correlación de fuerzas en un determinado memento. Podríamos pensarlo en términos de, bueno, es la reproducción de, es el mecanismo que tienen las clases dominantes para reproducir bien. Yo quiero más bien siguiendo otros autores de la tradicion marxista, como Poblanzas y otros más bien entendiendo como una cristalización de una determinada correlación de fuerzas. Y esto puede cambiar. Bien, desde esa perspectiva, pensar como desde el estado, podemos intervenir abriendo dinámicas que funcionen fuera de las lógicas del capitalismo. Una de ellas que no significa que sean necesariamente anticapitalistas, que a veces ayudan a [00:38:00] estabilizar el mismo capitalismo, pero pueden ser leídas de múltiples maneras.Una de ellas tiene que ver con esta idea de ponerle límites al capital, introduciendo mecanismos de control, de regulación, de fiscalidad. Es decir desde la inspección del trabajo hasta la fiscalidad hasta las tonificaciones en determinadas ciudades de qué se puede hacer, si podemos permitir más hoteles o no podemos permitirlos, cierto?Todo esta dimensión de "desde el estado," cómo ponemos mecanismos de limitación y contención al desarrollo de capital turístico? Otra vía, otra estrategias, como desde el mismo estado, generamos igual que por ejemplo, hemos hecho en algunos países en el ámbito de la salud o en el ámbito de la educación, cómo establecemos programas públicos que garanticen el acceso a las vacaciones, al descanso, etc. de una parte de la población, con programas de turismo social, [00:39:00] con creación de infraestructuras, desde parques urbanos a mejora transporte público, acompañamiento los programas de la economía social y solidaria, el cooperativismo. Es decir cómo desde el estado generamos dinámicas que contribuían a garantizar el acceso de los sectores más desfavorecidos a vacaciones. La tercer eje de intervención de que plantea Erik Ollin Wright tiene que ver con la idea de resistir resistir fuera del estado, es decir, resistir en el combate a este desorden que genera el capitalismo, el capital turístico.Y esto implica resistir desde dentro de las empresas con las organizaciones sindicales, pero tremendas de fuera desde los movimientos comunitarios, ecologistas, vecinales, es decir, ponerle límites al capital, no solamente esperando lo que va a hacer el estado con políticas públicas, sino que hacemos de forma organizada colectivamente dentro y fuera de las empresas.[00:40:00] Y la cuarta dimensión de esta proceso de entender mecanismos de erosión del capitalismo y en este caso, del capitalismo de base turística, sería la idea de huir. Hay que salir ya hoy y aquí de este mundo capitalista. Y esto implica crear cooperativas, ensayar formas de organización distinta que nos permitan garantizar vacaciones, descanso, formas diversas de construir el ocio que pueden incluir el desplazamiento.Y esto podemos hacerlo fundamentalmente desde las organizaciones comunitarias, desde el ámbito de las cooperativas, pero también desde fuera del mercado. Es decir, si la tutela del estado y si la tutela del mercado. Es decir, reorganización del ocio popular sin pasar por el mercado. Esto que en algunos países llamamos domingueros, dominguiar, hacer uso del día del señor para [00:41:00] descansar o tocarnos las narices o leer debajo un árbol. Es esta idea de hacer lo que queramos de forma autoorganizada, en colectivo o individualmente. Es decir, abrir estos espacios. Entonces yo creo que estas cuatro dimensiones es lo que nos permite pensar la posibilidad de una transformación del turismo bajo otras lógicas. Y aquí creo que hay que introducir un matiz porque a veces siento que hay una cierta confusión, como si todo fuera un problema de palabras. Es decir que nos negamos a utilizar la palabra turismo porque es una palabra que es capital.Bueno, nosotros, lo que reivindicamos fundamentalmente es el tiempo libre, el tiempo liberado del trabajo. Esto es lo que nosotros reivindicamos. Y creo que eso es lo que tenemos derecho a el tiempo que liberamos del trabajo para poder hacer lo que necesitemos en términos de descanso, de alimento de nuestro pensamiento, de goce, de desarrollo, de posibilidades.[00:42:00] Esto es lo que nos interesa. Y esto se puede organizar en el propio lugar de residencia en tu espacio próximo de residencia en términos de ocio, de entretenimiento, de recreación. Pero si implica desplazamiento, es cuando empezamos a hablar de turismo y este turismo, podemos organizarlo que implica ocio más desplazamiento.Esto podemos organizarlo, que es como hemos hecho hasta ahora, bajo las lógicas del capitalismo para reproducir el capital o podemos organizar este ocio con desplazamiento para satisfacer necesidades humanas. Y ahí es donde creo que tenemos el centro de la propuesta. Es decir, cómo pensar que una práctica humana, una práctica social no pueda ser solamente definida por las lógicas de reproducción del capital, sino que tenemos que poder desarrollarla bajo otras lógicas. Y esta es la reivindicación. Es decir, no resignarnos a que solamente el [00:43:00] capital organice nuestras vidas. Hay una frase de David Harvey que tiene toda la razón cuando dice no hay ninguna idea moralmente buena que el capitalismo no pueda compartir en algo horroroso.Y tiene toda la razón. El capitalismo tiene la capacidad para hacer esto, pero nosotros también pensamos que al mismo tiempo, no hay ninguna práctica social que no podamos organizar bajo otras lógicas distintas a las del capitalismo, que un mundo socialista, un mundo ecosocialista, podría ser organizado bajo otras lógicas y eso tiene que empezar ya ahora y aquí. No esperar a que venga una revolución y no sabemos cómo saldremos de ésa, sino que tenemos que empezar a organizarlo ya ahora y aquí. Yo creo que esta es la segunda hipótesis con la que construimos a partir de este libro del Malestar en la Turistificacion, que creo que, como mínimo a mí, hay muchísimas más lecturas del libro.Pero a [00:44:00] mí esta idea que extraemos de Jason Moore en torno al fin del turismo barato y la disyuntiva entre elitizacion o empezamos a pensar propuestas de transformación que den respuesta a las necesidades de la mayoría social, esta segunda hipótesis es lo que creo que sale con más fuerza de este libro. O como mínimo es mi lectura.Estoy seguro que otras compañeras y otros compañeros han hecho otras lecturas del del libro y les está estimulando para hacer otras cosas. Y creo que esa es la potencia que tiene el libro, que es empezar a robustecer el pensamiento crítico en turismo con abriendo nosotros posibilidades. Chris: Mm-hmm. Wow,Gracias, Ernest. Este yo creo que para mucho de nosotros, más ustedes que tiene mucho más tiempo en las investigaciones, los límites o el límite es la palabra, es el concepto [00:45:00] central de cómo podemos pensar, distintamente cuando estabas hablando de esas cosas, yo pensé, casi no hay límites a los instituciones que tenemos en el mundo capitalista moderna, solo los límites que los instituciones ponen en uno mismo. Pero luego tenemos que invertir lo que está pasando en el sentido de poner límites en las instituciones y luego poner en pausa las límites que son impuestos a nuestras lógicas, nuestras capacidades o maneras de pensar el mundo, de entender al mundo, pero también de pensar de otros mundos.Y entonces, poner un límite en cuántas vuelos puede llegar en un lugar en un día o cuántos hoteles podemos construir, etcétera. Cuántos turistas podemos tener? Pero al final cuando yo pienso en eso, a veces pienso como los pueblos en México y Oaxaca en donde vivo que algunos son pueblos ecoturísticos y tienen economías relativamente cerradas o relativamente mucho más [00:46:00] cerradas que las ciudades y eso y que tienen la capacidad, que si se hacen, se ponen los límites y se dice vamos a aceptar toda x cantidad de gente en este año porque entendemos que Los recursos o la naturaleza alrededor va a sufrir sino. Pero también se este. Hay otras preguntas, eh, como de la influencia social, el intercambio de capital entre gente de culturas distintas que viene con expectativas.Pero entonces quizás empezamos con la la cuestión de resistencia, porque a México, como muchos otros países que dependen en gran medida de las economías turísticas, las formas de resistencia política, no todas, pero algunas sí, que se emprenden contra esas economías a menudo apuntan a los turistas como los principales beneficiarios o cupables. Parece haber una fuerte resistencia a nombrar a la población local como dependiente y defensora de estas [00:47:00] economías. Si vamos a construir una resistencia política que abarque las necesidades económicas de todas las personas dentro de un lugar, cómo podemos ir más allá de esta crítica, yo digo superficial, que tiene la capacidad de esencializar a los extranjeros y infantalizar a los locales. Ernest: Yo creo que, bueno, has dicho un montón de cosas que me sugieren en reacción. Ah, pero para empezar por el final, yo diría que muchas veces nos encontramos con formas des legitimación de las protestas diciendo bueno, todos somos turistas, como si tuviéramos que tener un comportamiento virtuoso, decir apelando una cierta coherencia individual en todos nuestros comportamientos.De hecho, lo que están haciendo con este tipo de críticas, es sencillamente negar la legitimidad de las reivindicaciones, decir, señalando la contradicción como si todo fuera un problema individual [00:48:00] de comportamientos individuales. Y cuando lo que nos estamos diciendo es esto es un problema político, no de una persona en concreto, sea turista o sea población local que resiste y luego hace turismo, si el problema dejémonos ya de moralismo y de buscar ciudadanos virtuosos moralmente. Y empecemos a plantear que ambas son las estructuras políticas que pongan límites a este capital turístico. Yo creo que el grueso de la pelea es salir de esta idea de la responsabilidad individual de quedar atrapados en estas ideas de responsabilidad que tampoco sin desmerecerla, es decir es otro campo de intervención, pero el centro no puede ser la decisión individual y la coherencia individual en relación a nuestros comportamientos. Tiene que ver con dinámicas estructurales y lo que hay que cambiar son dinámicas de conjunto y para eso se falta hacer política con mayúsculas, ,implica movilización, pero para [00:49:00] cambiar estructuras. Cuál es el problema que a veces en esta maraña de capitales, que haces más difícil de identificar quién es el responsable de estas políticas o de estas violencias? Si quienes al final del último, que toma decisiones detrás de estos fondos de inversión. En cambio, el turista lo tenemos cerca y puede ser efectivamente blanco del malestar, porque es el que tienes más cerca. Entonces, y yo creo que desde los medios de comunicación, se nos intenta situar en ese terreno, a cuando se pone en circulación la idea de turismofobia, que empieza sobre todo en Barcelona y que luego circula a nivel internacional.Es una campaña dirigida a quitar la legitimación al movimiento vecinal que está protestando. No hay turismofobia. Puede haber alguien que de un día te caiga mal a alguien, pero no es un problema contra una persona. Lo que pasa es que a veces al que tienes cerca, el que te molesta es el turista, [00:50:00] es la parte final de ese proceso y es mucho más difícil señalar a las autoridades públicas, locales, nacionales, internacionales que han diseñado esos marcos de representación, a las empresas escondidas en esas dinámicas financieras.Entonces yo creo que es un proceso contradictorio, pero que, al mismo tiempo, no debemos renunciar a él. Es decir, aquí la cuestión no tiene que ver con como eres más o menos coherente, más o menos responsable, siendo población local, receptora o siendo turista o siendo muchas cosas a la vez. No tiene tanto que ver con eso, sino como reorganizamos el sistema de organizar el sistema turístico.Esta es la clave. Aquí está el problema. Y esto implica ponerle límites. Y como bien decías en tu primera parte, la intervención, si yo creo que la palabra límites adquirido, una connotación política fundamental. Las últimas manifestaciones que se están organizando [00:51:00] en España, en la que tuvimos hace dos, dos fines de semana en Barcelona, o la que va a ver este domingo en Palma, especialmente pongámosle límites al turismo.Pero esta demanda de ponerle límites y al mismo tiempo que le ponemos límites, tenemos que saber que hay una parte de la población que en España es de un 30 porciento, pero que la Union Europea gira en torno también otro 30% con niveles también muy desiguales, pero que cuando lo miramos desde América Latina, es mucho más, más de la mitad de la población que no puede hacer vacaciones. Es decir que estamos en esa discusión pero por otra parte, tenemos una parte de la población que no tiene infraestructuras que le permiten hacer vacaciones, sea desde que legalmente, no le permiten tener esas vacaciones en buenas condiciones, que no hay infraestructuras para que puedan pagárselas, que faltan programas públicos de calidad de turismo social que le [00:52:00] permitan disponer de esas infraestructuras.Entonces, yo creo que la dinámica es doble, es por uno de que ponerle límites al capital. Y hay que hacerlo como parte de una reflexión y de una intervención política no individual en términos morales, pero que al mismo tiempo, hay que plantear un horizonte de deseo. Queremos algo, queremos disfrutar del tiempo libre.Queremos disfrutar de un tiempo libre de calidad. Una de las formas posibles, no la única puede ser el turismo, que implicar este ocio más desplazamiento. Y para hacer esto y poder gozar de conocer otros espacios, otros lugares fuera de mi realidad cotidiana. Para hacer esto, necesitamos infraestructuras sociales que nos permiten hacerlo.Y yo creo que ahí está la batalla, por un lado, ponerle límites al capital y por otro lado, expandirnos. Ofreciendo un mundo deseable. Queremos disponer de tiempo libre. [00:53:00] Queremos desarrollarnos en nuestro tiempo libre. Queremos que nuestro tiempo libre lo podamos organizar en la proximidad en nuestra casa, en nuestros alrededores, pero puntualmente también viajando.Y eso significa disponer de infraestructuras públicas y también de mecanismos porque el dinero y el mercado va a ser la única forma de decidir quien vuela y quien no vuela. Si tenemos que ir un mundo con muchos menos vuelos, serán los que puedan pagarlos o podemos organizarlo de otro modo. Cuántas veces puedes volar al año? Cuántas veces puedes hacer por cuánto tiempo? Como podemos, si le imp, implica un un ejercicio que a veces, cuando lo planteas, parece que esta gente no vive en el mundo, que la realidad es otra efectivamente. Ocurre esto, pero para avanzar en esta dirección, necesitamos horizontes de esperanza, horizontes que nos digan debemos ir para allá, no solamente como pérdida de privilegios, no [00:54:00] solamente por restringirnos porque el planeta se desmonta, sino porque queremos vivir mejor y queremos vivir mejor todos.Entonces, yo creo que esta conjunción, porque si no tenemos otro problema que tiene que ver con el crecimiento de la extrema derecha en un mundo de inseguridades en un mundo de amenazas, quién está ofreciendo seguridades, aunque sea con discursos racistas xenófobos de culpar al penúltimo, culpando al último. Es decir en este contexto, cómo podemos organizar dinámicas que a la vez que le ponemos límites a este desarrollo turístico capitalista, estemos ofreciendo seguridades, seguridades en términos de el control implica también mejores de condiciones de trabajo. Y el control sobre esto es también para poder organizar el turismo de otra manera que tú no pierdas tu trabajo, sino que podamos organizarlo de otra manera y que podamos satisfacer las necesidades [00:55:00] que tiene mucha más gente.Yo creo que la cosa va por ahí entre la resistencia y la propuesta de un mundo deseable también en el turismo. Chris: Ya ya igual subió mi mente como esa noción de el ocio, el tiempo de ocio son momentos también fuera de trabajo que en un análisis puede decir que el trabajo es un tipo de esclavitud moderna, a veces no, pero a veces sí, muchas veces creo y que tiempo de ocio o descanso es un tiempo también para organizarse.Organizar la comunidad. Organizar por otros mundos o contra lo que tienes, eh? Pero el turismo parece que también ha sido como un herramienta contra eso. O sea, ya tienes tu tiempo descanso. Pero mira, mira, mira las playas de Cuba... Ernest: No es exclusivo del turismo. Es decir, cuando hablamos de turismo, estamos hablando de ocio, más desplazamiento. [00:56:00] Si no nos desplazamos, resulta que este ocio que hacemos desde nuestra casa es el mas emancipatorio del mundo. Es decir, estar en casa viendo Netflix es lo mejor, estar yendo al centro comercial a pasear porque hubiese en un mundo de inseguridades de mierda.Es decir, en este contexto, esto no es algo exclusivo del turismo. También desde el ocio, tenemos estas dinámicas de alineación y de mercantilizacion. Entonces, necesitamos salir de las palabras para construir escenarios que nos permitan satisfacer necesidades y expandir posibilidades, capacidades de la gente de explorar y vivir mejor.Pero hay muchos ejemplos que te permiten de manera diversa y es parte de lo que decíamos al principio de la conversación de en lo que estamos trabajando en Alba Sud de intentarse sistematizar un montón de estas experiencias que han [00:57:00] probado aspectos distintos de transformación, de salir de estas lógicas y avanzar en otras direcciones.Y quiero que el problema es que muchas veces la academia no ha puesto atención en estas posibilidades. Y en cambio, en la vida, en la vida cotidiana, hay muchas más cosas que se están haciendo que no hace falta que nos pongamos a inventar que también, pero empecemos también por reconocer y recuperar muchas de las cosas que están en nuestra propia historia y también en nuestro alrededor, en en estos otros contextos que podemos encontrar experiencias ricas en estas otras formas y las encontraremos en el ocio y las encontraremos en el turismo. Pero a veces tengo la sensación de que cuando solamente identificábamos el turismo como un proceso de mercantilizacion, nos estamos pegando un tiro al pie. El turismo, igual que muchas otras cosas, puede ser eso y efectivamente es una dinámica de reproducción del capital que [00:58:00] genera violencia, violencia estructural y directa. Nos tenemos que resignar a que solamente pueda ser eso. Podríamos imaginar cómo construimos eso de otra manera y para imaginar, empecemos por reconocer lo que está en otro alrededor que ya está funcionando de otras maneras y que a lo mejor algunas de estas experiencias son frágiles, son limitadas, tienen contradicciones, fracasan, pero muestran que durante un tiempo ha sido posible organizar esto.La próxima fracasaremos mejor. Y a la siguiente, lo haremos perfecto. Es decir, es un proceso constante de tensión, de organización, de intento de generar cambios que nos permitan construir una vida digna, que también pasa por recuperar ese tiempo libre que lo podremos organizar de maneras distintas. Y ahí podríamos o no incluir el turismo en función de nuestras necesidades y posibilidades.Chris: Gracias, Ernest. Gracias por ofrecer eso y [00:59:00] clarificar. Entonces, si podemos imaginar otros mundos, otras formas de caminar y caminar juntos, podemos comenzar a dar pasos hacia esos caminos. Si pudieras imaginar un otro mundo de esa manera, libre de las limitaciones contemporáneas de las fronteras estatales, la hospitalidad industrial y las expectativas extractivas cómo sería para ti, Ernest?Ese viaje que tanto deseas hacer sería una peregrinación? Sería posible solo una vez en tu vida? Cómo sería ese viaje para ti? Ernest: Claro, yo diferenciaría y pensaría en que necesariamente sea plural. Es decir, que las opciones sean múltiples. No hay una respuesta, no hay una forma de organizar otro turismo. Hay o deben haber muchas formas. En función de las muchas necesidades que tenga la gente. El otro día, en una entrevista, a preguntar cómo hacías vacaciones tú cuando eras adolescente? Como pensando en [01:00:00] cómo encontrar ese anexo en lo que ahora me preocupa y yo digo, lo que hacía era pasarme en los veranos en la biblioteca. Y lo que deseaba era tener infraestructuras públicas de calidad en la que pudieras leer sin ruido, constantemente. Y quería infraestructuras públicas que me permitieran hacer eso. Y creo que una forma de organizar tu tiempo libre tiene que ver con que dispongamos de infraestructuras públicas que nos permitan organizarlo.Y ahí, no hay una sola forma, ni una sola necesidad. La mía tiene que ver con esto o ha tenido que ver con esto en un determinado momento de mi vida y para otros es otra y para otros es una distinta. Entonces yo me imagino no un camino, sino me imagino unos muchos caminos que pueden responder a formas y necesidades distintas.Si me imagino programas robustos potentes de calidad de turismo social en el que [01:01:00] la gente pueda acceder al mar, puede acceder a la montaña, puede acceder a espacios que en la cercanía y tomando en cuenta a los límites del planeta, podamos movilizarnos masivamente para dormir fuera de nuestra casa, viendo las experiencias, pero que no solamente en infraestructuras o espacios natural, sino que también implique un programa pedagógico pensado para cómo desarrollar potencialidades, como ver esas distintas apuestas.Pero veo esto y también veo con deseo, las apropiaciones que hace a la gente los parques públicos, como la gente se toma al parque y celebra fiestas y organiza actividades. Creo que necesitamos pensar en términos plurales. Es decir no hay unas vacaciones. A lo mejor en la vida, necesitaremos tener disponer de la posibilidad de organizar nuestros tiempos de trabajo de manera distinta, que nos permitan viajar más tiempo que en lugar de hacer lo que no tendría [01:02:00] sentido es pensar que podemos universalizar viajes de Alemania al Caribe por cuatro días.Eso no tiene ningún sentido, pero estamos seguros de que ya no podremos conocer otros territorios. A lo mejor será menos veces en la vida. Será por más tiempo. Será combinando trabajo con espacios de ocio con espacios. Es decir, creo que lo que debemos abrirnos es a la pluralidad de posibilidades de organizar esta parte de nuestro tiempo libre que hemos asociado con el desplazamiento.De alguna manera, yo creo que lo que necesitamos son horizontes por los que merezca la pena, no solamente resistir, sino movilizarse para avanzar hacia ellos. Queremos vivir mejor y tenemos derecho a vivir mejor. Tenemos que resistir todas las mierdas y todas las cabronadas que nos hace el capital. Pero al mismo tiempo, tenemos que poder aspirar a una [01:03:00] vida organizada bajo otras lógicas. Ahí es donde creo que que está la clave algo por lo que merezca la pena luchar.Chris: Gracias, Ernest por esas palabras muy importantes y tus reflexiones en el día dehoy, desde mí, mi parte y mi corazón y la parte de los oyentes también. Entonces, por último, Ernest, cómo podrían nuestros oyentes saber más sobre tu trabajo y Alba Sud y donde se pueden comprar el Malestar en la Turistificacion? Ernest: Al bas sud?Tenemos nuestra página web AlbaSud.Org. Ahí, todas nuestras publicaciones son de descarga gratuita. Tenemos una sección de formación en la que vamos recuperando todos los videos de los debates actividades que organizamos. Si la página web, la herramienta. Disponemos de un boletín que mandamos mensualmente.Estamos en redes [01:04:00] sociales varias, en Facebook, en Twitter, en Linkedin, disponemos de un canal en Telegram. Por ahí se pueden informar de lo que hacemos, de las actividades de las convocatorias y con Icaria que tenemos varios libros publicados, dependiendo del lugar en España, es posible en cualquier librería.Si no lo tienen, pedirlo y lo llevan. Y en muchos otros lugares, creo que hay que pedirlo directamente por la editorial. Es decir, en algunos países de América Latina, Icaria tiene distribución comercial normal. En otros es más difícil, pero en la página web de Icaria Editorial se pueden conseguir estos trabajos. Y si no lo encuentran, que nos escriban que algo resolveremos.Chris: Muy bien, pues voy a asegurar que todos esos enlaces están ya en el sitio de Fin de Turismo cuando lanza el episodio y una vez más Ernest, desee que tendríamos más tiempo para [01:05:00] platicar, pero seguramente en otra ocasión. Fue un gran honor, oportunidad de hablar contigo y espero que podemos hacerlo de nuevo en algún momento. Ernest: Con mucho gusto. Encantado de poder conversar contigo. Y estoy realmente seguro de que vamos a continuar caminando juntos. Muchas gracias. English Transcription Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome Ernest, to the end of tourism podcast.Ernest: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here.Chris: It's a great honor to finally be able to talk to you. I wonder if, to start with, you could tell us about this, where you speak today and what the world is like there for you?Ernest: I usually live in Barcelona, between Barcelona and Mallorca, because I am between the University of the Balearic Islands and Alba Sud, and at the moment I am in Buenos Aires working on research into different management experiences, outside the logic of capitalism. And this led us to identify different experiences. And now I am starting a research with the Hotel Bauen, what was the now closed Hotel Bauen and the cooperative that managed it for 20 years,It is part of the process that we are doing, identifying [00:01:00] diverse plural experiences that have to do with how to think about the possibility of organizing tourism under other modes and this has taken us along different paths from Latin America, from Spain. And now I am here.Chris: Well, thank you Ernest. And yes, we are going to talk about this topic, but beyond the visions that exist, that we can imagine about post - capitalist tourism or something around it, something like that. But before we get into that, you and I have been in contact for the last two years, partly due to your work in the field of critical tourism studies and your Alba Sud project, in which some of our previous guests, including Ivan Murray, Robert Fletcher and Macia Blasquez, have participated.I would love for you to tell me a little bit [00:02:00] about Alba Sud, Ernest, its mission, its history and its current situation.Ernest: With pleasure. Oh, look, Alba Sud was founded in 2008. We had legalized it before in case some group of colleagues needed it one day, but it formally began to operate in 2008 and it began to operate in Managua, Nicaragua, which was where I lived at the time.And it was basically an agreement between people who were dedicated to research and communication to work with critical and at the same time propositional analysis around tourism. This was something that was original from the beginning, this double concern, about how to think about the impacts, the effects that tourism development had under capitalism and what kind of dynamics of structural and direct violence they generated and at the same time, how to think about possibilities of getting out of that [00:03:00] framework of those logics. And that was a hallmark that we started with from the beginning.Over the years, Alba Sud has grown, becoming a network of tourism researchers. We now have a presence in 10 countries in Spain, France, Europe, and then in Latin America, in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.So it is a network made up of people who are dedicated to different areas of tourism analysis and who share work spaces and analysis and political intervention. For us, Alba Sud is a research centre, but it is not an academic centre and we are less concerned about academic dynamics, although there is a part of our team of people who collaborate who are at the university, different universities.What we are concerned about is how to generate [00:04:00] knowledge that is useful for communities, for community organizations, for civil associations, for unions, and for public administration when possible. That is, we try to generate knowledge, analysis, systematization, proposals that in some way contribute to making visible the things that do not work well, that are a disaster that generate pain in this world in relation to tourism and at the same time, to think of horizons of hope.This is the purpose. To do this, we have a large team of people who collaborate more closely on a day-to-day basis, others who collaborate occasionally, and we basically put together our work, which is organized around a website, www.AlbaSud.Org, and we structure it into research papers that are later published in a format [00:05:00] written in different ways, which I will then tell you about. In addition to the form of research, work is linked to training to generate dialogue processes that allow us to listen, to reflect together, putting people who come from the academy on the same level as people who have specific work experiences. And finally, a more political influence area, more of accompanying organizations and accompanying them to influence politically.In the field of research, we then express it, basically through short articles that we write, we publish around 100, 110, 120 a year, which are short articles of 2000-2500 words, which we know are widely used in universities, as discussion material.And a bit of the purpose is this, that they are boiled down as small, well-written articles, or we try to make them well [00:06:00] written, that they are in simple language, that the complexity has nothing to do with the academic swear words that we use, but the depth of t
En este episodio, mi invitada es Alf Bojórquez, novelista y ensayista yucateca. Su primera novela, Pepitas de calabaza (2023) salió en la editorial Fondo Blanco. Se segundo libro, No existe dique capaz de contener al océano furioso. Potencia, alegría y anarquismo, apareció hace unos meses. Fue ganadora del premio Moving Narratives (2024) de Prince Claus Fund y el British Council. Ha hecho giras en América Latina, Europa, Estados Unidos, Marruecos y Filipinas haciendo lecturas de su obra y dando talleres sobre narrativa, arte y teoría crítica. Tiene un programa de radio sobre lo mismo que se puede escuchar gratis en cualquier aplicación de podcasts: Un sueño largo, ancho y hondo. Ha colaborado con varios colectivos y organizaciones abajo y a la izquierda.Notas del Episodio* La traduccion de Joyful Militancy a Militancia Alegre* Diferencias en el radicalismo rigido entre norte y sur* Recuperando la miltancia y el contexto contemporaneo en militancia alegre* Tejiendo a la Organización Revolucionaria* La perdida de propiedad comunal en Mexico y la llegada del turismo* Las redes sociales como una arma del imperio* La imagen y la gestion, el usuario y el premio* Contraturismo como peregrinajeTarea* Pagina profesional - Instagram* Un sueño largo, ancho y hondo - Instagram* No existe dique capaz de contener al océano furioso - Volcana - Polilla - Utopicas - Traficantes de Suenos - Novedades don Gregorio (OAX)* Militancia alegre: Tejer Resistencias, florecer en tiempos toxicas* Pepitas de calabazaTranscripcion en espanol (English Below)Chris: [00:00:00] Bienvenida al podcast El Fin del Turismo, Alf. Un placer hablar contigo hoy. Alf: Ajá. Chris: Este me gustaría empezar preguntándote donde te encuentras hoy y cómo se ve el mundo a través de tus ojos? Alf: Este hoy me encuentro en mi cocina. Desde ahí trabajo yo. En la ciudad de México, en una colonia se llama Iztaccihuatl. Cómo se ve el mundo? Pues mira, yo no tengo una vista tan mala. Este no es un edificio grande, pero tengo una vista linda, no? O sea, no me tapa la vista otro edificio ni nada. Se ven muchas plantas. Y bueno, supongo que sabes que yo soy de provincia. Entonces yo siempre he sentido que aquí donde yo vivo es como una, un poquito provincia en la capital, porque no hay edificios tan grandes.Este y bueno, desde aquí se ve, se me olvida que estoy en CDMX ahora, sabes a Chris: Gracias. Pues eres entre otras cosas, autora de varios [00:01:00] textos entre ellos Pepitas de Calabaza y el muy reciente No Existe Dique Capaz de Contener al Océano Furioso. También coordinaste la traducción al español del texto en inglés de Militancia Alegre:Deje Resistencias Florecer en Tiempos T óxicos. (o Joyful Militancy) A esa traducción le siguió un podcast complementario con Pamela Carmona titulado Alegría Emergente: Deshaciendo el Radicalismo Rígido. Entonces, para empezar, me gustaría preguntarte cómo conociste, el libro Joyful Militancy y qué te llevó a traducirlo. Alf: Yo conocí ese libro. Lo cuento un poquito en el prólogo, pero yo conocí ese libro, en Estados Unidos, porque yo tenía una banda. Yo toqué en una banda de hardcore punk muchos, muchos años, la batería. Y entonces así accedí a Estados Unidos y estando [00:02:00] en el underground americano, que fue una parte importante de mi de mi de mi vida, estando en en California en concreto.Me encontré ese libro como en una cafetería y yo me enamoré. Entonces lo traje y primero lo leí en inglés con alguna gente y muy lentamente empecé a trabajar con ese libro, traducir. Eso es una historia más larga que está ahí bien en el prólogo, pero bueno, llevo años como militando ese libro. También hubieron una serie de coincidencias de gente muy amable como Tumba a la Casa, como los autores canadienses, los derechos nos los regalaron. Se metió la gente de Traficantes de Sueno.O sea, en realidad hay un montón de gente. Es como una red de redes, ese libro y una serie de casualidades y favores y gestos agradables de mucha gente que logró que eso saliera como salió, la verdad. O sea, yo pienso mi irrepetible, esa esa serie de factores. Ajá. Chris: Ah chingón. Muy bien, Bueno, pues ese libro originalmente [00:03:00] se publicaron en 2016. A leer, reeler y traducir ese texto, tengo curiosidad por saber que crees que ha cambiado de este entonces, o qué diferencias principales has visto entre el radicalismo rígido descrito en el libro de la anglosfera o America norte, Anglosajona y la hispanesfera o Latinoamérica? Alf: Este? Pues muchas cosas que decir, no. La parte que confirmé yo fui trabajando ese libro, eh? Porque digamos que yo, todavía este año presenté ese libro. O sea, y le fue muy bien en Costa Rica. Fue la última. A mí se me acabaron los ejemplares. Y digamos, terminé mi labor con con Militancia en Costa Rica hace dos, tres meses.No es tanto, no? O sea todavía después de la del programa de radio con Pamela, se hizo en Costa Rica de presentación y le fue muy bien, eh? Y se [00:04:00] reimprimió ese sí. Ese libro fue un éxito de muchas maneras, no? Y fíjate a mí. Una cosa que con por me pasaban los años, no me gustó, es que yo siento que tiene un lado como muy liberal, osea, hay un lado donde es demasiado suave, no? O sea, al criticar lo rígido, siento que se pasa de flexible, por decir así. Entonces, y eso pasa un poco como con ciertos radicalismos del norte, que tienen que ver con la retórica de la amistad de la ternura como tan enfocados en el cuidado.Y así, yo siento que sin querer como por llevarle la contraria al opuesto, como el machismo lo rígido, bla, bla, bla, caen en una cosa un poco... o sea yo siendo que ese el libro o por lo menos mi lectura de ese libro, ya estas alturas, si lo siendo demasiado suave, porque yo creo que la parte negativa de militar y de organizarse, pues es importante, no, eh?Es importante de hablar, no? Entonces, cierto que en el libro, se pasa de buena onda, por [00:05:00] decirlo asi. Creo que por eso es un éxito porque hay lado "pop" en ese libro, un lado suavecito, dulcecito, que se mastica bien. Y está bien para los activismo, pero hay una parte en mi que dice bueno, pero hay que hablar del resentimiento, hay que hablar del odio.Hay que hablar de la importancia de romper entre nosotras, de pelearnos entre nosotros, sin caer en el castigo y la culpa y la persecución. Pero yo sí, creo que la ruptura o la negatividad en general ese el libro no lo logra del todo. Habría que ir a otros lados y pienso que de un año para acá, desde que se recrudeció el genocida ahora, pues justo toca repensar el antiimperialismo, toca repensar cosas que no pueden ser tan flexibles, no? O sea, pues están matando, están cayendo bombas y no se trata de vamos a ver si nos cae el 20 o no, o cuando nos cae el 20.Pues hay un imperio gestionando un genocidio que se recrudeció muy fuerte el último año. Y eso implica, se endurece, se endurece. O sea, ha cambiado el panorama político. Y hay [00:06:00] procesos donde podemos ser muy flexibles y pacientes, pero hay procesos donde no, donde hay que responder porque la bomba te ca en la cabeza, o sea, y ya está.Entonces me recuerdo un poco como en los del paso de los 60s a los 70s, o el paso hacia los 20, no? O sea, históricamente esto ha pasado. Se acaba el hipismo y y llega la guerrilla. Se acaba el anarquismo y empieza el partido comunista. O sea, hay momentos donde la historia te come y se vuelve un poquito más pues no te voy a decir duro, pero pero sí, incluso en el norte, los anarquistas que venían de escribir ese libro como muy ticunistas se están volviendo más de izquierda, más revolucionario, más leninistas mucho. Y yo creo que eso tiene que ver, bueno, una especie el leninismo, pues moderno o buena onda.El tipo zapatismo en versión anglo, pero yo creo que eso tiene que ver con las condiciones actuales. Yo creo que antes de la pandemia, después de la pandemia, son dos planetas, tanto por el reconocimiento de genocidia, como porque lo que se [00:07:00] hizo toda la década que para mí acaba en pandemia. Pues tenía un lado muy chido, pero también a un lado muy de todo es válido.La insurrección ya está aquí. Y pues ahora decimos no, pues no está aquí. No estamos parando a Estados Unidos este el imperio, no lo estamos parando. En otros momentos de la historia, si se la podido o poner ciertos límites al imperialismo." No del todo, pero se han ganado algunas luchas.Entonces, bueno, ese libro creo que fue de su época. O sea, 2016 y ese anarquismo de la amistad y de hay que conectar y fluir y todo ese lado que para un poco hippie. Creo que es muy de su momento, de la década pasada, pero yo creo que esa época, ya no es la nuestra, por las por las condiciones. O sea, porque estamos reaccionando y respondiendo y organizándonos frente a otros problemas.Chris: Claro, claro. Y si podrias actualizarlo en tus propios palabras, cuáles serían los temas más importantes [00:08:00] para cambiar o reemplazar? Alf: O sea, mira te voy a contar de otro libro, pero también es del norte.Entonces, pues no me encanta darle tanto entre ellos, pero un libro que, por ejemplo, le respondería fuerte de ese libro, sería este que me regalaban los de Traficantes, ahora que trabaje con ellos en en Madrid, que se llama Hacia Una Nueva Guerra Civil Mundial, de Lazzarato, no?Entonces digo, lo que pasa es que él es un leninista, no? Entonces, le pega duro, le pega duro. O sea, pero esto ha pasado siempre, pero hay varias banda que está respondiendo, no? O sea, por ejemplo, en el caso de este libro que te a acaba de mencionar Lazzarato.Pues él dice que los últimos 50 años, incluido militancia, que estaría al final de 50 años, lo político como tal no se habló? Entonces, si le aplicas Lazzarato a Militancia Alegre, efectivamente, nunca se habla de que a ver, o sea, el gobierno estadounidense control el mundo y va ganando. O sea, y hubieron luchas en los 60s, 70s, que lograron más o menos parar [00:09:00] ese imperialismo, los liberaciones nacionales, por ejemplo.Las luchas de empezamos por Vietnam, Malher y Cuba y acabando con otras. Si más o menos se le pudo parar a ese imperialismo de ese momento? Pero por ejemplo, Militancia en ni un solo momento habla de política en un sentido duro, no? O sea anti-Trump, por ejemplo, anti-global como global north o norte y global. O sea, en el sentido que gobiernan en el mundo, no?Y eso no se habla no? O sea, en ningún momento se dice bueno, nosotras, como norte, tenemos una deuda con el sur, no solo económica, sino política, no? O sea, en cuanto a no permitir la autonomía de los sur. Y palestina y Líbano es el, pues es el caso más extremo, no? Aunque aquí es lo mismo, no? O sea, la lucha la guerra contra los zapatistas es el mismo genocidio, con la misma bala. O sea el mismo inversionista, las mismas ganancias. Es el mismo genocidio. Entonces, pero no hablar de eso, no hablar de lo meramente político, [00:10:00] no? O sea de como Morena trabaja para el gobierno gringo y mata a los zapatistas y los centroamericanos. Al no hablar de este tipo de cosas como duramente políticas.O sea, como Trump controla a la milicia mexicana, la la la. Pues sí que es un libro hippie, no? O sea, en el sentido de que, ahí los leninistas tienen un punto. En este caso, Lazzarato pero mucha otra banda, al contestarle a la banda anárquica. Si muy chida la amistad y muy chida la... Lets tune in.O sea, está bien, pero tú estás parada en un mundo que de beneficia de destruir este mundo donde tú y yo estamos parada, no? Entonces, de muchas maneras: lo real, lo simbólico en lo económico. El turismo, para mí solo es un capítulo de esa serie de industrias de muerte. Entonces no, al no hablarlo.Yo pienso que es un libro que omite el lugar de enunciación principal, que es el imperio si habla del imperio, pero yo siento que si le faltó lo político político. Osea, como el norte domina y controla [00:11:00] al sur, el gobierno del norte en concreto. Al no hablar eso pues si hizo darle un libro que pues no sé cómo va a envejecer. O sea, digo, bueno, a ver cómo le va, porque porque sí que sirve para lo que sirvió Tiqqun y esas cosas en su momento que era contestarle a la izquierda vertical, por decir así. Pero ese momento, por lo menos en el norte, ya pasó, no? Y ellos esos mismos ya regresaron a la verticalidad.O sea, los que atacaron al leninismo, estamos en esta otra. Entonces chistosasto porque ellos tienen sus propios ciclos y nosotras tenemos otros ciclos de lucha, no? Y otras genealogías y otras retóricas. O sea, es muy diferente. Ahí la traducción. Por eso milita tanto ese libro porque, había que defender nuestro propio contexto, no?Y decir bueno, es la genealogia de ellos, la nuestra tiene otras conceptos. O sea, ha ganado guerras y revoluciones. Hay muchos triunfos en nuestra historia del sur. De hecho, en la del norte hay más derrotas y en cambio, [00:12:00] las liberaciones nacionales, pues prácticamente todas triunfaron, si las piensas, contra el imperialismo. Claro que ya no está de moda hablar de eso porque de colonial ya está en otra... ya se fue a otro lado. No? La mayoría de de anticolonial ya no está viniendo su genealogía en las luchas de liberación nacional y o la violencia?Ya la violencia pasó de moda y justo este libro tiene algo de eso? Como de no hay que hablar de cómo en México tuvimos que tirar balazos para recuperarlo un poco que tenemos. No! Hay que hablar de la amistad del amor, la ternura. Esa parte es la que yo pienso que ya no le habla mucho a nuestro tiempo y a ver qué va a pasar después, a ver qué va a pasar después.No, aunque tienes utilidad, no? O sea, mucha gente que está en el activismo vive con mucho, cariño de ese libro y está bien. O sea, Creo que está bien. Yo creo que le falta la parte política y negativa, pero bueno, no lo pudimos pedir todo a un solo libro. No. Eso es lo que hicieron los europeos con nosotros, traer la biblia y [00:13:00] matarnos pretexto de un solo libro. Entonces yo creo que no hay que caer. Eso es, es colonial quererle pedir todo a un solo libro. Si ese libro dio lo que tuvo que dar en su contexto y ese contexto para mí pasó este listo. O sea, fue una herramienta útil que respondió y ya este lo que sigue. Chris: Pues sí, este recuerdo que hubo una, una nota de pie en en el libro, de Silvia Federici y la tengo.La cita aquí decía que"lo que más importa es descubrir y recreer la memoria colectiva de las luchas pasadas. En los Estados Unidos, hay un intento sistemático de destruir esta memoria. Y ahora esto se está extendiendo por todo el mundo. Revivir la memoria de las luchas del pasado nos hace sentir ser parte de algo más grande que nuestras vidas individuales y de esta manera de un nuevo sentido a lo que estamos haciendo y nos da coraje, porque nos hace tener menos miedo en lo que [00:14:00] nos puede pasar individualmente." Y siento que hay algo allá como también la, no sé si está impulsado desde arriba o si es solo una falta de memoria, pero sí, siento que es, es muy fuerte que hay una falta de linaje, en la política en el día de hoy, en los momentos sociales contemporáneos. Pero pues, quería preguntarte un poco de tus experiencias también con el turismo. Me gustaría preguntarle de qué tipo de reacciones recibiste, recibieron cómo resultado del podcast y si esas conversaciones cambiaron sus ideas sobre los temas tratados.Alf: Este una parte había que preguntárselo directo a Pame porque yo creo que ella lo vivió a su forma también. Pero bueno, pues fue muy chido. Primero que nada, lo lo bonito. Ese programa varias cosas. Primero, ese programa fue apoyado por el instituto de estudios anarquistas americano, y eso [00:15:00] fue lindo, tener el apoyo. O sea, no precarizarnos tanto. Y tampoco tener que pedirle dinero a gente de mierda para hacer co chidas no, eso siempre se siente bien. Como no traicionar el contenido, o sea que vaya mucho la forma con el fondo, no. Entonces, de entrada, eso fue muy alegre. De segunda gran alegría, yo siempre trabajo a puerta cerrada.Yo soy un poco celosa de mi trabajo. Entonces, pues a abrir la puerta y trabajar con no solo dos, vieron un podcast que éramos cuatro, cinco. Eso es rarísimo. Yo nunca había hecho eso. Yo no suelo hacer eso. Si, trabajo con gente, pero no con el micrófono, normalmente no, eh?Siempre trabaj o con grupos y movimientos y cosas, pero digamos que a puerta cerrada por decir así o o coyunturas específicas. Entonces, primero la congruencia que yo siento que tuvo ese programa, como alinearnos en un anarquismo internacionalista, que yo creo que hay que recuperar.El internacionalismo en general, eh? Y creo que a [00:16:00] veces la lucha contra el turismo sin querer se vuelve muy nacionalista y no distingue entre migrante y turista esas cosas, como en un México, es mejor que todo lo demás. Un poco raro, pero bueno, antes de perderme, yo creo que ahí hubo un gesto internacionalista lindo.O sea, entre anarquistas del norte con los del sur primero y segundo, pues, abrir el micro porque que yo no es algo que suelo o solía hacer hasta hace hasta este año, por decir, o sea, yo llevo en un monólogo de locutora varios años porque mi parte social la hago cuerpo a cuerpo, por decir así. Y ya te podría platicar muchas cosas.Pero a mí me emociono muchísimo el programa con Tejiendo a la Organización Revolucionaria, eh? La verdad me encantó. O sea, a mí ellos me parece que hacen un trabajo importante. Y me parece que nuestro tiempo se está pensando desde los revolucionarios también. No necesariamente como la decada pasada la insurreccional y el todo se vale.Este, yo creo que está [00:17:00] cambiando un poco esos enfoques y justo ellos que llevan más de 20 años y son como 50 personas organizadas desde abajo con mucha claridad y mucha fuerza. Pues hicimos un puente muy chido, no entre en anarquismo y otras partes de la izquierda radical, que normalmente no nos damos la mano y no platica.O sea, no es común ni es fácil. Y cuando se da, suele ser tenso. Y no hubo para mí nada de tensión, al revés. Hubo una complementación muy chida contorno. Es el último capítulo de Emergente. Bueno, o sea, y siento que conecta con Militancia Alegre. O sea, llamarla en militancia y no "activismo alegre" era una provocación de los autores.Y yo creo que movimiento es como ?, entre muchos otros que se mencionan justos son militantes, no activistas, no? O sea que el activista tiene genealogía muy del norte y muy de los noventas para acá. Y yo creo que ellos como que leídos por "los cool" que Militancia Alegre sigue siendo el libro más cool, como que no suelen voltear, la gente cool, no suele voltear a ver a ese tipo de militancias como Thor. [00:18:00] Todos estuvieron muy chidos, pero yo le tengo especial cariño, a ese último, porque sí, pienso que hay que pensar alianzas insólitas, como todas las izquierdas radicales, tratar de articular. Y para mí, eso lo más cercano fue contorno. Y yo lo sigo reescuchando. Y hay cosas que me dejar pensando, por ejemplo, lo que dicen de los sectores de la clase trabajadora, que hay un sector indígena, entonces se pelean entre ellos y como son sectorizados, en fin a mí, hay varias cosas que ellos me hacen pensar. Me hacen pensar mucho. Y su chamba es muy chida. Solo que, como no es la más cool y como nice. No tiene este super diseño ni nada. Pues mucha gente no les presta atención. Entonces yo, para mí, fue importante darles el micro a ellos y más bien me faltaron programas con ellos, la verdad.Entonces, para mí, eso fue muy lindo, con el pretexto del libro, porque la verdad, casi ni hablamos o muy poquito. Ya haber podido entrevistar, por ejemplo, a Raquel Gutiérrez. De poder pues yo hubiera [00:19:00] entrevistado a John Holloway. O sea, yo me hubiera seguido. Lo que pasa es que la chamba entrevistadora es muy distinta a la que yo hago como locutora, o sea, es otro camino. Y pues, el recurso. Pues no lo hay. Claro. Claro. Porque esa lo pudimos hasta pagar un poquitito de dinero a la gente que entrevistamos. Pudimos autocobrar un poquitito. Pagarle a la diseñadora. Fue muy distinto a todo lo que yo hago. No este ese ese programa.Insisto por el apoyo internacionalista que poco o mucho, pues fue muy lindo tener, porque normalmente no se puede pagar entrevistas y cosas, que es chistoso tanto tanto de lucha de clases, con compas que pu pues obviamente les cuesta venir para acá. Chris: Ya no, pues es muy difícil, pero sí, fue un episodio muy bonito. Y lo voy a poner en el sitio web d El Fin de Turismo cuando lanzamos este podcast y también por los que quieren saber, es el último episodio de Alegría Emergente. Pues, hablando de tus obras Alf [00:20:00] en Pepitas de Calabaza, exploras algunos temas periférico de turismo, desde la Merida en la que creciste, los chiqui loteros o aquellos que dividen grandes lotes en lotes pequeños para venderlos a un precio normalmente superior, a veces a extranjeros. Es uno de esos temas.Cómo influyó tu tiempo en Merida en tu comprensión del turismo? Alf: Primero, extender un poco la la invitación a la lectura de mi trabajo. Este el tema de la propiedad y del turismo y del colonialismo, básicamente atraviesa toda toda mi obra, pero medida en concreto que que te interesa con Pepitas también es algo que menciono en el libro nuevo.Él No Existe Dique Capaz de Contar y hablo específicamente de cómo el turismo, la industria del turismo ha ido como arrebatándonos a quienes venimos de las clases populares. Crecimos abajo y demás, sobre todo el placer, el ocio. Olvídate de la [00:21:00] tierra. Si el acceso al agua, una serie de cosas, no.Entonces ahí se trabaja un poco más elabor adamente pero efectivamente desde Pepitas. Pues a mí, es un tema que me, central en mi trabajo. El tema del colonialismo, porque para mí, hablar de turismo se hablar de colonialismo actual, colonialismo interno externo, pero es el colorismo vigente. O sea, es un desplazamiento, parte de un proceso de desplazamiento em.Entonces, en Pepitas, pues efectivamente eso es un protagonista, que digamos es el burgués nacional, por decirlo como muy teóricamente el chiquilotero, le decimos regionalmente, que es el es el terrateniente. No es Carlos Slim. O sea, no es el más rico, el lo rico, pero es, digamos, el terrateniente de mediano alcance que puede comprar tierra y fragmentarla y venderla, especular con la tierra, al final. Pero en el sur resiste, el año pasado, para para subir el tono a lo político otra vez... El el año pasado en el sur [00:22:00] resiste, nos decía el Congreso Nacional Indígena, que la mitad de la tierra en México es propiedad social, no? Y esto lo platicaba presentando no Existe Dique con Yasnaya Aguilar porque Oaxaca es un caso distinto y da mucha envidia.Tiene una tercera forma de tierra que en la tierra comunal, pero no vamos entrar a las legalidades. El sureste de México, como representa a Paco y hablo en mi segundo libro también este de ah, el turismo ha entrado porque legalmente, desde el 92 se cambió la constitución y se ha roto la propiedad ejidal y ha entrado la propiedad privada, no?Entonces, para llevarlo lo meramente político, luchar en contra del turismo hoy en México sería exigir que no se pueda vender, como en Oaxaca existe la propiedad comunal, no en ninguna otra parte del país hasta donde yo sé, que no se pueda legalmente vender esa tierra. Entonces, para no abstraer, o sea para ir a concreto, el turismo avanza, por el primermundista, coludido con [00:23:00] con con el tercermundista de la clase alta, en este caso, Paco, para romper la la propiedad social y meter la propiedad individual o privada, no? Si hubiera un mecanismo que la revolución mexicana nos heredó, ese mecanismo legal no podría existir el turismo en México, por lo menos no legalmente. Entonces, como desde el 92, se terminó de caer lo que nos quedaba de revolucion mexicana y que se peleó a balazos. Hay que recuperar esa negativa. En el 92 se cambia, es perdemos eso que habíamos ganado la revolución. Y entonces el turismo ya explotan. Y eso es muy notorio para gente que somos del sur.O sea, si yo te cuento cómo fui a Tulum por primera vez, y cuando volví a Tulum 10 o 20 anos después, o cómo fui a Zipolite por primera vez. Y eso es el resultado. O sea, te puedo escribir 30 libros, pero todo eso es result resultado específicamente una partecita de la constitución que menciona en mi segundo libre, legal, que permitió destruirlo lo que ganamos en la revolución mexicana, [00:24:00] que es la propiedad colectiva, en algunos casos propiedad indígena en otros casos, simplemente propiedad social de las clases populares.Y esto lo he trado mucha gente y me fui enterando estando con la gente en territorio, por ejemplo, con la asamblea de defensores de territorio Maya Muuch Xiinbal, ellos en la práctica, me enseñaron toda esta serie de mecanismos y defensas caminando con los pueblos, estando ahí. O sea, porque hay que estar ahí a veces para entender la magnitud.O sea, si tú lo piensas, el los muchos pueblos indígenas y clases populares son dueñas de hectáreas, el 40% del país, está en sus manos a nivel de propiedad legal, pero la propiedad privada va ganando, no, no. Y para mí, el turismo solo es un pedacito de ese proyecto colonizador actual, que va, va quitándonos, lo poquito que ganamos en la revolución mexicana. Bueno, ganamos varias cosas: la educación pública, salud pública, todo eso lo van privatizando. Pero es muy loco tierra y territorio, porque es muy específico. O sea 40 percent versus [00:25:00] 60 percent, un artículo de constitución, no hay que perdernos, osea. Ahí está. Pero mira el ombligo del pedo. Ajá. Chris: Mm, gracias. Me gustaría proponer algunos algunas preguntas, algunas provocaciones. Quizás respeto de cómo el turismo y más bien, más recientemente, las entrecomillas invasiones de turistas, nómadas digitales a México desde la pandemia y otras partes también. O sea, no es solo México, pero obviamente hay otros lugares.Y pues, hay ciertas cosas que ha surgido en otros episodios de podcast, respeto de el radicalismo rígido, y como lo veo a veces culturas de descartabilidad, que siento que es algo fundamental y también como desconocido en cómo funciona, pues la modernidad, la colonia, toda ese trayectoria [00:26:00] de mierda. Pero lo vemos mucho. Siento, siento yo en los redes sociales. Entonces, me gustaría preguntarte, qué piensas sobre los efectos de las redes sociales en los contextos de las luchas contemporáneas, pero también bajo de este contexto de turismo, de las invasiones en México. Entonces mi pregunta es, cómo crees que las redes sociales contribuyen al radicalismo rígido?Alf: Eh? Pues mira, yo creo que no solo contribuyen radicalismo rígido, o sea, respondiendo muy rápidamente. Yo creo que el algoritmo está diseñado y eso lo sabe la mayoría, espero, supongo este para generar estos echo-chambers que le llaman. Entonces, yo creo que lo mínimo, o sea, lo más x es que genere radicalismo rígido yo creo que en realidad la [00:27:00] ultraderecha está ganando en el mundo por las redes sociales. Y esto no lo digo yo. Esto está demostradisimo. O sea, Milei, Trump y todo el fascismo en el poder que desgraciadamente es, yo calculo la mitad del planeta, Bukele, etcétera, Bolsonaro, tienen mucho que ver con lo que aquí sería Chumel Torres, con lo que aquí sería Eduardo Verastegui. Tiene todo que ver, no?Y yo creo que eso, el pensamiento crítico, como le nos queremos llamar a este el otro lado antifascista sea, no hemos tomado suficientemente en serio eso como un enemigo, no? Porque volviendo la negatividad, el resentimiento, pues hay ese es un nuevo enemigo. Para mí, hay que destruirlo este.Acomodé lugar, o sea, como tenga que hacer. Entonces, esto lo hablaba también con Benja, la pareja de Yasnaya, el día de mi presentación en Volcana. O sea, qué pasa que mucha izquierda, mucho pensamiento crítico y todo, no quiere hacer pop. Entonces la derecha sí que está haciendo [00:28:00] pop y por eso ganó Trump, y por eso está Milei en el poder, porque hacen un un tipo de redes sociales poperas. No tienen miedo a reducir el pensamiento, a provocar. No tienen miedo porque tienen el poder, obviamente, controlan el mundo. En concreto, Trump, no? Entonces, nosotras desde el miedo y desde un un clasicismo extraño, un machismo raro, como que decimos el "pop" está mal porque reduce. Ser influencer está mal porque hace de lo abstracto. Lo reduce. Lo simplifica. Y ese es un problema. Es un problema grande que tiene que para mí tiene que ver con el problema de la es escolarización. Pero para contestarte, y yo creo que las redes sociales sostienen al fascismo actual, más que cualquier otra cosa, yo creo que más que ninguna otra cosa. Y por eso nos gobiernan celebridades y estamos en una fase nueva de la política como espectáculo. Y no estábamos ahí, volvemos a militancia como un libro que ya no responde a esta época, yo no siento que Obama era eso.Yo no [00:29:00] siento que el PRIismo y el PANismo era eso. Estamos en otro momento, entonces, como siempre la izquierda o como lo quieras llamar, el pensamiento, el antifascismo general, que a mi me da igual los conceptos, como siempre estamos lentas, lentas en reaccionar. Porque? Pues porque nos asusta. Las redes sociales, yo pienso que nos están bombardeando, emocionalmente con el genocidio. Yo creo que la manera en que están manejando la imagen del genocidio está tronando la salud mental, terminando de tronar, si no, es que ya la había tronado de buena parte de de de quienes estamos contra de Trump y Milei, por decir el amor que yo espero que seamos más o de la mitad de la tierra otra vez, este me gusta creer. Entonces eso, yo creo que estamos lentas porque quieren ellos porque nos han tronado la la salud mental. Y eso hace que nos aletargamos en responder con la fuerza con la que ellos, o sea nos faltan influencers un poco más rudos, para decirlo como es, o sea un poco más tan fuertes y provocadores como ellos.Yo [00:30:00] siento que los influencers de este lado hacen un trabajo importante, pero muy suave. O sea, está muy abajito. Muy bien portado. Cuando tú escuchas a Bukele, tú escuchas hablar a Milei o Trump y son los provocadores, realmente. Este, no le tienen miedo a decir pendejadas. Y la izquierda, sí. Sí, le tienen miedo a cagarla. Cuando no se dan cuenta que lo que están haciendo ellos es provocar para mover, no? O sea, la gente sabe que es una exageración. Los votantes de Milei de Bukele y de Trump saben que dicen mucha, es un borracho, que está diciendo pendejadas, pero van y votan. Chris: Claro. Alf: La izquierda no está logrando subir el tono. Al revés. O sea, entre más, baja en el fondo y más banderitas de palestina, como que más bien portadas, somos. Y entonces, ah, "pues vamos a hablar de la cultura de palestina, que es muy importante. Es muy bonita. Pero yo te apuesto que se hubieran influencers diciendo vamos a tirarles bombas y vamos a matar sería más fuerte, no? O sea, le daría [00:31:00] miedo a ellos como ha pasar, si ha pasado la historia en los 70. Esto sí que pasó. Si le dábamos miedo a ellos. Ya no le damos miedo. Y yo creo que eso tiene todo que ver con como el imperialismo hoy, es un algoritmo. Antes era otra cosa, y es un imperialismo de la mente y de las emociones.Y es meramente como manejan la imagen. Osea, da igual lo que nos muestren, sino la manera en que se utiliza el discurso de Trump y la manera en que se utiliza la imagen del genocidio, no el genocidio. Eso a ellos no les importa, sino el uso, nos truenan, nos truenan todo el tiempo.Entonces no logramos articular. No logramos reconocernos. Empezamos a competir, nos peleamos y es porque ellos van ganando. Han habido otros momentos de la historia donde este lado de veras le daba miedo sin idealizarlo porque también puede ser muy machista. Este le daba miedo a Trump y a los Trumps. O sea, se [00:32:00] cagaban de me decían no, no.Entonces, bueno, van a matar, no? Y entonces, había algo positivo ahí. Había algo positivo ahí y eso se perdió, nuestra propia capacidad de dar miedo y defendernos. Se ha ido perdiendo. O sea, y es muy material, porque matan defensores del territorio cada semana, así como palestinos y libaneses con la misma pistola, la misma arma. Cada semana los matan. Entonces, pues, claro que da miedo de subir el tono. No porque siento que te van a matar. Hay un fantasma. Entonces, yo creo que las redes sociales se tienen toda la culpa y que están gestionadas maravillosas, perfectas, las redes sociales y y el internet porque permitió que el imperialismo, se vuelva.O sea que lo cargues a todos lados, que desees el fascismo. Y eso está en las pantallitas y en el celular. Lo manejaron muy bien. El que lo explica más bastante bien es, Adam Curtis, en Can't Get You Outta My Head. Y creo que eso hay que tomarlo [00:33:00] todavía más enserio, porque la gente nada más dice "ah, pinche Chumel Torres". No, wey. O sea, es el cáncer de esta sociedad. O sea, no se explicar. Es un verdadero enemigo y "ah x solo es un panista ahí raro." Lo que quiero decir es que no le damos la seriedad, como que no estamos leyendo el imperio en su nueva fase y cómo se maneja. Chris: Pero entonces, tú crees que las maneras que podemos socovar el algoritmo es de, quitarnos de la pantalla? O sea, pero cómo está también el algoritmo no solo internalizándose según yo en los movimientos, pero en las mentalidades de la gente y dentro de los movimientos?Alf: Claro que yo no tengo una respuesta, pero a mí se me ocurre que esto ya se intentado muchas veces como crear nuestros propios tecnologías. Lo que pasa es que nunca van a ser igual de atractivas y poderosas, como clase de quienes controlan la tierra, porque pues por algo [00:34:00] las controlan y van ganando no? Porque tienen todos los recursos y toda la inteligencia puesta ahíEntonces, si los movimientos ya les pueden tener redes sociales, pero pero sus posts no tienen ningún alcance y eso está gestionado desde arriba. Entonces este es un problema más profundo que tiene que ver con el problema de la imagen y su gestión. O sea, al controlar el algoritmo, el imperio, lo que está controlando son las imágenes y las narrativas. Las gestionan, a eso me refiero con imperialismo. O sea, vemos lo que el imperio quiere que veamos y se acabó. O sea, es una nueva fase porque no necesariamente tienes al gringo gobernando a tu país como lo fue antes de la revoluciones nacionales, por ejemplo, pero tienes el celular que sólo te va a mostrar lo que le conviene al gobierno gringo o mayoritariamente.Entonces quebrar el algoritmo es quebrar el imperio, o sea la verdad, o sea, no es otra cosa que eso . Y eso hace que lo [00:35:00] cool sea cool y lo no cool que suele ser más importante, no se vea y no tenga acceso recursos y no generar imágenes chidas. Y si logras de una imagen, no tiene ningún alcance. O sea, es muy notorio para mi trabajo.O sea, si yo subo mi gatito 500 views, si yo subo el tipo de cosas que estamos platicando 5. Sí, claro. Es super evidente, no el manejo de la imagen y la gestión. Entonces, pues hay que volver. Hay que volver a la auto publicación. Hay que volver a los medios libres como se estuvieron haciendo hasta si varias decadas. O sea, y rehacerlo recuperarlos, repensarlos. La gente que se está yendo a Mastodon en redes sociales. La gente que se está saliendo de los algoritmos, los más feos. Digo, no sé qué tanto lo vamos a lograr. O sea, por eso yo, mi parte política, la vivo más en presencial. O sea, yo voy. Trato de ir ahora que se cumplen 50 años de Lucio cada año, hacer pueblo, estar con el pueblo, ser pueblo. O sea, porque [00:36:00] claro que si yo no voy, nunca me voy a enterar.Y si no camino con, como te conté, la asamblea maya, aunque sea cinco minutos, yo no me entero de que el pedo principal de todo esto es simplemente un artículo de la constitución, no? Entonces, o sea, pon tú que ellos postan en internet. Quién lo escucha? Nadie muy poca gente, pero eso es por quien controla.Que la info no llegue no. Entonces, claro. Entonces a eso voy, o sea, hay un problema con la imagen. O sea, hay un gran problema con la imagen porque también lo que la ultra derecho y el fascismo ha logrado perfectamente bien en nuestra época. Es que la gente prefiere el reconocimiento y el like, el premio no que la reparación real.Y entonces las redes sociales están basadas en un nuevo modelo de contra insurgencia y de pacificación y neutralización política, que es, yo voy, te doy un premio, yo voy y te muestro, yo te doy un like, pero para que ya te calles, no. Y para que no digas las cosas, [00:37:00] estamos decían, es un solo artículo.Si echamos para atrás de artículo, pues vamos a parar buena parte de los capitales colonialistas y turísticos hoy, etc. O sea a lo que voy es que van y te premian, van y te likean para que te vayas pacificando. Y ahí hubo un cambio estrategia que también estamos muy lentas en sí, porque los setentas te mataban, a las clases medias organizadas políticamente. Hoy no. Hoy no es así.Hoy matan a la gente de abajo, a los defensores que viven y habitan las clases populares, el territo y a la clase media la premia pa que te calles. Entonces, cómo te premian haciendo que el algoritmo te vea mucho y hables mucho y produzcas mucho contenido, pero es un contenido. Te repito muy bien portado.Es un contenido suave, que omite las partes políticas que omite temas de imperialismo contra insurgencia, bla, bla, osea. Habla de todo lo demás, formas de vida, ternura radical, [00:38:00] consumo alternativo, sororidad solidaria, todo lo que tú quieras, excepto si no le cortamos la cabeza a Trump, esa condición no para. O sea, no sé si me explico.Menos lo más importante, digo, lo estoy caricaturizando. Cortando la cabeza de Trump no vamos a parar el periodismo, pero me estás entendiendo. Están manejando la censura y estamos ya hablan de tecno tecnofeudalismo. Estamos regalándole un contenido que soporta el imperialismo y no nos damos... estamos tan enajenadas en este momento con el algoritmo que trabajamos para el gratis.No? Y me incluye, o sea mis PDFs, son gratis. Mi radio es gratis. Yo soy una esclava del internet y se acabó, no? Y entonces, en la medida en que no lo sepamos, sentir la negatividad de ese despojo y de cómo todas trabajamos para el imperio. Nos gusta no poco mucho, este pues más nos enajenamos no? O sea, porque yo no cobro por mis ramas de radio.Yo no cobro por el PDF [00:39:00] literal. Me despoja y me precariza en un sentido duro, directo. El pedo es que decirlo es fuerte porque la gente, pues como escucha en tu programa o el mío, y nos va MXN $5. Bien, pues la gente se compra la amiga y dice que padre, el internet me ven. Cuando solo te está viendo la gente que piensa como tú. Y ya nadie más. O sea, ni un solo seguidor más. Gente que ya pensaba como tú, antes de llegar a tu contenido. Entonces, en realidad no estamos logrando hacer propaganda, no? Y yo creo que es super importante, porque porque en la medida siempre trabajamos con los que piensan como nosotras, no estamos empujando el ese 50 percent fascista, al reves, lo respetamos y decimos, bueno, yo trabajo con el 50%. Me quedo en el 40% de la propiedad social y nunca empujo la propiedad privada o el 50% fascista.Y ya ahí te quedas que es muy cómodo también hablar entre nosotras. Pues que nadie te también te madres que nadie te mande [00:40:00] bots. Porque a mí lo que hacen es que me atacan en internet, no? Entonces, cada vez que digo lo que hay que decir, pues me mandan bots y me asustan me, como mucha gente, no, te amenazan.Y todos eso esta perfectamente gestionado, en México desde Peña Nieto, del Peña bots. Se siente muy claramente esas tecnologías. Muchas veces israeles. Se siente muy clarito, no? Y funcionan perfectamente bien, porque pacifican y neutralizan maravillosamente. Ya la gente deja de lo que hay que decir porque tú sientes que... o sea, porque tú sientes lo general, el efecto contrario, las censuras se siente como premiOChris: total. Muchas gracias. Alf. me gustaría provocar un poco ese idea que la algoritmo sólo nos este en suavece. En suaveza, dijiste? En suavece. Ajá. Ajá, porque pues, [00:41:00] también a mí parece que algoritmo está pidiendo, metiendo, reforzando la rabia.Y hace hace poco descubrí, descubrí un libro llamado Discard Studies en inglés, Estudios de Descarte, que intenta formular hipótesis no solo en torno a las historias sociales de la basura y contaminación, pero sino también del exilio y desplazamiento. Y la idea en los estudios del descarte es que todas estas cosas están muy relacionadas entre sí.Las redes sociales creen una plataforma para los también expulsiones sociales en forma de cancelaciones o escrachees, por ejemplo. Alf: Mm-hmm. Chris: Entonces, también que si el el algo ritmo está imponiendo, invitándonos a ser más pacíficos, siento que hay una manera que está imponiendo, impulsando, invitándonos a descartar, tirar, la [00:42:00] gente entre los movimientos sociales, o sea, entre movimientos sociales, también en la manera interpersonal.Y quería preguntarte sobre eso y las consecuencias a las luchas de largo plazo. Alf: Mm-hmm. Mira, yo siento que si se habló particularmente en el segundo capítulo de Alegria Emergente con un invitado que se llama Tomás Calles. Con él, se habló eso. Mira, yo siento que que es bien complicado este tema, porque para mí, el escrache pues que últimamente más sé hoy es el escrache que llegar con el género, con abuso sexual. Y a la vez, yo creo que hay que hacerle su genealogía completa el escrache porque el escrache cada vez... o sea, si lo sacamos de género y lo metemos a la política, clase, a raza, y a todo lo demás, este de si tú te das cuenta, todo el tiempo, volviendo al 50 facho y al no facho, el 50% facho ha estrechado al 50% no facho. Todo este es el tema del control de las narrativas y las imagenes. O sea, [00:43:00] si tú ves la imagen, por ejemplo y para mí, es una forma de escracheeo pre nuestra época. Si tú ves como Estados Unidos, creo la imagen de Cuba, es una forma de escrache, no? O sea, como, voy a hablar super mal de esos wey. Voy a decir. Voy a publicar todos los libros y todos los contenidos que hablen mal de Cuba, no?Y para mí, hay un escracheeo ahí, un pre escracheeo, por decir así. Entonces, en términos políticos, que te vuelvo a decir que siento que son los cabezas, nos faltan en toda esta discusión. Siempre ha existido y va a existir formas de manipular y de destruir cuando la gente está haciendo cosas más o menos chidas, pues te van a buscar dónde y ahí te van a chingar, no?Y el gobierno también participa eso con sus bots, no? Y su manejo de la información, de la distribución de la información en concreto. Entonces, yo siento que el escrache hay que verlo como también como parte de la contra insurgencia, no todos los escrachees, porque hay escrachees que, por ejemplo, no se vuelven públicos y se vuelven en procesos, por ejemplo, [00:44:00] de... o sea, no es la denuncia pública el punitivismo como ejercicio de castigo ejemplar público, hay escrachees o denuncias en concreto, que más bien se vuelven en ejercicios de justicia reparativa, puertas cerrada, que han sido efectivos.Y yo me he enterado de varios y me han invitado a varios procesos. Este y con varios movimientos. Yo me he dado cuenta de la justicia ejercía por nosotras mismas. Sí, llevada a cabo reparar cosas concretas con soluciones concretas sin hacer una imagen, sin darle al algoritmo lo que nos quita todo el tiempo - tiempo, energía, sin darle la fotita donde dice "para hacer tu eescrache chido habla..." o sea, simplemente resolver, es lo que muchas cosas en internet no hacen. Hablan pero no acciones, y tú puedes hablar lo que quieres siempre y cuando no actúes. Ese es el gran truco de la red social. No hablemos todo, mientras no cambiemos nada.Este entonces nada. Yo siento que el escrache pues hay que verlo así como, tiene una parte [00:45:00] chida para mí, sobre todo a puerta cerrada, como de procesos que yo llamaría, justicia reparativa, restaurativa, osea que no tienden a la imagen, puede crear una imagen, pero no es su fin su objetivo final, sino reparar daños específicos con soluciones específicas, no caso por caso, sin abstraer a ese, este versus un tipo de escrache liberal, blanqueado, espectacular, chafa, que lo único que ha hecho es contra insurgencia. Cada vez que hay liderazgos. "Ah, es un macho," no? Cada vez que hay movimiento sociales, "ah, trabajan para los rusos, trabajan para los chinos, este, reciben dinero, reciben dinero de tal, este." Ose y el escrache, si es una de las mejores herramientas, porque genera volvemos en el tema de narrativas y imágenes, no que contraponen lo que ha ganado.Osea, yo te voy a dar un fondo a ti como activista para que hables del turismo, todo lo que tú quieras, siempre y cuando no hables de esto y de esto, okey, [00:46:00] entonces tu envía a cobrar y te va a super bien. Y te voy el súper famoso y que chido.Pues esa es la lucha que nos vaya bien materialmente a todas. Pero a ti te censuraron. Te dijeron sólo hablas de, entonces, fíjate, volvimos al tema del escrache. O sea mucha de esa gente eescracheada. Voy a poner uno. Miguel Peralta. El caso de Miguel Peralta, para mí sería un caso de escrache, no este Miguel Peralta hoy está perseguido por el estado mexicano y mucha gente te va a decir que es un machista. Te va a decir muchas cosas, pero no te va a decir la otra parte, no? La parte política de su lucha, contra un gobierno que el gobierna, por no decir Samir Flores como un escrache, por no decir Hortensia Telesforo con un tipo de escrache.O sea, si me estás cachando? O sea, y entonces que pasa que que desde arriba, como controla la narrativa y controlan la imagen y la distribución de la información. Te dicen a ver, yo te voy a pagar por una cosa, pero cállate la otra. Entonces pon la banderita de colores. Y ya CDMX es gay y es trans, [00:47:00] pero nunca vuelves a hablar de clase social.Por favor que el pobre siga siendo pobre. Ella solo habla Alf de trans, no? Si te das cuenta, es como el escrache. O sea, el escrache dice vamos a destruir el liderazgo político de Miguel Peralta poniendo ultra énfasis en su lado machista, que que yo no dudo que haya tenido como muchos líderes y como mucha gente, o sea, yo no estoy diciendo que no, solo estoy diciendo la manera en que se utiliza ese tipo de denuncias es para destruir el lado político. Muchas veces no todas. Mm, pero para poner un solo caso, y hoy, por hoy te estoy hablando de un caso de criminalizacion actual, como podríamos hablar de Samir Flores o Hortensia Telesforo y toda la contrainsurgencia. La contrainsurgencia es un tipo de escrache. Es que eso ya cambió.También te repito, la gente más visible van y le dan premios y le dan atención. A la gente menos visible, la matan o la criminalizan como Miguel. Están a punto de meterlo a la cárcel 50 años si no le prestamos atención [00:48:00] a ese caso, no? Que es lo que quieren, que no le prestamos atención. Entonces a eso voy, o sea, casi que ni importa el crimen, casi que no importa la falta del daño, sino el manejo. Hay como una economía, fíjate, hasta te diría yo, una economía de las quejas y una economía de la imagen que no estamos siendo conscientes. Estamos tan alejanadas, que nos vamos, por lo primero que nos dan "Ah, ese ese wey era un macho." Listo. Todo quedó o ese wey trabajo para china y hasta todo el trabajo que haya hecho, como trabaja para china, o como hablan de, por ejemplo, piensan las narrativas sobre ve Venezuela y Nicaragua y Cuba.O sea, es impresionante. Es escrache, o sea. Quién te va a hablar bien de ese tipo de países? Está difícilisimo Chris: o o al menos decir como, "no sé, no sé"... Alf: o al menos decir, "no sé," pero lo que quiero decir es que el independientemente lo que han hecho Venezuela y los machismos de izquierda, [00:49:00] el manejo de ese error.O sea, supongo, sí, yo creo que comete errores como toda la gente cometemos. El manejo es la parte más como las redes sociales, la distribución de esa información, es la que a mí me preocupa más. O sea, como, solo vamos a hablar de lo mierda, déjate claro, porque a Estados Unidos le conviene, que Miguel Peralta está en la cárcel, que Venezuela solo se una mierda, que China solo se una... que yo no dudo que tiene un lado de mierda, pero es interesante los límites del discurso.No puedes hablar de lo hecho. En el momento en el que dice es algo bueno. Cancelada. A la cárcel. Se acabó el pedo. Entonces a mí eso me llama la atención, porque la gente cree que es un momento de libertad discursiva. El fascismo va ganando, no? O sea, y eso es Trump, pero y eso es el genocidio Palestino y Libanes.Pero pero pero hay un síntoma de eso en que no podemos, no podemos hablar. Yo siento que el [00:50:00] internet es mucho más facho que lo previo. O sea, yo me siento mucho más censurada que lo que yo veo que ha pasado en el siglo 20. Me explico? La verdad. O sea, yo veo los discursos del Che Guevara y digo no, pues en ese tiempo podías hablar.Habla así hoy, balazo en la frente. Así es fácil. No amaneciste. Te desapareceria. Entonces digo, ganamos o perdimos en términos discursivos? No, yo pienso que perdimos porque tu ves la tele el siglo 20 y está hablaba sin que le den un balazo. Hoy, ya no hoy. Samir habló, lo mató Morena. Ya. Listo. O sea, hoy hablaban los Palestinos todos muertos.O sea, entonces yo creo que perdimos con internet. No ganamos, pero yo pienso que el turismo te repito, o sea, y el colonialismo, entonces solo es como una partecita. Sinceramente, yo pienso que es como un pedazo chiquitito, de todo una cosa más grande. Claro que es una industria que ha [00:51:00] ido ganando mucha fuerza, pero para mí se habría un contra turismo y un peregrinaje.Yo siento que hago peregrinaje. Fíjate, qué es lo que destruyó el o el turismo está reedificando cuando trato de acercarme los movimientos sociales, desde mi clase, o sea, desde mi color piel y todos mis contradicciones. Pues yo sigo a veces caminando, con gente que me ha enseñado cosas que nunca van a salir en el celular.Adrede no sabemos la verdad. Aunque las posten, no me van a llegar. Y entonces yo creo que si hay un contraturismo y un yo pienso que tendríamos que ir a buscar en el tema del peregrinaje o la hospitalidad radical . Por qué? Porque había un tema sagrado, no? O sea, había algo sagrado en el peregrino. No era turismo nada más de placer, aunque tenía a su lado del compartir y ocioso, pero para mí se recuperáramos la capacidad de defendernos, varias cosas que nos han quitado, la capacidad de hablar que yo creo que nos la quitaran a base de premios y views, no a base de castigos, pues habría un [00:52:00] peregrinaje, por el lado político, no?.Por ejemplo, me cuentan que el año que viene va haber en Brasil. No, mucha gente va a estar yendo a Brasil de diferentes latitudes. Y ese para mí, eso es contra turismo y peregrinaje político sagrado. No. Entonces la gente va o el Anticop, vas, o sea, el ir es súper importante porque tiras el suelo de la basura y estás cuerpo a cuerpo con una realidad que que el algoritmo imperialista quiere que no nos llegue, tu salir. Claro. El problema es que te insista. Está tan de moda, "muerte al turismo," que no es fácil hablar de que hay contraturismos muy importantes. Siempre lo han habido no? O sea, cuando los zapatistas dicen vengan, pasan cosas que no pasan.O sea que hay que ir, no. A huevo, hay que ir. Entonces, y eso es un contraturismo. Y el zapatista está super consciente. No viene puro gringo aquí, puros güerito. Cuál es el pedo así se politizan. Sí, yo creo que es más de clase media no tratar de [00:53:00] buscarle la deriva y darle la vuelta a la industria. Mmm. Y simplemente decir merte a todo el turismo. Pues sí, en la teoría suena muy bien, pero en lo práctica va ganando. Chris: Mmm, claro, y así pues me gustaría preguntarte también de ese hospitalidad radical, pero siento que muchos caen intentar a definir lo que es.Pero entonces me gustaría nada más de preguntarte igual de peregrinaje, si quieres, de si has en tus viajes o en casa, o sea en tu colonia barrio, encontrado lo que llamarías tu hospitalidad radical, en el camino.Alf: Mira yo, esto es algo que aprendí. O sea lo que lo que llama hospitalidad radical es algo que yo hice en la práctica toda mi vida y solo después empecé a elaborar. Pues yo me moví toda mi vida y me sigo moviendo principalmente en el underground. Queda de contracultura. Y pero por ejemplo, yo en el punk, en las [00:54:00] patinetas, como en la izquierda radical en general, con todas sus ramas, toda la vida, he ido y han venido.Y mi casa siempre ha sido la casa de mucha gente y es una práctica que no me había sentado a pensar, no?. Ese no quedarse en el hotel, ese tú llevar a la gente a pasear y mostrarle los lugares ocultos de la ciudad, no los lugares como limpios y en inglés. O sea, es algo que en el Punk y en el anarquismo de esas cosas está muy metido, no?Y yo tengo casa en muchos lugares del mundo porque también he dado casa a mucha gente de muchos lugares del mundo, desde muy chavita, desde tours de skate cuando tenía 14 años, llegaba gente de todos lados y se quedaban en mi casa y yo no me daba cuenta de que es algo, que si tú te vas al peregrinaje, la hospitalidad radical o como queremos llamar, a lo previo a los boom's inmobiliarios, turísticos. Pues siempre existió no? Siempre he existido, no? Entonces nada. Para mí es raro hablarlo porque porque para mí, no se cuestiona, no? O sea, yo recibo gente todo el tiempo y me [00:55:00] recibe gente todo el tiempo de de mucho. Últimamente ya se hizo más internacional. Pero antes era más entre pues, las sociedades chiquitas, lo que sea.Entonces yo te podía contar toda mi historia, a partir de ese eje, si tú quieres. Pero pero mi punto es que es una práctica que yo tengo integrada. O sea, no, nunca me la cuestioné. O sea, y yo como mucho lo que queda en la contracultura, lo que queda underground o sea, mucha gente así lo vive este. Y cada vez que a mí me invita, por ejemplo, la última vez que me invitaron a un pueblo, fue Yasnaya, que ya habíamos quedado de ir.Porque el programa lo escuchan los Mixes y todo. Y yo le dije "claro que sí." O sea a mí en el momento en que me digas cuando voy, yo voy. Y para mí hay algo, o sea, tiene que venir de un pueblo como el Mixe, la invitación para que no sea turismo. Para mí, tiene que haber un receptor explícito y una invitación. O sea, es parte de la economía del regalo y esas cosas que, que en los sures siempre hemos hecho y en el abajo siempre hemos hecho consciente o inconscientemente.Creo que ahora hay que empezar [00:56:00] a elaborarla también. Ahora que empezar a teorizarlo y pensarlo porque conforme avanza, la propiedad privada de la colonización, pues se va perdiendo esos comunalismos, porque son prácticas que los pueblos tienen, que las clases populares tienen, que los undergrounds. La gente se mueve todo el tiempo, todo el tiempo.Solo no se mueve de maneras fancy y y cool. O sea, la foto no es la bonita del Instagram. Entonces, por lo tanto, esa práctica que a mí lo interesa es la práctica, no tanto la conceptualización o la imagen. Pues no la logramos reproducir y va ganando el turismo comercial. Por darte otro ejemplo, varios pueblos en el sureste también me hablaban de turismo alternativo. Y, por ejemplo, armaban varias cosas con los pueblos alrededor pidiéndole permiso, volviendo al al 40% de la propiedad social y esa parte la constitución que habría que pedir que nos regresen, le pedían permiso a todos los ejidos. Entonces ibas en bici o pajareando [00:57:00] las cosas que hacen turismo normal, pero hablaban con los dueños de los ejidos con el de la propiedad social que yo y los zapatistas y mucha gente defendemos y le decían bueno, "voy a traer gringos que que como quieren que le hagamos. Pues da tu caguama" o "cuánto les vas a cobrar?" Y para mí es contraturismo, fíjate, y caminando con ellos en esos territorios. Lo aprendes. O sea, escuchando programas de radio y leyendo libros va a estar cabrón. O sea, hay que ir, no este y fíjate que interesante, porque ese 40% de esa propiedad social, pues bien, que podría recibir la lana, que se le da el hotel? No? Porque mucha de esta gente está muy precarizada, entonces no simplemente decir "ah, a la verga, el dinero en el turismo," sino a quien se lo damos y por qué. Cuando fíjate, yo veo en los pueblos ya iniciativas muy chidas de redistribución para este lado. Hay un montón de cooperativas muy chidas que redistribuyen lo opuesto a lo que hay un hotel. Pero volvemos al tema, pues como "no [00:58:00] son cool" y no tienen el diseño más chido y y no son influencers."Pues nadie se entera que que hay prácticas comunalistas que incluyen la movilidad de entre pueblos y entre personas muy chidas. O sea, la verdad. Yo he visto muchas proyectos de cooperativismo contraturístico increíbles. Entonces, bueno, eso. La gente que hace caminantes informativas, como pedagogías de caminantes como contraturísticas. Hay un montón de gente y un montón de cosas, historiadores radicales, ahí que hacen sus sus contradiscursos y llevan a la gente. Osea, yo creo que hay muchas, para mi, hay mucha esperanza ahí. Lo que pasa es que no la conectamos. O sea justo el algoritmo hace que no la alcances a ver y que te quedes, o sea, esa información, pon tu que la postan, no te va a llegar, no? O sea, está diseñado pa que no te llegue. Entonces, pero hay un montón de cosas muy chidas. Yo no vivo esa [00:59:00] distopia triste, que mucha gente vive de "yo valio verga". "Hay que dejar de movernos." Yo no lo vivo. Tampoco hay que ultra movernos. Yo pienso que el nomadismo en la clase media ya es una forma de de despojo también. Hay como no forzado en las clases medias. No abajo. Pero bueno, yo no lo vivo con esta doom ccomo sea. Condena. O sea, como de, ah, todo movimiento está de la verga, que hay gente muy esencialista que tu dice. "Todo turismo es una mierda."Y diría, bueno, pues vives con mucha culpa. Wey está muy bien. Se llama catolicismo. Y y lo conozco muy bien. Hay otras formas. O sea sin tanta culpa, le puedes dar tu lana a gente chida y no va a solucionar el problema, pero vaya que está más chido que dárselo al hotel y al colonialista y al que rompió la propiedad social.O sea, estás si algo haces, no es mínimo, pero algo haces. Pues eso a mi me ha tocado ver cositas que digo bueno, aquí hay algo no, [01:00:00] aquí hay algo. Pasa que también muchas veces iniciativas como rechazan "lo cool" no quieren ser muy visibles y no quieren ser muy famosas, pues ahí es el problema del comercio justo y el comercio alternativo, que busca, busca hacer un poco invisible a veces.Eso es problemático, no? Porque entonces, como mandamos a la banda con la banda chida, si la banda chida no quiere que le manden banda siempre. O sea, no quiere hacer negocio, no quiere hacer negocio porque se vuelve capitalistas. En fin. Pero ese, ese es otro problema, no el problema del cooperativismo.Chris: Claro. Ya pues, sobrebordando con temas y plática hermosa, Alf, pero si puedo antes de de terminar, me gustaría preguntarte sobre tu nuevo libro. No Existe Dique Capaz de Contener al Océano Furioso. Nos podrías contar un poco de que trata y cómo tus trabajos anteriores han influido en [01:01:00] ese nuevo?Alf: Sí, Chris: has mencionado un poquito, pero Alf: ajá. Este es un libro que que pueden comprar en varias librerías Volcana, en Polilla y ahí donde estás con don Gregorio, pronto queremos tener en Jícara, en Utópicas, en casa Casa Tomada y conmigo en internet, y lo pueden descargar en el PDF. Envíos. Yo hago también a todo el mundo. Pero, bueno, es un libro que básicamente, para decirlo en una frase, es mi experiencia y mi elaboración sobre el anarquismo o la izquierda radical en general. Básicamente. O sea, te cuenta un poco mi historia de vida y como yo lo viví, lo recibí. Y qué es lo que yo he investigado y pensado sobre una práctica? Que en este momento la historia le podría unos ya anarquismo, pero en otro me momento se llama otras formas, pero sí, como antiautoritaria, etcétera. Entonces, el libro es eso. O sea, es un ensayo personal, pero también es un [01:02:00] ensayo político filosófico, no? Entonces van las dos. Te voy narrando mi vida, pero también te voy narrando la historia de estas ideas y cómo las hevisto, en la práctica y practicado hasta dónde he podido.Mmm. Chris: Pues este me voy a asegurar que esos lugares en al menos en Oaxaca y además en línea, van a estar listados en el sitio web del fin de turismo cuando lance el episodio y este, pues en nombre de nuestros oyentes Alf, me gustaría expresarte mi más sincero agradecimiento por tu disposición de acompañarnos hoy, hablar estos temas complejos y garantizar que esta disidencia tenga un lugar en el mundo.Muchísimas gracias. Y cómo podríamos este encontrar tu trabajo en línea? O sea por redes sociales o Alf: Si? Lamentablemente, me encantaría que no, no tuviera que ser por ahí. Pero no, no me [01:03:00] quedó de otra. Si, mi trabajo principalmente yo tengo dos libros afuera que se consiguen las librerías que mencioné. Lo que hago como locutora se encuentra gratis en todos lados, es Un Sueño Largo Ancho y Hondo. Es u arroba @1slaaahh en varias redes sociales. Y nada le ponen ahí en internet y les va a salir gratis y como lo platicaba antes, pues todo va muy junto. Mi parte de ficción y mi parte pedagógica y política va bastante unificada.Es más o menos la misma onda pero si, digamos lo más inmediato es escucharla lo que hago, llevo varios años haciendo, como locutora. Entonces nada más le da un click y ya está. Y les pido ahí que me den likecito que me den el porque hasta ahora no, no hay quien si, o sea, yo no trabajo para una [01:04:00] radio difusora que se encargue en mis redes y que yo nada más llegue a grabar y estaría bien a gusto, pero no, pues yo la autogestiono.Entonces, por ahora, si es necesario, el likecito y el compartir. Chris: Claro. Pues también esos van a estar en el sitio web de fin de turismo cuando lanza el episodio. Entonces, pues muchísimas gracias Alf. Alf: Gracias, Chris.English Transcription.Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome to the podcast The End of Tourism, Alf. Nice to talk to you today.Chris: I'd like to start this off by asking you where you are today and how the world looks through your eyes?Alf: Today I am in my kitchen. I work from there. In Mexico City, in a neighborhood called Iztaccihuatl. How does the world look? Well, look, I don't have a bad view. This is not a big building, but I have a nice view, right? I mean, my view is not blocked by another building or anything. You can see a lot of plants. And well, I guess you know that I am from the provinces. So I have always felt that where I live is like a little bit of a province in the capital, because there are no such big buildings.This one and well, from here you can see it, I forget that I'm in CDMX now, you knowChris: Thank you. Well, you are, among other things, the author of several [00:01:00] texts, including Pepitas de Calabaza and the very recent No Existe Dique Capaz de Contenedor al Océano Furioso. You also coordinated the translation into Spanish of the English text of Militancia Alegre:Let Resistance Bloom in Toxic Times. (or Joyful Militancy) That translation was followed by a companion podcast with Pamela Carmona titled Emerging Joy: Undoing Rigid Radicalism. So, to start, I'd like to ask you how you came across the book Joyful Militancy and what led you to translate it.Alf: I knew that book. I tell you a little bit about it in the prologue, but I knew that book, in the United States, because I had a band. I played drums in a hardcore punk band for many, many years. And so that's how I got to the United States and being [00:02:00] in the American underground, which was an important part of my life, being in California specifically.I found that book in a cafe and I fell in love with it. So I brought it and first I read it in English with some people and very slowly I started to work on that book, translating. That's a longer story that's right there in the prologue, but well, I've been campaigning for that book for years. There were also a series of coincidences with very kind people like Tumba a la Casa, like the Canadian authors, the rights were given to us. The people from Traficantes de Sueno got involved.I mean, there are actually a lot of people. It's like a network of networks, that book and a series of coincidences and favors and nice gestures from many people who made it come out the way it did, really. I mean, I think it's unrepeatable, that series of factors. Aha.Chris: Oh, cool. All right. Well, that book was originally [00:03:00] published in 2016. After reading, re-reading, and tran
In this conversation, Laura and Crystal explore the complexities of relationships, particularly focusing on the emotional labor and expectations that arise when one partner makes significant decisions, such as donating a kidney. They discuss the importance of communication, the impact of caregiving, and the need for self-awareness in navigating these dynamics. The conversation emphasizes the necessity of considering each other's needs and the collective responsibility in relationships, while also highlighting the role of therapy and community support in fostering healthier interactions.
After last November's election, everyone from campaign consultants, to media critics, to Donald Trump himself credited alt-right media and the manosphere for making the US a more welcoming place for repressive, retrograde politics and values. Ome (@sugarskullangelic on social media) is a sociologist and host of the podcast Liberación Army Radio, who speaks to why it's not just Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan followers who get sucked into the alt-right pipeline. Ome's Linktree https://linktr.ee/sugarskullangelic Ome serving the public interest through analysis of the Khalil and Danisha Carter TikTok drama https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP82GKryn/ Pieces mentioned: Cheryl Harris's 'Whiteness as Property' https://web.archive.org/web/20180917081313/https://racism.org/index.php/articles/race/66-defining-racial-groups/white-european-american/369-white02a2 Olufemi O. Taiwo's 'Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (and Everything Else)' https://archive.org/details/olufemi-o.-taiwo-elite-capture-how-the-powerful-took-over-identity-politics-and-/mode/2up Silvia Federici's 'Caliban and the Witch' https://files.libcom.org/files/Caliban%20and%20the%20Witch.pdf Support us and find links to our past episodes: patreon.com/sadfrancisco
Emily Callaci unpacks the history and legacy of Wages for Housework, the feminist movement that demanded payment for the unpaid work of women required to sustain capitalism. She discusses five women at the centre of this movement: Selma James, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Silvia Federici, Wilmette Brown, and Margaret Prescod. Emily Callaci is a historian and writer, currently Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of Street Archives and City Life and Wages for Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/
Em um episódio especial, Cecilia Garcia Marcon convida Marcela Bragotto, Bárbara Krauss e Juliana Santos para uma conversa sobre a obra de Silvia Federici.Elas compartilham suas experiências de leitura, falam de como o pensamento da autora italiana iluminou questões de suas vidas em diversos campos, como o do cuidado e o do trabalho doméstico, e também trazem sugestões para você se aproximar da obra com mais tranquilidade.Então, aperta o play e vamos nessa!---LinksApoie o 30:MINSiga a gente nas redesJá apoia? Acesse suas recompensasConfira todos os títulos do clube!-Traduções gratuitas da Silvia Federici pelo coletivo SycoraxMarcela Bragotto - MediumRoda da Saia LimeiraB de Barbárie - InstagramB de Barbárie - YouTube
If you love your work but wish you never had to work, today's episode is for you! This week I'm incredibly excited to be joined by anticapitalist teacher, writer, vocational guide, and naturalist: Megan Leatherman of A Wild New Work. In this conversation, we begin by defining capitalism and anti-capitalism alongside Silvia Federici's book Caliban and the Witch. Then we talk about why our labor is sacred, how to navigate the despair that comes with living under late-stage capitalism, and why slowing down is an important deconstruction of the status quo. Here's a preview of the rich wisdom Megan shares:✨ No other organism works for someone else to get the money or currency they need to then go buy the food or shelter that they need. It's really absurd. And it's become more than an economic system. Now it's a culture and a set of beliefs. ✨ Working in an anti-capitalist way, to me, means living in accordance to the rhythms of my body and the seasons, recognizing that there are times in the cycle of the year when things are really busy and a lot of growth is happening and that gets mirrored in my work, but then there are also times that require a quieter, slower approach. And those all build off one another for a healthy, sustainable life. ✨ You know what you need. You are a human animal in a body who has rhythms and cycles, and you can trust those. They're not usually convenient to capitalism, because they're not as productive as a machine. But you can trust them. And if you love our conversation, be sure to check out Megan's next class, Composting Capitalism!
Creatività, passato, amore.Maria Nadotti intervista Silvia Federici.
Po, Parma, Calibano e la strega.Maria Nadotti intervista Silvia Federici.
Spagna, lingue, traduzioni.Maria Nadotti intervista Silvia Federici.
Messico, femminismo, Palestina.Maria Nadotti intervista Silvia Federici.
Parigi, New York, Nigeria.Maria Nadotti intervista Silvia Federici.
We discuss Silvia Federici's book Caliban and the Witch which is about women, colonialism, and capitalism. Listen now to stay smart, the easy way!
Radical Feminist Retrospectives revisits some of the earliest episodes of Radical Feminist Perspectives, now available on Spotify for the first time. In Episode 10 Heli St Luce and Jo Brew discuss the book 'Caliban and The Witch' by Silvia Federici. First broadcast on 5th September 2021. Part of our webinar series Radical Feminist Perspectives, offering a chance to hear leading feminists discuss radical feminist theory and politics. Register at https://bit.ly/registerRFP.
From the voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama to colonial conquest and the Atlantic Slave Trade, to the privatization of land in western Europe: humanity's turn toward the capitalist world we live in now.By John Biewen, with co-host Ellen McGirt. Interviews with Jayati Ghosh, Jason Hickel, Jessica Moody, Charisse Burden-Stelly, Silvia Federici, and Eleanor Janega. Story editor: Loretta Williams. Music by Michelle Osis, Lilli Haydn, Alex Symcox, and Goodnight, Lucas. Music consulting by Joe Augustine of Narrative Music. Art by Gergo Varga and Harper Biewen. "Capitalism” is a production of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, in partnership with Imperative 21.
Latin Waves host Sylvia Richardson speaks to Silvia Federici about her latest book: Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle. The struggle to make visible how the Capitalist system depends on the unwaged reproductive labour of women. How the revolution must include both the liberation of men and women from exploitation. She speaks of the challenges, victories and alternatives. Silvia Federici is a feminist writer, teacher, and militant. In 1972, she was cofounder of the International Feminist Collective, which launched the Wages for Housework campaign internationally. Support Latin Waves by becoming a member for as little as $1 per month. https://latinwavesmedia.com/wordpress/
Jules Louise was same-sex attracted, but more importantly she wanted to be a Good Person and “safe space for others” — so wound up married to a man. How did that happen? In this nuanced, heartfelt, and open conversation, Jules recalls her indoctrination into an ideology which destabilized her understanding of the world and herself, and her later emergence, along with that of her husband, detransitioned autogynephile Ray Alex Williams. We discuss Social Justice Camp, the Five Isms, hormones, polyamory, crossdressing vs dressing in crosses, internalized homophobia, Marxist Feminist analysis, the importance of material reality, phenomena, reconceptualizing vulnerability, and leaving the cult of gender for the cult of Taylor Swift. Plus: Cori correctly guesses the sex of a “they,” Nina is a cruel and horrible person who will never be invited to dinner at some people's houses, and a proposed TERF-Tranny Christmas in July! Links: Our Ray Alex Williams episode: https://www.heterodorx.com/podcast/episode-121-unblinded-by-the-light-with-ray-alex-williams/ Gender: A Wider Lens: https://www.widerlenspod.com/ Phenomena: https://youtu.be/Dnk0Be4a0aw?si=n-Q4Au7QE8_i1eqy Our Jamie Reed episode: https://www.heterodorx.com/podcast/episode-126-mitigating-the-damage-with-jamie-reed/ Nina's Sex-Pozzie Memoirs: https://4w.pub/sex-pos-memoirs/ The Man Who Would Be Queen by Michael Bailey (free PDF): https://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/JMichael-Bailey/TMWWBQ.pdf Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici: https://www.akpress.org/calibanandthewitch.html The Lesbian Heresy: a Feminist Perspective by Sheila Jeffreys: https://sheila-jeffreys.com/book/the-lesbian-heresy-a-feminist-perspective/ For more information about RISE on The Land for WOMEN, email Char at riseontheland2020s@gmail.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/heterodorx/support
España es el primer país de Europa y el tercero del mundo donde más prostitución se consume: un negocio que mueve cinco millones de euros al día en nuestro país. Recientemente, el debate sobre cómo habría que legislar la prostitución en España se ha reabierto tras la propuesta del PSOE para ampliar el tipo penal y castigar todo tipo de proxenetismo. En este programa analizamos esta propuesta que ha sido rechazada y ahondamos en el tema del trabajo sexual desde diferentes aristas. Entrevistamos a la filósofa e investigadora feminista, Silvia Federici y escuchamos a las trabajadoras sexuales y sus demandas con voces de colectivos como el Sindicato OTRAS, Afemtras o Aprosex. Y hablamos con expertas en torno al debate sobre trabajo sexual y su encaje en el debate feminista con Beatriz Gimeno y Estefanía Acién. Más información aquí: https://bit.ly/TrabajoSx1374 Haz posible Carne Cruda: http://bit.ly/ProduceCC
Join the hundreds of other New Polity readers: https://newpolity.com/magazine Marc Barnes and Maria Brandell take another look at the "you complete me" narrative. Is each person's gender an incomplete half, left in lack of the other? Or, is each person complete as their gender and called to join with the other? In defense of completed gendered worlds, Marc talks about the phenomenon of The Boys and The Girls. Gender Season 2 is coming soon! The first two readings will be from issue 4.4 (Silvia Federici's "Accumulation of Labor" and D. C. Schindler's "Perfect Difference"). You can grab a copy of the magazine at https://newpolity.com/single-issues