Cultural Contradictions of Anti-Capitalism

Daniel Fletcher is an independent researcher and writer living in the West Midlands, England.

• Introduction: Overview and Key Theoretical Argument Chapter 1 Perspectives on Contemporary Radicalism: Transcendence and the Immanentist BreakChapter 2 A Short History of Bourgeois Self-Emancipation: From Spinoza to Locke and Onwards.Chapter 3 May 1968: Towards the Limits of Self-Emancipatory Radicalism.Chapter 4 Varieties of Self-Emancipatory Experience: French and Anglo-Saxon Cultures of Self-EmancipationChapter 5 Deleuze and Guattari: Self-Emancipatory Philosophy in the ’68 EraChapter 6 Hardt and Negri on Postmodernisation: Self-Emancipatory Radicalism in the Politics of the MultitudeChapter 7 Flexible Re-Institutionalisation:From Revolutionary Anti-Capitalism to Transnationalist Alter-GlobalismConclusion Bibliography

Daniel Fletcher’s The Cultural Contradictions of Anti-Capitalism is an outstanding cultural history of the globalised present that sheds new light on the relationship between the liberal capitalist spirit and anti-capitalist radicalism. Reading Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus and Hardt and Negri’s Empire through the lens of the history of the liberal spirit, Fletcher shows how the cultural contradictions of the contemporary global capitalist system, comprising both a dynamic ultra-modern tendency towards over-coming and a socialistic democratic idealism concerned with establishing connection, mean that the post-modern left will need to rethink its visions of the future if it is to ever escape its liberal, capitalist pre-history. —Mark Featherstone, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Keele University, UKThis book importantly traces the emergence of the anti-capitalist ethos back via five key stages in the development of the Western bourgeois-individual spirit, to which this book argues the anti-capitalist ethos remains inextricably wedded. In doing so, the book offers a welcome rereading of Deleuze and Guattari’s arguments regarding desire, showing that much that goes under the header of left-wing activism actually bypasses indigenous and working class populations in spite of its own arguments to the contrary. This book is required reading for anyone seeking to understand the conundrums of contemporary political struggles.—Ingrid Hoofd, Assistant Professor, Department of Media and Culture Studies, Universiteit Utrecht, UKDaniel Fletcher analyses in intricate detail the origins and development of the bourgeois ethos of self-emancipation, caught as it is​ between contradictory tendencies towards​ being-with and being-over. This highly original work opens a new vista on ​the agony which Western radical culture has dragged itself into.—Ronnie Lippens, Professor of Criminology, Keele University, UKDaniel Fletcher provides a compelling theoretical and philosophical analysis of left-wing radicalism. This is an important book. Those who read it will understand the importance of engaging in a more reflexive and informed debate concerning cultural resistance, global capitalism and social change.—James Hardie-Bick, Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology, University of Sussex, UK