The Systemic Crisis of Neoliberal Capitalism: A seminar with Boris Kagarlitsky

The Systemic Crisis of Neoliberal Capitalism: A seminar with Boris Kagarlitsky
 

Sofia, Social Center Haspel, 8 boul. Madrid
17 June 2012 17.00

Boris Kagarlitsky is a Russian Marxian sociologist and is amongst the major intellectuals and activists of the Russian New Left. He is currently the director of the Institute for Globalisation Studies and Social Movements (IGSO) in Moscow. His political engagement starts as a left wing dissident in the 1970s, which got him imprisoned for for "anti-soviet activities" for a term of two years. Interestingly, he was briefly imprisoned during the so called "transition" to democracy in the coup d'etat of 1993, this time for "pro-soviet" activities.
His research includes analysis of the interrelation between the necessities of authoritarian intervention in the imposition of the neoliberal project, as Kagarlitsky argues, the Russian mass privatization after 1994 wouldn't have been possible without the suppression of dissent via the coup d'etat of 1993. This situation bears peculiar resemblances, obviously not in that extreme, with the Bulgarian case, where some of the harshest measures were imposed, once again, undemocratically, by technocrats, with slogans about "civilizational choices" in what basically became a crusade against Totalitarianism. His talk will have a pivotal importance not solely as a means of comparison between the post-socialist experiences of neoliberalization. The current austerity sweeping all over Europe is often mistaken to be unprecedented experience, but dismantling of the welfare state in Eastern Europe preceded the current historical conjuncture by a decade. What the current crisis shows though, according to Kagarlitsky, is that what we are seeing now is not simply a result of the financialization of the real economy, neither of the effects of ill morals of the elites, instead, he argues, what we are currently witnessing is a full blown "real systemic crisis, if not for capitalism, then at least for its neoliberal form. And this crisis can’t be overcome until neoliberalism is eliminated. Whether this will also be the end of capitalism will depend on the scale of global struggles and their outcomes."

Actual text of Boris Kagarlitsky: "Economic policies after the death of neoliberalism"