State of Crisis
Zygmunt Bauman, Carlo Bordoni
Language: English
Pages: 174
ISBN: 074568095X
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Today we hear much talk of crisis and comparisons are often made with the Great Depression of the 1930s, but there is a crucial difference that sets our current malaise apart from the 1930s: today we no longer trust in the capacity of the state to resolve the crisis and to chart a new way forward. In our increasingly globalized world, states have been stripped of much of their power to shape the course of events. Many of our problems are globally produced but the volume of power at the disposal of individual nation-states is simply not sufficient to cope with the problems they face. This divorce between power and politics produces a new kind of paralysis. It undermines the political agency that is needed to tackle the crisis and it saps citizens’ belief that governments can deliver on their promises. The impotence of governments goes hand in hand with the growing cynicism and distrust of citizens. Hence the current crisis is at once a crisis of agency, a crisis of representative democracy and a crisis of the sovereignty of the state.
In this book the world-renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and fellow traveller Carlo Bordoni explore the social and political dimensions of the current crisis. While this crisis has been greatly exacerbated by the turmoil following the financial crisis of 2007-8, Bauman and Bordoni argue that the crisis facing Western societies is rooted in a much more profound series of transformations that stretch back further in time and are producing long-lasting effects.
This highly original analysis of our current predicament by two of the world’s leading social thinkers will be of interest to a wide readership.
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Whereas mutuality of dependence between bosses and the labour they hired led sooner or later − in the long term, if not the short or medium − towards the bargaining table, compromise and consensual (even if temporary) settlements, one-sided dependence renders consensus highly unlikely while facilitating nonconsensual, unilateral decisions on the part of the bosses, now no longer tied to a location and free to move elsewhere. Movements of capital are no longer confined to state boundaries;.
Delegation. There is no need to mention the reasons for the delegation. They are those already mentioned with regard to the recognition of individual rights and private property, freedom to trade and take action and to enjoy the services provided by the state. In return for these benefits, citizens gave up their own authority and autonomy, in exchange for obligations, such as the payment of taxes, compulsory service in the event of war, obedience to the laws and regulations imposed. So far, there.
Need cannot be met by natural processes and can only – must – be imposed ‘from outside’ by compelling means – violent ones, if necessary. The essential message of the Leviathan remains to this day an integral and perhaps irremovable part of common sense or doxa – a collection of beliefs which we think with, but seldom if ever think of. The prime role of the state is to enforce order; failure to do so makes it a ‘failed state’ (note that a state is not branded ‘failed’ for any other reason). How.
Zigzag- or pendulum-like meanderings between the poles of good and evil. But it is not so easy to deny the sharpness of Gray’s sight and hearing: he makes few if any mistakes when it comes to spotting, plotting and reporting current shifts and drifts in the public mood, however precocious and ill formed they may yet be (for the time being, and no one can say how long for) or be believed to be (if noticed at all) by common opinion. And one can’t deny his courage: it takes a stout heart and nerves.
A state’ which takes place through a ‘governance’.2 This produces the paralysing effect you described of a political system (representative of the people, and therefore democratic) at a local level, reduced to the management of routine administration, unable to take on and solve the problems that global power (without political representation, and therefore fundamentally undemocratic) imposes with increasing frequency. Contemporary cities are a sort of big rubbish bin [Bauman’s metaphor] into.