Reification and the Critical Theory of Contemporary Society

This article concerns how a critical theory of reification should be conceptualized to grasp the 2007 crisis, state-imposed austerity, and the rise of right-wing authoritarian populism. It argues that Jürgen Habermas’s, Axel Honneth’s, and Georg Lukacs’s interpretations of reification cannot provide a theoretical framework for a critical social theory of these developments due to their inadequate theories of domination, crises, character formation, and historical development. It then outlines a critical theory of reification that draws on Max Horkheimer’s notion of reified authority and contemporary Marxian critical theory’s interpretation of the critique of political economy to conceive of domination, crises, and character formation as inherent to the reproduction of capitalist society, which is characterized by a process of historical development that drives humanity into new types of barbarism. It concludes by indicating how such an approach, in contrast to Habermas’s, Honneth’s, and Lukács’s theories, provides a conception of reification that can grasp our present moment

The politics of tax structure

Governments that wish to redistribute through budgetary policy do so mostly on the spending side, not on the taxation side of the budget. The taxation side is nevertheless important, partly because less efficient tax structures seem to be associated with lower taxation and spending levels. Hence political conflicts over spending levels may partly be fought as conflicts over tax structure. The paper provides a coherent perspective on the politics of tax structure. Specific topics include the (ir-)relevance of tax mixes, policy change in income taxation, the importance of tax competition, and the role of political institutions. -- Wenn der staatliche Haushalt zur Umverteilung genutzt wird, so geschieht dies vor allem auf der Ausgabenseite und nicht auf der Einnahmenseite. Die Einnahmeseite ist trotzdem bedeutsam, weil es offenbar einen Zusammenhang gibt zwischen der Effizienz der Steuerstruktur und dem Steuerniveau. Daraus folgt, dass politische Auseinandersetzungen über Ausgabenniveaus teilweise als Auseinandersetzungen über die Steuerstruktur geführt werden können. Das Papier entwickelt eine kohärente Perspektive zur Analyse von Steuerstrukturpolitik. Zu den behandelten Themen gehört die (Ir-)Relevanz des Steuermix, der Politikwandel in der Einkommensbesteuerung, die Bedeutung des Steuerwettbewerbs und die Rolle politischer Institutionen.

Innovation, Intellectual Property, and Development: A Better Set of Approaches for the 21st Century

This paper aims to provide an intellectual basis to think about the relationship between development, intellectual property and innovation; where we currently are and what alternatives are available. For the most part, we are concerned less with the implications of current IP laws for the advanced countries as we are with their impact on developing countries. We focus here not only on the current pathologies of the system and on potential alternative ways to tackle its most egregious excesses; but on a more positive note, on what kind of "system" would best promote development and well-being in the developing world. We are looking for a world with new and better rules for intellectual property. Just as some have begun to think about re-writing the rules of the American economy to ensure a more just and efficient system, the time is ripe for doing the same for the global economy, especially with regard to the IP system

Framing the Mobile Phone: The Psychopathologies of an Everyday Object

This article proposes that the affective processes that shape our relationship to the world of digital consumption and communication can be illuminated further when viewed through a lens of object relations psychoanalysis. We focus on the use of the mobile phone as both an object in the world and of the psyche in order to reflect upon its uses as an evocative object that shapes the psychosocial boundaries of experience in everyday life. We argue that in contrast to the concepts of interpersonal communication that can be found in some domains of popular culture and in communication studies, object relations psychoanalysis can be usefully deployed in order to explore the unconscious attachments that develop in relation to consumer objects, allowing for the complexity of feeling and reflection that may emerge in relation to them and the potential spaces of the mind. The mobile phone’s routine uses and characteristics are widely understood. At the same time, the mobile phone invites critical reflections that identify a paradoxical object of both creative and pathological use. Such reflexivity includes the mobile’s relationship to the complexity of psychosocial experience within the contemporary cultural moment. Applying the ideas of psychoanalysts Donald Winnicott, Thomas Ogden and Christopher Bollas, we argue that one explanation for why the mobile phone continues to attract not only enthusiastic cultural commentary but also a degree of apprehension across academic and popular-discursive settings can be found in its capacity to both disrupt and connect as an object of attachment and as a means of unconscious escap

Analysis of Respiratory Sounds: State of the Art

Objective This paper describes state of the art, scientific publications and ongoing research related to the methods of analysis of respiratory sounds. Methods and material Review of the current medical and technological literature using Pubmed and personal experience. Results The study includes a description of the various techniques that are being used to collect auscultation sounds, a physical description of known pathologic sounds for which automatic detection tools were developed. Modern tools are based on artificial intelligence and on technics such as artificial neural networks, fuzzy systems, and genetic algorithms… Conclusion The next step will consist in finding new markers so as to increase the efficiency of decision aid algorithms and tools

A Republic of the Mind: Cognitive Biases, Fiscal Federalism, and Section 164 of the Tax Code

In its efforts to guide money to the states, our federal government annually passes up more than $75 billion in potential revenue under a single provision of the Tax Code. That provision, section 164 of the Code, allows itemizing taxpayers to deduct the cost of the state and local income, property, and (to a limited extent) sales taxes they paid during the tax year. The eye-popping size of that number makes section 164 a perennial issue in tax policy circles, and as one of the deductions omitted from the Alternative Minimum Tax\u27s (AMT) parallel tax universe, the section is also a key component of debates about the AMT. Indeed, the President\u27s Advisory Panel on Tax Reform recommends eliminating the deduction to pay for its proposed AMT reform

Food, Space and the City: Theorizing the Free Spaces of FoodShare's Good Food Markets

This paper explores a social and spatial (socio-spatial) response to urban food insecurity in Toronto, Ontario as expressed through FoodShare’s Good Food Market (GFM) program. I argue that the GFMs draw on a multi-scalar conception of urban food insecurity to inform a strategy of resistance to the globalized food system and as a means of reducing food insecurity in Toronto. In as much as the GFM markets are relatively fixed places of resistance to the globalized and industrialized food system, I argue they can be more broadly theorized within the free space literature, a product of the confluence of social movement and critical human geography scholarship. Situating the GFM markets within this hybrid theoretical context illuminates strengths and raises cautions of employing place-based scalar strategies in the context of urban food activism

Black Mirrors: Reflecting (on) Hypermimesis

Reflections on mimesis have tended to be restricted to aesthetic fictions in the past century; yet the proliferation of new digital technologies in the present century is currently generating virtual simulations that increasingly blur the line between aesthetic representations and embodied realities. Building on a recent mimetic turn, or re-turn of mimesis in critical theory, this paper focuses on the British sci-fi television series, Black Mirror (2011-2016) to reflect critically on the hypermimetic impact of new digital technologies on the formation and transformation of subjectivity. It argues that emerging forms of digital simulations do not simply set up a realistic mirror to “reality” restricted to aesthetic “representation” (Auerbach 1953); nor are they confined to the disembodied sphere of “hyperreality” that goes beyond the logic of “imitation” (Baudrillard 1981). Rather, the digital simulations reflected in Black Mirror dramatize the performative powers of hyperreal simulations to retroact on reality to form and transform increasingly mimetic subjects. I call this technological process of transformation “hypermimesis” (Lawtoo 2015, 2018), to indicate that it is located at the juncture where hyperreal simulacra and mimetic reflexes meet and reflect on each other.Las reflexiones sobre la mímesis han tendido a restringirse a las ficciones estéticas en el siglo pasado; sin embargo, la proliferación de nuevas tecnologías digitales en el presente siglo está generando actualmente simulaciones virtuales que difuminan cada vez más la línea entre las representaciones estéticas y las realidades encarnadas. Partiendo de un reciente giro mimético, o vuelta a la mímesis en la teoría crítica, este artículo se centra en la serie de televisión británica de ciencia ficción Black Mirror (2011-2016) para reflexionar de forma crítica sobre el impacto hipermimético de las nuevas tecnologías digitales en la formación y transformación de la subjetividad. Sostiene que las formas emergentes de simulaciones digitales no se limitan a establecer un espejo realista de la "realidad" restringido a la "representación" estética (Auerbach 1953); tampoco se limitan a la esfera incorpórea de la "hiperrealidad" que va más allá de la lógica de la "imitación" (Baudrillard 1981). Más bien, las simulaciones digitales reflejadas en Black Mirror dramatizan los poderes performativos de las simulaciones hiperreales para retroceder en la realidad y formar y transformar sujetos cada vez más miméticos. Llamo a este proceso tecnológico de transformación "hipermímesis" (Lawtoo 2015, 2018), para indicar que se sitúa en la coyuntura en la que el simulacro hiperreal y los reflejos miméticos se encuentran y se reflejan mutuamente.post-print24 p