The power of money: Critical theory, capitalism, and the politics of debt

Klein, Steven

doi:10.1111/1467-8675.12448

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…56 Habermas (1987) makes this case about the economic and political systems; Klein (2020) critiques his analysis from a Polanyian perspective but accepts the same basic point: that…”

Section: Discursive Complexitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Centripetal Representation

Ferris

2022

American J Political Sci

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Growing political complexity is one of the defining features of contemporary rich post-industrial society. Patterns of electoral, administrative, and societal representation have become more complex over the past fifty years as organizations and policymaking processes have stretched across borders, as relatively stable patterns of post-war party competition have broken down, and as more dynamic and ad-hoc governance networks have sprung up alongside older bureaucratic hierarchies. While populist leaders have capitalized on voters' desire to "take back control" of institutions whose opacity they find alienating, deliberative democratic and constructivist theorists of representation tend to express substantial enthusiasm for more complex representative systems.They show why pluralizing processes of representation can promote wiser, more inclusive, more dynamic, and, ultimately, more democratically legitimate processes of self-rule.iii However, the fragmentation of processes of political representation can pose a serious threat to democratic legitimacy and should be countered by a specific kind of democratic simplification. Complexity exacerbates information asymmetries between representatives and constituents that afflict the resource-poor worse than others, biasing the representative system against them. Simplifying systems of political representation can help ordinary people understand and engage with their representatives and push back against gridlock, collusion, capture, and shirking. Broad inclusion of pluralistic claims, actors, and institutions on the periphery of the representative system should therefore be combined with substantial democratic simplicity at its core, with networked responsiveness in between. I use the metaphor of centripetal motion to captures the idea that pressure and influence should flow "inwards" from a heterogeneous assemblage of claims, actors, and institutions on the periphery to a relatively small and organized group at the centre.The theory of centripetal representation can help political theorists, social scientists, and political practitioners think about how to manage complexity and shape our evolving systems of representation in ways that promote democratic legitimacy by helping ordinary people to be seen and heard, rather than allowing the powerful to hide. iv Acknowledgments This dissertation first began to take shape under the guidance of Simone Chambers, whose work has long been an important model for my own. Her incisive judgement has helped me not stray too far from the right path and her somewhat pugilistic style has been a constant spur to professionalism. I was influenced at a decisive stage by Michael Donnelly, an erstwhile committee member whose inspiring teaching got me excited about the way political scientists study political representation. I am extremely lucky that Andy Sabl happened to come to Toronto, as there are few democratic theorists so independent in their orientation and so closely engaged with empirical work. Certainly, there cannot be many who are ...

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“…56 Habermas (1987) makes this case about the economic and political systems; Klein (2020) critiques his analysis from a Polanyian perspective but accepts the same basic point: that…”

Section: Discursive Complexitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Centripetal Representation

Ferris

2022

American J Political Sci

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“…the public and (public-)private money creation, and the public basis of the value of currency (see Hockett and Omarova 2017;Hockett 2018;Ingham 2004). Indeed, understanding how such institutions are interwoven with the state is an important step toward making the monetary system-which is arguably increasingly interdependent with the financial system more broadly speaking (Pistor 2013)-fit for democracy: the public should be able to exert some control over the system, which has arguably been a blind spot of much recent political philosophy and critical theory (Klein 2020). Questions remain, inter alia, about the viability and even the desirability of public debate on matters of considerable theoretical complexity (Klooster 2020a, 593)-and the answers will vary wildly depending on context.…”

Section: How To Politicise Public Debt Democraticallymentioning

confidence: 99%

Financial Power and Democratic Legitimacy: How To Think Realistically About Public Debt

Prinz¹,

Rossi²

2021

Preprint

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To what extent are questions of sovereign debt a matter for political rather than scientific or moral adjudication? We answer that question by defending three claims. We argue that (i) moral and technocratic takes on sovereign debt tend to be ideological in a pejorative sense of the term, and that therefore (ii) sovereign debt should be politicised all the way down. We then show that this sort of politicisation need not boil down to the crude Realpolitik of debtor-creditor power relations—a conclusion that would leave no room for normative theory, among other problems. Rather, we argue that (iii) in a democratic context, a realist approach to politics centred on what Bernard Williams calls ‘The Basic Legitimation Demand’ affords a deliberative approach to the normative evaluation of public debt policy options.

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“…In a nutshell, Klein's (2020a) outline of a critical theory in this journal, which builds on his previous piece on "The power of money" (Klein 2020b), finds the democratization potential of law overemphasized and the democratization potential of money underdeveloped in Habermas's theory, and resorts to Polanyi's understanding of fictitious commodities (land, labor, money) as an entry point for possibilities of democratic reorganization inside the economic sphere. His emphasis is on interactions between labor and money in the European context, but the role of law in general and in monetary union is also addressed.…”

Section: Law and Money As Contested: Combining The Ideas Of Polanyi And Habermasmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Law in European Monetary Integration: A Critical Reconstruction and a Response to Klein

Frerichs

Fraga

2021

Global Perspectives

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In an article recently published in this journal, Steven Klein revised Karl Polanyi’s conceptualization of the relation between economy and society, and adapted it to the post-crisis European context. Klein’s reconstruction emphasized the redemocratization potential of trade unions and central banks against the pernicious effects of the commodification of labor and money on the European level. While Klein’s approach is without doubt very insightful and original, we think that some of his claims either deserve discussion or require closer elaboration. This reservation concerns the conceptual approach of setting Polanyi against Habermas as well as the critique of the role of law in the integration process. As for the latter, we think that further contextualization is needed to appreciate changing historical contexts and layers of European integration. With the objective of enriching Klein’s analysis, we first propose a way to reconcile, against what Klein suggests, Polanyian and Habermasian understandings of law and money. This theoretical background will help us, second, to explore in detail the differences between market integration and monetary integration, and in particular the role that law plays in each of these politico-economic constellations. Based on this, we will, thirdly and finally, explain how the interaction of public and private law in the context of post-crisis European integration further promotes the process of commodification, and how the configuration of law in market and monetary integration currently prevents trade unions and central banks from exerting the redemocratizing potential that Klein assigns to them.

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The power of money: Critical theory, capitalism, and the politics of debt

Cited by 12 publications

References 48 publications

Centripetal Representation

Centripetal Representation

Financial Power and Democratic Legitimacy: How To Think Realistically About Public Debt

The Role of Law in European Monetary Integration: A Critical Reconstruction and a Response to Klein

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