Capitalism’s Cynical Leviathan: Cynicism, Totalitarianism, and Hobbes in Modern Capitalist Regulation

In this paper I have tried to show the symbiotic relationship between discursive systems of totalitarianism and cynicism. Whether speaking of a social Leviathan a la Hobbes or localized capitalist regulation each relies upon the symbiotic combination of total governance with the positive allowance for internal individual dis-identification. The inherent failures of totalitarian discourses to fully interpellate a subject requires a subjective freedom of thought expressed via an ineffectual cynicism, a point borne witness to in the theoretical work of Zizek. Individuals are thus, either implicitly or explicitly, encouraged to manifest their discontent through a non-active liberty in thought or an “ideology of cynicism” (Zizek: 1989). By providing the space to think resistance these systems are able to legitimately demand and make easier obedience in action. Thus the liberating effect of cynical rebellion is the foundation for an acting compliance

Tracing Cold War in Post-Modern Management's Hot Issues

Tracing Cold War in post-modern managerial science and ideology one encounters hot issues linking contemporary liberal dogmas and romanticized view of organizational leadership to the dismantling of a welfare state disguised as a liberation of an individual employee, empowerment of an individual consumer and a progressive, liberal and global development of a market/parliament mix. The concept of totalitarianism covers fearful symmetries between three modes of paying the bills for western modernization; liberal, communist and the emergent "egalibertarian"(1), while the ideologies of organisationalism and globalization testify to a search for a post-Cold War mission statement. Messiness of re-engineering the enlargement of the European Union testifies to the hidden injuries of Cold War, not all of them caused by a class and class struggle.empowerment;liberalism;Cold War;hidden costs of modernization;egaliberty;organizationalism;paradigm;romanticized view of leadership;Managerialist ideology;totalitarianism

Castoriadis and social theory:from marginalization to canonization to re-radicalization

This chapter examines Cornelius Castoriadis's trajectory from obscurity and the margins of post-war French intellectual and political milieu to the misappropriation and canonization of his thought after the 1970s and argues for a re-radicalization of his thought. First, it considers his formative experience in Greece and examines how the post-war French political, economic and ideological conditions and the group and journal Socialisme ou Barbarie contributed to Castoriadis's radicalization. The chapter explores some reasons for the rising interest in the social and political thought of Cornelius Castoriadis, expressed in both academic and political circles after the 1970s and has led not only to his international recognition but also to a triple diversion of the political and radical meaning of his theorizing. After the 1970s, Castoriadis's radical and left critique of totalitarianism, Marx and Marxism was misconstrued and misused by the new philosophers'. The chapter concludes by arguing for a need to restore to Castoriadis's work its proper political and radical problematic

Hannah Arendt and the law and ethics of administration : bureaucratic evil, political thinking and reflective judgment

After the absurd terrorism and violence of the totalitarianism and bureaucratic administrative and legal systems of the 20th century it does not give any meaning to rationalize harm as meaningful evil that even though it is evil may have some importance for the development of the world towards the good. Rather, evil is incomprehensible and as radical and banal evil it challenges human rationality. This is indeed the case when we are faced with instrumental and rationalized administrative and political evil. Therefore, we must analyse the banality of evil in politics and in administration in order to understand the concept of evil. Moreover, as proposed by Hannah Arendt, we need to fight this evil with political thinking and social philosophy. The only way to deal with harm and wrongdoing is to return a concept of responsibility that is closely linked to reflective thinking. In this paper, we will on the basis of a discussion of the banality of evil explore this in relation to Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the administration of evil, as expressed by the personality of Adolf Eichmann. Finally, we will place this concept of administrative evil in Hannah Arendt’s general political philosophy

Democracy: Order out of Chaos

We construct a majority cellular automata based model to explain the power-law signatures in Indonesian general election results. The understanding of second-order phase transitions between two different conditions inspires the model. The democracy is assumed as critical point between the two extreme socio-political situations of totalitarian and anarchistic social system - where democracy can fall into the twos. The model is in multi-party candidates system run for equilibrium or equilibria, and used to fit and analyze the three of democratic national elections in Indonesia, 1955, 1999, and 2004

Book review: The Most Sublime Hysteric: Hegel with Lacan by Slavoj Žižek

Available in English for the first time, this publication from Slavoj Žižek represents a re-worked version of one of his earliest works. Hard to place amongst his recent works, perhaps the purpose of publishing this early work is to make us realise that the 1980s Žižek was already then the one we have come to recognise, just as the content of the book retroactively makes Hegel a Lacanian avant la lettre, writes Jodie Matthews

7. Modern Totalitarianism: Russian Communism

Some political analysts place fascism at the extreme right of the political spectrum, Communism at or near the extreme left. This classification has been much favored by Marxist writers who believe that fascism is the last desperate effort of embattled capitalism to stave off the proletarian victory. Doubtless, Communist writers are aware of the value in some circles of the leftist label with its overtones of progress, freedom, and the general welfare. We have already noted the origin of the terms Left and Right in the French Revolution when they were used to distinguish between the advocates of change and the more conservative. Survival of these labels into a later age with vastly different problems and proposals has not helped clarify political thinking. It may already have occurred to the thoughtful reader that to classify Nazism as a near relative of conservatism creates as many difficulties as it solves. Similar difficulties attend the classification of Russian Communism as a party of the Left. [excerpt