A discussion with Aaron Peters (@aaronjohnpeters) and Seth Wheeler (@sethnotes) on the London Olympics as a ‘roadmap’ for post-Fordist production, identity and bio-political control.
One year on from the riots that swept through much of London and rest of England in August 2011, Novara asks what has changed? What is the role of Total Policing in the post-riots landscape, and, could they happen again?
Aaron Peters is joined in the studio by James Butler (@PiercePenniless) as well as writer and academic Nina Power, author of ‘One-Dimensional Woman’. Nina regularly contributes to publications that include frieze, Wire, Radical Philosophy, the Guardian, Cabinet, Film Quarterly, Icon and The Philosophers’ Magazine and has been heavily involved in the Defend The Right To Protest Campaign.
The show begins at 2pm Tuesday 7th August on 104.4FM (London) and will also be broadcast online here
‘Here lies the present paradox: work has totally triumphed over all other ways of existing, at the very moment when workers have become superfluous. Gains in productivity, outsourcing, mechanization, automated and digital production have so progressed that they have almost reduced to zero the quantity of living labor necessary in the manufacture of any product. We are living the paradox of a society of workers without work, where entertainment, consumption and leisure only underscore the lack from which they are supposed to distract us. The mine in Carmaux, famous for a century of violent strikes, has now been reconverted into Cape Discovery. It’s an entertainment “multiplex” for skateboarding and biking, distinguished by a “Mining Museum” in which methane blasts are simulated for vacationers.’ - The Invisible Committee
‘…capital here - quite unintentionally - reduces human labour, expenditure of energy, to a minimum. This will redound to the benefit of emancipated labour, and is the condition of its emancipation.’ - Karl Marx, Grundrisse
In the third show Seth Wheeler and Aaron Peters will discuss the crisis of work and the impossibility of returning to full employment utopias. The discussion will look at the crisis of unemployment, precarity and ‘service’ work within Post-Fordism and the idea of the ‘refusal of work’. Finally the show will consider whether the utopia upon which present political currents should aspire is that of ‘full unemployment’.
The second show follows on from the previous discussion about the ‘graduate without a future’ by looking at austerity through the lense of generational justice. What does such a lense contribute to political debate? Should those subjects ‘without a future’ see such a lense as a locus around which to organise or is it instead a wedge that obscures the classical cleavage that defines political antagonism under capitalism, namely class?
Aaron Peters (@aaronjohnpeters) and Seth Wheeler (@sethnotes) will be joined by writer and journalist Shiv Malik (@shivmalik1). Shiv is on the advisory board for the Intergenerational Justice Foundation and is the co-author, with Ed Howker, of Jilted Generation: how Britain has bankrupted its youth.
The show is on Resonance FM 104.4fm and starts at 2pm on Tuesday, repeated on Sunday at 10pm.
You can also listen online here and follow us on twitter on @novaramedia
First show. Second series.
Apposite after a 70-hour working week this week… It’s Sunday afternoon and I still feel exhausted.
1. It’s the 21st century – why are we working so much? by Owen Hatherley
Guardian, 1 July 2012The right calls for hard work, the left for more jobs. The dream of mechanisation leading to…
To begin the second series our first show looks at the theme of the ‘graduate without a future’ with James Butler @piercepenniless and Aaron Peters @aaronjohnpeters. While broad-ranging the parameters of the discussion will include this piece by Paul Mason, economics editor of BBC Newsnight, and this response by Butler.
What does the future look like? Is there a future for the university and will it change? Has it changed? What is the relationship between education and the social democratic compromise now in free fall which permitted unprecedented numbers of people access to university and other social goods, and, the very category of the future itself? Will new political subjects, such as the graduate without a future, become political agents?
In conclusion, to quote Butler, “…now we know there’s no future, what are we going to do about it?”
Here are some thoughts on the future and here is a book
Show is on Resonance FM 104.4fm and starts at 2pm on Tuesday, repeated on Sunday at 10pm.
You can also listen online here and follow us on twitter on @novaramedia
‘We’ve sent men to the moon, can see into the deepest reaches of space – are you seriously telling me that, all this being true, we can’t do something so simple as afford free education? Fuck you!’
Six quick notes on Paul Mason’s piece on the ‘Graduate Without A Future’:
1. While it’s…
The first series can be found here http://soundcloud.com/resonance-fm/sets/novara-1/
A schedule for the first six shows will follow shortly.
