SoLiXG:Crisis
Crisis
Crisis has become a polymorphous concept – in particular since critical debates transcended an often narrowly interpreted interpretation of marxian concepts of crisis related to economic contradictions (eg overproduction, underconsumption, tendency of the rate of profit to fall). The concept has shifted from singular to plural as a focus on multiple crises or poly-crises of capitalist social formations or global capitalism has emerged. Nevertheless, some categorical considerations can be highlighted.
In an early debate on social and political crises (in Late Capitalism aka Fordism) Jürgen Habermas stated:“crises arise when the structure of a social system allows fewer possibilities for problem solving than are necessary to the continued existence of the system. In this sense, crises are seen as persistent disturbances of system integration.” (1988/1973, 2) He pointed out that crises emerge from structural contradictions of (capitalist) societies and the growing inability of social institutions (eg – but not exclusively – state institutions) to tackle them. However, he also pointed out that there is a “discursive” element to crises as the interpretation of a certain social dynamic as “crisis” has to become widely accepted. Something which nowadays is also labelled crisis construal or crisis narratives by people like Bob Jessop and Ngai Ling Sum. This also means that it is important how crises are socially constructed as this influences the conflicts about new forms of crisis management and/or social transformation.
The shift to concepts such as multiple or poly-crises aims at a non-reductionist interpretation of crisis as being determined by the crisis of capital relations. This conceptualisations are rather referring to the relative autonomy of social contradictions and crisis tendencies in different social spheres (state, care/social reproduction, environment etc). The challenge is to grasp their interdependencies and the way they are mutually overdetermined and maybe re-inforcing each other. There are also contributions which highlight the significance and connections of crisis developments in certain social spheres such as the economy or the environment. To give an example, Klaus Dörre is talking about a crisis handle (Zangenkrise) of crisis developments linked global warming and capitalist “Landnahme” of more and more social spheres (capitalist seizure/land grab).
In the debates about the shift from Fordism (resting not only on a certain regime of accumulation and regulation but also on a specific technological paradigm) to “post-Fordism”, whose shape is still contested, an important distinction has been made concerning the scope and depth of structural or big crisis. The developments since the 1970s/80s were interpreted as a period of fundamental (multiple) crises, affecting more or less all spheres of society. These crises could not be solved through overcome forms of crisis management sparking farreaching structural social transformations. Technological changes, the emergence of a new technological paradigm (eg digitalization) resulting from social struggles concerning its shape, which are able to affect and permeate all social spheres and social interactions are of crucial importance in this context. The concept of social transformation refers to encompassing character of crisis induced social changes.
Anna: That is a matter of taste but: would make it a bit shorter, get rid of some quotes and highlight what is necessary for the project so far (e.g. a hyperlink to resilience).