Abstract
Engaging Nancy Fraser’s elaboration of Polanyi’s narrative, Ferrara argues that in our century the preponderance of finance over the “real economy,” the resurgence of rent and the virtualization of the economy lead to a new kind of “absolute power,” exerted by disembedded financial markets, against which the remedies that once curbed absolute power prove ineffective. The prospect for resistance against neoliberal hegemony is discussed with reference to Fraser’s views on social movements difficult to place within the Polanyian “double movement” and to her articulation of a “triple movement,” that combines elements of non-domination, negative liberty, and solidarity in new constellations. Attention is focused on the subjects of counter-hegemonic resistance and the novel entwinement of the legal and the political as terrains of resistance.
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Notes
- 1.
I cannot address here the interesting suggestions offered by Fraser on the dependency of justice on a correct “framing” of questions of justice, i.e., on the adoption of a correct “scale” for addressing such questions. See (Fraser 2010).
- 2.
Polanyi (2001, p. 5) observes that during the 100 years period 1815–1914 only 18 months of all-out military confrontation among major Western powers (though countless colonial and insurrectional conflicts which involved at most one major power) occurred, and compares this lack of belligerence with the previous two centuries, during which conflicts among major powers accounted for at least 60 to 70 years.
- 3.
On the social impact of inequality, see also (Stiglitz 2012).
- 4.
According to a 2013 report by the Bank of International Settlements, the total aggregate nominal value of the derivatives available on the markets totaled $693 trillion at end-June 2013, a mass of money with no relation with the total GNP not only of the major national economies but also of the entire global economy. See (Bank of International Settlements 2013).
- 5.
For a detailed and insightful analysis of the role and significance of law within Fraser’s approach to critical theory, see (Scheuerman 2017). See also his “Recognition, Redistribution, and Participatory Parity: Where’s the Law?” in this volume.
- 6.
I discussed these measures in a more detailed way in (Ferrara 2015).
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Ferrara, A. (2017). Curbing the Absolute Power of Disembedded Financial Markets: The Grammar of Counter-Hegemonic Resistance and the Polanyian Narrative. In: Bargu, B., Bottici, C. (eds) Feminism, Capitalism, and Critique. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52386-6_10
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