This article conceptualizes some of the political practices and discourses that characterize recent protest movements such as Occupy and the Indignados. These movements’ strategies are distinguished by the central role they give to the occupation and recomposition of public spaces and also by their refusal to engage with 10 representative politics and public institutions. Critics argue that this so-called strategy of withdrawal illustrates a categorical misunderstanding of the political. But as notions such as “withdrawal” or “exodus” give only a rather (...) partial account of these movements’ practices and discourses, this paper aims to introduce an alternative, contemporary concept that has a much stronger explanatory potential: 15 “prefiguration” or “prefigurative politics.” In order to flesh out and apply this concept, it reconstructs the political ontologies of two radical traditions that significantly influenced more recent protest movements—namely, early anarchism with its antithetic dialectics and contemporary autonomist Marxism. (shrink)

What is the problem with capitalism? Is it wrong, unjust, irrational, or bad? Is it evil or dumb—or is it just not working? While critiques of capitalism have become commonplace—particularly since the most recent global economic crisis—it is often unclear what exactly is being condemned. Likewise, the normative presuppositions and criteria of such criticisms have been left unspecified. In this paper, I distinguish between three approaches to the critique of capitalism, distinguishing a functional, a moral, and an ethical argumentative strategy (...) and paying special attention to the distinctive types of argumentation they mobilize. First, I consider the “functional” critique, typically directed against capitalism's straightforward dysfunctions or crises. We will find, however, that this sort of criticism presupposes a normative criterion that is frequently unarticulated, namely: the implied “purpose” of a well‐functioning economic system. Second, I examine a common “moral” critique, that is, that capitalism is premised on exploitation. Yet, the concept of exploitation, too, introduces certain difficulties, since the kind of moral wrong associated with it—unequal exchange—is hardly obvious to everyday observation and must be derived systematically. Third, I introduce and address the “ethical” critique, broadly, that capitalism constitutes a bad form‐of‐life. However, while I object to some of the forms this criticism has taken—in particular, I argue that much “alienation” diagnosis is tainted by nostalgia and naiveté—I nonetheless recommend developing a critique of capitalism as a form‐of‐life that would include ethical and functional criteria. I conclude with some remarks in this direction. (shrink)

Although social philosophy is the focus of general philosophical concern, it is in no better shape today than most philosophical, indeed most fundamentally intellectual, efforts. One is unable to f...

In this work, David Graeber explores the implications of linking anthropology to anarchism.