Category Archives: Capitalism

Marxist scholar David Harvey has a new book out, The Enigma of Capital, and this means he’s been on the road giving talks to promote it.  One such lecture was at Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in London this past April.  You can watch/listen to the talk here.

However, if you want the short version, I suggest watching RSA’s beautiful animation of it below.  It does a good job of adding some visual content to Harvey’s explanation of the crisis of capitalism.

h/t Gopal Balakrishnan

The Tower: A Songspiel is a new agitprop production from the fine people at Chto Delat.  The film is the final part of a trilogy that includes Perestroika Songspiel: Victory over the Coup (2008) and Partisan Songspiel: A Belgrade Story (2009).  The theme of this installment:

Filmed in April 2010, The Tower: A Songspiel is based on real documents of Russian social and political life and on an analysis of the conflict that has developed around the planned Okhta Center development in Petersburg, where the Gazprom corporation intends to house the headquarters of its locally-based subsidiaries in a 403-meter-high skyscraper designed by the UK-based architectural firm RMJM. The proposed skyscraper has provoked one of the fiercest confrontations UNESCO World Heritage Site, Gazprom has so far managed to secure all the necessary permissions and has practically ..read more

The theme of my last post on how International Women’s Day has been transformed from a public to a private holiday reminded of the enormous advertisement at Lubyanka Square covering Detskii Mir, the famous toy store now under renovation.  The advert was put up in November to promote the publication of Elle Magazine in Russian.  I don’t know if  it’s still there, but I do know there are smaller incarnations around the city as photos from a small IWD protest held yesterday show (the photo shows one of the ads was with a leaflet picturing the Bolshevik-feminist Alexandra Kollontai).

The Elle ad, designed by Johann Sebastian Hanel, is worth thinking about in the context of the general consumerization of feminism not only in Russia, but around the world. It also reveals, yet again, as Thomas Frank showed ..read more

Roses, tulips, and other colorful flowers extend from the hands of Russian women like prostheses.  One day a year they replace the broom, the pot, and the child.  The flowers, like the wedding bands on women’s fingers, are a symbol of property.  Almost every woman strolling through the metro or down Moscow’s avenues has one hand around a man’s arm while the other clutches a bouquet. Thus, the object on their left hand says, “I’m taken” while the man on their right says, “by him.”

What an ironic scene International Women’s Day has become in Russia.  What was once a day calling for a “struggle against patriarchy,” has in many ways become patriarchy’s reinforcement. Nothing says this more than the popular gifts bestowed on this day of “struggle.” According to the Russian polling service VTsIOM, flowers are the most popular gift ..read more

As many know, talk of modernization is once again all the rage in Russia.  But what is it and to what end?  Is it merely another example of “eternal Russian question” of historical backwardness?  Is Medvedev’s overtures merely a replay of every Tsar and Commissar before him?  Or does Russia’s current backwardness have more immediate roots in the liberal capitalism of the post-Soviet era?  Can “modernization” really be achieved with a Russian Silicon Valley, fiber optic lines, nanotechnology, the political decentralization of the political system, and the increased privatization of its economy as many partisans across Russia’s liberal political spectrum advocate?  Is innovation enough, especially in a globalized economy that is predicated on increasing redundancy of labor, de-industrialization, and financial casino capitalism?

Some of these questions are posed in “ Their Modernization and Ours” by the editors of ..read more

I wish I would have seen Yulia Latynina’s Moscow Times editorial earlier.  I would have found someway to incorporate it into my post on the Ukrainian election.  No matter, the op-ed stands on its own. The beauty of Latynina’s rant, Letting Poor People Vote is Dangerous, is that she’s basically saying what I think every Western liberal wants to say, but can’t because it’s politically incorrect.  I guess this is one reason why we should actually thank Latynina.  Such honesty, no matter how despicable, is nonetheless refreshing.  It’s a rare moment when class war toward the poor hangs all out at a time when its Western warriors shroud their class turpitude with identity politics.

Here’s a snippet to get a taste of her raving class hatred:

Viktor Yanukovych’s victory in Sunday’s presidential election — not unlike the victories of former ..read more