Abstract
Albena Azmanova’s book Capitalism on Edge provides a stark wake-up call for Critical Theory to not only take the critique of political economy seriously again, but also face up to new social realities: ‘Twentieth-century civilization has collapsed’ (p. 87). According to Azmanova, a new ‘great transformation’ abolished welfare capitalism and even mutated beyond neoliberalism, creating what she calls ‘precarity capitalism’. The latter’s core feature is ‘the universalization of insecurity, which is now afflicting the majority of the population, almost irrespective of employment type and income level’ (p. 2). ‘The social question of our time’, she argues, is ‘the massification of precarity’ (p. 158).
Yet, despite growing recognition of these issues, a genuine legitimation crisis of capitalism is lacking. Instead, Azmanova notes a deflation in the agendas and goals of contemporary protests. Whether in their xenophobic, right-wing variants, which seek to strengthen borders, or their left-wing variants, which focus on the question of inequality and targeting the super-rich, ‘both forms of protest can be read as nostalgic gestures toward a more inclusive capitalism, rather than its rejection’ (p. 22). ‘Much of the social protest and political mobilization is defensive, nostalgic, or conservative in nature; some of it is even reactionary’ (p. 139). However, despite their shortcomings, Azmanova regards them as useful ‘points of entry into the larger story of social injustice, points from which the search is to commence for the origin of these grievances in the structural contradictions and constitutive dynamics of capitalism’ (p. 139). Hence, as social distress and moments of rupture continue to multiply and intensify, we seem to be missing a more radical critique that grasps the phenomena at their root and discerns the potential for fundamental change. This is precisely what Azmanova sets out to do in her book.
An expanded conception of capitalism and domination
Azmanova presents an elaborate model for critical theorising, which combines socio-economic analysis with a multifaceted understanding of politicisation and legitimisation, weaving together a range of key insights from the likes of Max Weber, Karl Polanyi, Eric Hobsbawm, Nancy Fraser, Claus Offe and Wolfgang Streeck into a heterodox ‘Marxian’ analysis (p. 9). She also utilises this model for a critical and challenging diagnosis of the contemporary state of ‘Western’ capitalist societies, developed in the context of their historical and more recent ‘great transformations’.
The result is a bold and ambitious analysis whose intended addressees are not just sociologists and political theorists, but activists and politicians. At the same time, in terms of the concepts deployed, the book is a model of clarity. Azmanova provides an accessible depiction of her understanding of Critical Theory, namely as an emancipatory theory with an essentially negativistic approach: aiming at the abolition of socially induced suffering (‘emancipation without utopia’), through an immanent critique, which investigates the conditions of possibility for capitalism as a historical social order and the potential for change inherent in its contradictions (Chapter 2). She views capitalism as essentially characterised by the systemic dynamic of the ‘competitive production of profit’ (p. 38). As such, one must launch a critique that is targeted at this systemic form of domination, which she proposes to distinguish from structural domination (i.e. the injustices that arise from the enabling structures) and relational domination (i.e. injustices arising from positions held within the systemic dynamic) (p. 51ff.). Furthermore, Azmanova suggests that as an encompassing social order, one has to investigate not only the general capitalist ethos but also its historically shifting ‘legitimation matrix’ (p. 44ff.). Thus, in contrast to (post-)Habermasian approaches, she opts for a more dynamic and less normatively charged understanding of legitimisation (p. 48). The concepts introduced – the expanded conception of capitalism, the tools for a dynamic understanding of legitimacy and the expanded conception of domination – are neatly summarised in the appendix to the book and will be of great use for further practical-empirical work.
In the remaining six chapters, the author uses an engaging prose style to convey an impressively complex and rich argument, where each unique layer is laid out to prepare the ground for the next. The plot, as it were, follows a classical Critical Theory trajectory: all the ingredients for a crisis of capitalism have returned. ‘A state of chronic inflammation has set in, and short-term crisis management has become a new normal. Capitalism is not on the edge of its collapse, but it is surely on edge’ (p. 15). And while these emergency measures have become thoroughly normalised, as Azmanova observes, ‘the economy is doing better; the people are not’ (p. 204). Yet, amid such discontent, why is it that a genuine legitimation crisis of capitalism is largely absent? Chapter 1 tracks the deflation of protest in the aftermath of the 2007–2008 financial crisis: Even though economic and financial crises have clearly brought about a social crisis, there have been no traces of a cross-ideological countermovement against the free market. The calls for income redistribution pale in comparison to the powerful wave that inaugurated and maintained the post-WWII welfare state. (p. 73)
Azmanova suggests that we call this condition the ‘crisis of crisis’ (p. 14), and thus sets out to elucidate the key issues of our time: the apparent rise of ‘populism’ and what is often perceived as the puzzling persistence of neoliberalism. But more than merely ‘teasing the political common-sense’ (p. ix) of her time, Azmanova goes on to offer incisive and far-reaching analyses that contradict many commonly held views about both populism and neoliberalism.
Populism: A longer-term view
Azmanova’s first thought-provoking claim is that one should reject the term populism for describing the contemporary ‘combination of xenophobic and anti-establishment sentiment’ (p. 64). Why so? Because the notion of a populist insurgency suggests ‘an interlude, a temporary deviation from “normal politics”’ (p. 9). But as she goes on to explain, such patterns of politicisation had already emerged ‘around the turn of the twenty-first century’ (p. 69), meaning that it can hardly be seen as a short-term deviation.
Analysing the shifting election results (Chapter 3), Azmanova suggests that underlying these more recent outbursts is a long-term shift in the political landscape, wherein the old left–right divide has been supplanted by a new political division: A new alliance of social forces is being formed around a ‘risk’ (or ‘fear’) pole of political mobilization, where parts of capital and labor align behind policies of economic patriotism, a combination of domestic market liberalization and a closed (protected) economy, as well as cultural sovereigntism, typically voiced in anti-immigrant rhetoric. On the other side of the spectrum, parties and supporters are mobilizing who experience globalization as an advantage in terms of wealth creation and more flexible and versatile lifestyles, as well as those celebrating the promise of new technologies to mitigate climate change. (p. 79)
Within this larger shift, we can situate the emergence of ‘a protest vote’, that is, one ‘expressing a frustration with economic uncertainty and with political elites’ complacency, ineptitude, or sheer mendacity’ (p. 69).
What is being currently demonized in the mainstream media as ‘populism’ can be seen, therefore, not as a transient expression of discontent, but as an expression of broadly shared and lasting anxiety triggered by perceptions of physical insecurity, political disorder, cultural estrangement, and employment insecurity resulting from employment flexibilization, job outsourcing, or competition with immigrants for jobs. (p. 69)
Azmanova notes that amid the gradual erosion of the welfare state, the Right was able to (largely) capture the vote of the risk pole – ‘supplying’ it with the easily available language of national sovereignty and democratic self-determination’ – building agendas based on ‘national social justice’ and pitting them ‘against transnational and transcultural solidarity’ (p. 83). Thus, what liberal cultural elites have derided as despicable populism (the right-wing variety, on account of its xenophobia), or as naïve populism (the left-wing variety, because of its unrealistic demands for trade protectionism), is in fact a product of the fallacious misarticulation of otherwise valid public concerns about disappearing sources of livelihood. (p. 83)
However, this suggests that the underlying economic dynamics would need to be addressed differently – and for this to happen, they need to be properly analysed and understood in the first instance.
Neoliberalism’s insidious death
Azmanova positions her analysis of contemporary capitalism within a historical survey of capitalism’s internal transformations via four sequential modalities: from the ‘liberal capitalism’ of the nineteenth century and the ‘welfare capitalism’ of the first three postwar decades to the ‘neoliberal capitalism’ of the late twentieth century (Chapter 4) (p. 104ff.). This lays the groundwork for one of her other central claims: that the contemporary modality of capitalism can no longer be adequately described as neoliberal. This argument is developed in Chapter 5, where she examines the political economy and state–society relations that characterise the new form of capitalism she dubs ‘precarity capitalism’ (p. 105) – a yet more injurious form. The main difference between precarity capitalism and its neoliberal predecessor is the changed relationship between the state and the market: a transformation that comprises a shift from ‘competition to competitiveness’: ‘In the new circumstances of closely integrated markets, global production chains, and intensified competition, maintaining the competitiveness of national economies became a top policy concern’ (p. 106).
In the neoliberal modality of capitalism, the state intervened to create and uphold market competition through privatisation and deregulation (p. 100). In contrast, this new precarious modality is characterised by the state intervening to support a few already ‘privileged market actors’ (p. 115), to guarantee their global competitiveness. This is not just a post–2007–2008 phenomenon – with massive bank bailouts and stimulus packages. As Azmanova points out, this development had already begun in the 1990s, with one of the first instances of ‘national champions’ being the politically managed Qualcomm mobile deal, where the US government intervened to gain access to the Chinese market and was thereby able to globalise US standards for wireless technology (p. 110). ‘The new element under precarity capitalism is that public authority actively redistributes resources from the losers to the winners and justifies this by reference to expected increase of the national economy’s global competitiveness’ (p. 119). In light of this, she refers to the corresponding mode of governance as ‘socially irresponsible rule’ – a form of ‘rule that disregards the social consequences of economic policy such as growing inequality, poverty, and social precariousness, even as growth is effectively obtained’ (p. 116).
The blind spots of politicisation and critique: Social security and systemic domination
To show how and why there has been no legitimation crisis of capitalism, throughout the analysis, it was necessary to attend to the shifting patterns of legitimisation and politicisation: the question of why and how ‘social anxieties become political problems worthy of policy action’ (p. 7). Tracing the various mutations in the legitimisation matrix, Azmanova suggests that under neoliberal capitalism, the legitimacy deal – ‘spelling out the desirable and feasible political deliverables, actions public authority is expected to undertake in order to remain legitimate’ (p. 48) – ‘“has” come to exclude issues of social safety’ (p. 131). New policy actions to enhance market efficiency were carried out ‘under the dictum that, even if a social safety net remains politically desirable, it is economically unfeasible’, meaning that ‘a social safety net is no longer thought to be a “political deliverable”’ (p. 131).
Yet, this is exactly where we might find a way out of our present predicament. To this end, in Chapter 6, Azmanova addresses the possibility of radical change. Her mode of critique, on one hand, tracks the existing contradictions inherent in technological advances, and, on the other, applies a more complete view of domination that addresses not only its relational and structural forms, but also crucially what she calls ‘systemic domination’: the suffering and injustice that results from the constitutive logic of the capitalist system itself – the ‘competitive production of profit’.
The first contradiction – which she terms ‘surplus employability’ (p. 151) – concerns the unprecedented technological capacity to produce material prosperity with minimal input from human labour, which contains the potential for decommodifying labour, while an ever-growing pressure to remain employed and employable creates increased commodification tendencies. The second contradiction – which she calls ‘acute job dependency’ (p. 151) – is that between the growing reliance on employment as a means of subsistence, as social safety nets are being dismantled, while the economy becomes less able to supply the necessary jobs. Both antinomies entail the intensification of competition among the working population. Yet, they also embody the potential to free the working population from such pressures.
Thus, in light of these ills, a common interest in fighting against capitalism can be found among a potentially broad alliance of actors: ‘While experiences of injustice vary across income levels and types of employment, the common denominator is the acute, widely spread sense of insecurity, of precariousness and impending loss of livelihoods’ (p. 159).
So, why is this common interest not politicised? Because it has been obscured by an exclusive focus on relational forms of domination. What Azmanova describes as the ‘paradox of emancipation’ refers to the fact that struggles against inequality and exclusion (relational domination) not only fail to question the social forms within which equality and inclusion are fought for, but even when they succeed, they ‘risk deepening systemic domination – the harm inflicted by the competitive production of profit’ (p. 140), as they implicitly validate the logic within which they seek inclusion and equality. As such, neglecting the systemic dimension blocks the potential to build a broad social alliance with a radical transformative agenda – ‘where the enemies in the battles over relational and structural domination find a common front – namely, in their overarching discontent with the tangible effects of the competitive pressures of precarity capitalism’ (p. 164).
Radical subversive pragmatism
In the final part of her analysis (Chapter 7), Azmanova spells out what such an agenda of emancipation from domination might look like, on the transnational level (‘recasting globalization’ [p. 180]) and in the domestic context (‘recasting domestic policy’ [p. 182]). As the widespread sense of economic uncertainty triggers conservative, even reactionary, impulses, it is not the exacerbation of crisis that provides the basis for a radical transformation. Rather, the author suggests targeting economic insecurity by cultivating a ‘political economy of trust’ (p. 180). This would entail addressing relational and structural forms of domination as well – yet by promoting social security rather than focusing on equal distribution. ‘Above all, however, we need to, and can, target systemic domination via practices that oppose the competitive production of profit’ (p. 180). ‘Policy responses to these various grievances would inhibit the very constitutive logic of capitalism [. . .] and will result in a gradual exiting from this system’ (p. 180). Such proposals seek to tap into the potential for decommodifying labour power: facilitating entrance and enhancing the possibilities for (temporary) exit from the labour market. In this regard, Azmanova advocates ‘a “universal minimum employment” platform [. . .] to complement the universal basic income platform and the building of robust public services’ (p. 183). ‘A limited yet secure employment within a liberalized labor market with citizenship-based, rather than employment-based social provision’ would ‘maximize both access to sources of income and the possibility for labor-market exit (decommodification)’ (p. 185). These policies will not lead to a sudden break or rupture with capitalism; in Azmanova’s view, we need not spell out the economic system that would replace capitalism. Yet, since such policies would subvert the core dynamic of capitalism from within, they would constitute the proper object of radical critique and practice. As the book’s subtitle already proclaimed, ‘Fighting Precarity Can Achieve Radical Change Without Crisis or Utopia’: an approach that Claus Offe has praised for its ‘radical subversive pragmatism’ (taken from the back cover).
Critical remarks: Further developing the concept of systemic domination
Capitalism on Edge marks nothing less than an all-encompassing and coherent argument about how best to understand – and possibly address – the core challenges of our time. This is clearly a significant achievement, and indeed there are many more insights and arguments in the book than can be relayed here. While it might be that not all the phenomena Azmanova addresses are sufficiently substantiated to convince the more sceptical reader about the validity of her claims, even then, the book will stand as a great achievement. The author has succeeded in putting forward a bold research agenda and framework for her claims to be further investigated, scrutinised and debated.
One line of criticism might be targeted at her strong emphasis on economic dynamics, especially when it comes to understanding the new xenophobia as ‘strongly economic in essence’ (p. 65). But I will not pursue this line of criticism here, since, in my view, taking the economic dimension seriously in explaining this phenomenon is one of Azmanova’s major contributions. Indeed, her suggestion to not conceive of the economic situation narrowly in terms of income, and instead to take a more comprehensive view of the ‘fears of (real, perceived, and anticipated) loss of livelihood’ (p. 68f.), seems especially pertinent in this regard. Instead, I will end with a few remarks on how her framework for economic analysis might be contextualised and possibly further developed within a Marxian analysis.
The distinctive focus of Azmanova’s critical perspective is that of systemic domination – even to the point where she sees the call to class struggle as misguided in the contemporary context. As she herself acknowledges (p. 65), this focus brings her approach into proximity with that of the late Moishe Postone – who emphasises the importance of a critique of an impersonal form of social domination as ‘abstract domination’, which ‘cannot be grasped fully in terms of class relations’ (Postone, 1993: 29). However, in contrast to Postone, Azmanova is less interested in debating the fundamental categories of a Marxian Critical Theory and is more intent on applying them to our contemporary moment. This makes her book particularly interesting and timely. Yet, there might be a price to be paid for this approach too: Defining the dynamic of capitalism as the competitive production of profit, Azmanova’s conception might be lacking insofar as it does not further interrogate the specific form of wealth that is characteristic of profit in capitalism. For Postone (1993), it is ‘the difference between material wealth and value’ that ‘is central to the Marxian critique of capitalism’ (p. 194), corresponding, of course, to the double-sided character of commodities, having both a use value and an exchange value. Such a distinction, however, is missing from Azmanova’s account. This not only risks overlooking the historically specific dynamics of capitalist growth, but also, from Postone’s perspective, this distinction is necessary to fully grasp the contradictions that Azmanova herself highlights: the efficiency gains and automation potential increasingly render the direct expenditure of labour superfluous in the production process – but only from the perspective of material wealth production. With regard to the production of value, the exploitation of direct labour remains a constant necessity under capital. As such, expanding Azmanova’s perspective along this line might help to illuminate why the commodification of labour power becomes at once seemingly outmoded, while it is being constantly reinforced.
On the other side, the obvious criticism levelled against accounts that focus on systemic domination is that they downplay the class dimension. But would Critical Theory be wise to do this amid unprecedented levels of inequality? Azmanova herself admits that ‘taxing the rich is a good place to start’ (p. 173). But if this is the case, should the perspective not put more emphasis on how the systemic dimension implies a class dimension as well as unequal distribution, rather than insisting on this emphasis being misguided? It seems clear that her perspective is motivated by a critique of productivism, where both labour and capital find a common ground in the interest to ‘grow the pie’, at the expense of the social and natural environment. However, would this adequately be considered a class perspective, rather than a class compromise (and thus precisely lacking in class polarisation)? Surely there were more radical conceptions, understanding class and distribution not just as a matter of individual consumption, but as the ‘foundation of particular social functions which are ascribed to specific agents of production within the relation of production itself’ (Marx, 1981 [1894]: 1019).
In this vein, the link between inequality, precarity and class could be further investigated, and thus one might wonder whether Azmanova’s analysis truly warrants the claim that precarity affects ‘a multiplicity of social groups across the capital-labor divide, irrespective of how they are affected by the distribution of social advantage and wealth’ (p. 138, my emphasis). Yes, precarity affects various income levels; those employed as well as unemployed might find a common interest in fighting precarity. But is it not always the precarity of those who are dependent on selling their labour power – and thus surely not the precarity of capital? In other words, should the class dimension of precarity be taken more seriously than Azmanova sometimes suggests?
It is a major merit of Azmanova’s work that she has once again made the systemic dimension the core moment of a fresh and radical analysis. This marks an important contribution to understanding what is often a neglected part of Critical Theory. Yet, in order to avoid replacing a one-sided perspective with another, it might be worth stressing the interplay between the different dimensions of domination even more so than Azmanova herself does here.