capitalism

MODERN TIMES CONVERSATION: We hear from Pål Steigan about his political background, upbringing and thinking. Also about the establishment of the newspaper Klassekampen, and his time in the AKP (ML) and Rødt parties. He is contrarian and censored in Norway when it comes to many issues. We have chosen to let him speak with his own arguments, where we meet him in Italy at the Franciscan monastery he has furnished as a writing room and seminar venue.

PSYCHOLOGY If we sapiens are so wise, why are we so self-destructive? The problem of the human species is, according to Harari, a network problem. For him, populism ultimately appears much more dangerous than a global liberal elite.

FUTURE: With crises on all sides, it has become difficult to claim that the world is moving forward progressively. In her new book Fortschritt und Regression, Rahel Jaeggi will nevertheless stick to the idea of ​​progress. Society does not aim at inherent goals – they primarily solve problems, she claims.

REBELLION: Through this essay we are taken on an exciting journey through revolutions all over the world. The book refers, for example, to the 2010 uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain.

PHILOSOPHY: Can a way of thinking where becoming, growth and change are fundamental, open up new and more ecologically fruitful understandings of and attitudes towards the world? For Deleuze and Guattari, desire does not begin with lack and is not desire for what we do not have. Through a focus on desire as connection and connection – an understanding of identity and subjectivity as fundamentally linked to the intermediate that the connection constitutes. What they bring out by pointing this out is how Oedipal desire and capitalism are linked to each other, and to the constitution of a particular form of personal identity or subjectivity. But in this essay by Kristin Sampson, Anti-Oedipus is also linked to the pre-Socratic Hesiod, to something completely pre-Oedipal. MODERN TIMES gives the reader here a philosophical deep dive for thought.

SOLIDARITY: For a recipe for an ecological revolution, the subject that can constitute the active social force that can move society towards a radically different future is missing. Radical futurisms are here a new thinking for what may come.

IRAQ: In Iraq, young people trust neither the politicians nor the parties. MODERN TIMES has met the director and producer of the film Baghdad on Fire, which deals with the mobilization of the youth fighting for change in the bad governance of the country's leaders. Karrar Al-Azzawi says the following about the US invasion in 2003: "They brought 'democracy', but we got only chaos and corruption – with politicians who only wanted to steal. The religious leaders were also involved in this."

ANTI-OEDPUS: It is approx. 50 years since the French book Anti-Oedipus – capitalism and schizophrenia was published. We are therefore printing here a new essay by Professor Knut Stene-Johansens about, among other things, this book he translated from French to Norwegian in 2002. According to him, the book is colourful, a red cloth in the fray of self-congratulatory philosophy and other analytical greats. Anti-Oedipus is an exemplary 'desire machine' – understood as a system of violations. The work displays a strong and constructive opposition to Freudian psychoanalysis as well as traditional philosophy's claims to truth. Their positive concept of desire contrasts with the concept of Freud and Lacan, which is seen negatively as a lack. At the same time: All of Deleuze's texts represent a form of resistance.

ŽIŽEK: Despite the fact that he has been a public intellectual for at least 30 years, there has never before been such a multifaceted and nuanced discussion of Slavoj Žižek's thinking as the one we see in the current anthology. But does Žižek recognize the revolutionary potential of desire?

CAPITALISM: 'Techno-feudalism' is a global expansion with an all-consuming, limitless development of non-material phenomena. Here, social democracy can no longer make any difference, according to Yanis Varoufakis in this book.

USA / CHINA: Is the current systemic divide between the US and China insurmountable? According to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken: "Our relationship with China will be competitive when it should, cooperative when it can, and hostile when it has to." On the other hand, China is now led by a man who, according to book author Kevin Rudd, has considerable intellectual resources . Under his leadership, China has grown into a superpower.

DIRECT DEMOCRACY: We need a new social system with commons and decline. And it is possible to achieve it. We have enough experience and knowledge from previous times. It's just a matter of getting started, writes Yavor Tarinski in a recent debate book.

CAPITALISM: Is not the struggle now about the right not to be exploited, but the right to be allowed to participate? There is much that is valuable in Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen's short book about the possible return of fascism in today's world – but it is weak in terms of empirical documentation.

CAPITALISM: The economic sphere, just like the political sphere, is a set of social relations within the domination system – something the author Søren Mau addresses.

SOCIAL MEDIA: Mike Watson compares internet lefties to selfie makers who create awareness around themselves.

PHOTO: Is it possible that anti-capitalist expressions are reduced to insignificant gestures and instead become symbols of the immediate consumption of social media?