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(Guest Post) Cheeky Bastard Speaks: Through the eyes of an outsider
We made every effort to keep the cheekiness of this missive, apart from very minor edits. By no means it is perfect, but it is definitely cheeky.
Submitted by Cheeky Bastard
Through the eyes of an outsider
The concept of Territory,
deterritorialization and reterritorialization, and what is left to be
killed.
This little column is conceived as a
critique of the economy seen through the eyes of an outsider. We will
try to analyze, synthesize, and re-think some of the basic (and not so
basic) concepts of the economy using a line of thought which is not
by itself rooted in the thought dynamics of an economist. The goal is
to give an interdisciplinary new approach to some new and old parts
of what constitutes economic thought.
Given the range of topics which we
will present, it will likely take us several articles. One of the
main motives which urged us to write is the privilege granted to ZH
contributors—which we wish to fully exploit—to post pictures of
casually and (hopefully) not so casually dressed Amanda Drury. It
will be published once a week, on Sunday, mainly because we are too lazy
to write it any other day. We hope you will enjoy it.
"History of economics is a history of
studying the anachronistic processes of production" wrote Gauttari in
the apex of his monumental book called Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
While the expose written by Gauttari is in no way untrue, it is
unsatisfactory and flawed when applied to today's financial Territory.
Still, this outdated process of thinking about the economy is
prevalent with the general and mainstream economic theories and
widely used by various economic structures within the State. Marxist
critique of the economy and the internal condition within it is
solely focused on that aspect and neglects the paradigmatic shift, or
better said, the constant flow of paradigmatic restructuring and
subsequent process of deterritorialization and reterritorialization.
But so does the capitalist theory of economics. Philosophicaly, in
their core, the difference is non-existent.
Before we take our thinking on this
subject further, we feel a necessity to explain, in short, what the
terms deterritorialization and reterritorialization represent in
their fullness. We also feel the need to explain the meaning, in this
context, of what represents a Territory and the various singularities
which describe it, define it, and differentiate it from the concept
of Space or Landscape. We will try to use some of the ideas Gauttari
and Deleuze presented us with, but the goal of this short paper is to
re-think—considering the processes which took place since the books
were published—the actions, events, and functions in modern
economic Territory.
The concept of Territory can represent
various meanings, and be used to study various aspects of the
Territory of the General, but we have decided that we will define it
as following: Territory is a space—abstract,
physical, or both—in which the paradigmatic singularity that defines
it finds its roots in the constant process of deterritorialization
and reterritorialization. The main difference between the concept of
Territory, and any other concept, is the notion of a constant
dialectic which takes place with in it, and thus causes, as a
consequence, constant reterritorialization and deterritorialization.
To put it in simple terms, a physical territory can be used when
describing the production of rubber in the Amazon (given that the
production is not monopolized), financial engineering that is taking
place on Wall Street. It can be used to study and describe the
democratic process (given the existence of necessary conditions
within the democratic structure itself ). Territories can further be
classified into 4 separate categories
1) local territories which have local
territorial processes
2) global territories which have global
territorial processes
3) local territories that derive the
global territorial processes
4) global territories which are defined
with by the set of local territorial processes
Sovereign nations are an example of
local territories with both local territorial processes, and local
territories with derived global territorial processes. Planet Earth
is the only global territory. What is also important to explain is
the meaning and the notion of territorial processes; there are 2
types.
The first process is
deterritorialization of Space; and the main characteristics of such
process is a shift that occurs within the Space itself, and thus
re-defines it as a territory and changes the territorial
characteristics of the space. Normally, such processes occur
frequently on a micro and macro level. One example of
deterritorialization is change in interest rates, or the change in
the rate of inflation. Deterritorialization is also defined as an end
of the state of the space and the process which occurs is seen as the
beginning of reterritorialization.
Reterritorialization is a process in
which a territory, after it has deterritorialized itself, again goes
from the transitory state into the dialectical state.
Reterritorialization is a normalization of the Space and it is
defined as a consequence of the processes which deterritorialized the
space and defined it as a territory. Reterritorialization is, in
economic sense, an adjustment of the system upon the consequences of
the processes of deterritorialization. Meaning that the Space, or in
this case the economy, adjusts itself accordingly to the measures
undertaken by the central bank. Usually, that is either the rise in
interest rates, the rise in the money supply, or some socio-economic
action independent from the action taken by the central bank. Example
of such socio-economic action is the Iraq war, the horrors of 9/11,
or the attack on the Pearl Harbour, which helped to revive the
American industry in the 40s.
Of course, the processes are not purely
economic. They are an abstract methodological transcription used as a
thought process to observe events that take place. Also, the
processes can not be separated from Time itself, and thus they are
temporal. But, given the physical time which we use as a determinant,
the dialectical flow can either move slow or fast. The example is a
fast dialectical process is the entire history of Western
Civilizations. The example of a slow dialectical process is a time
period, in today Russia, which began in 1917. and finished with the
fall of the Berlin Wall, and the subsequent death of the USSR.
In the period after WWII, capitalism
and the political ideology which follows it re-emerged as a dominant
structure of the new world order. The old political landscape was
dissolved, and humanity started to re-define itself in the ways
unseen before. The strong colonial nations of western Europe granted
independence to their colonies and forced the to structure their
economic and political system upon the foundations of liberal
capitalism.
On the other hand, the final
territorialization preached by communism, and its ideologues, has
become diametrically opposed to the foundations and principles of
democracy and capitalistic theory of the economy. The process of
economic reterriorialization of the post WWII period has been marked
by an open antagonism between the two countries which stood as
leaders—the US and the USSR.
After the final collapse of communism,
Francis Fukuyama, a little known Hegelian sociologist and
philosopher, boldly proclaimed that the historical process had ended.
That there are no more open enemies of democracy and capitalism, and
that the econ-political structuralization—in the form of a liberal
capitalism—is the final reterritorialization of a global Territory.
Many staunch supporters of such
ideology proudly cheered the effectiveness of the Reagan
administration and, the its power, which ultimately “liberated”
the vast spaces from the oppression of a communist hand.
Of course the accomplishment wouldn't
be complete if the victory was only a political one, if it had no
impact on the global economy and the total dominance of liberal
capitalism. The events which took place in 1989 in the former USSR
signaled George Soros that the economy of western Europe will become
fragile and burdened with all the new spaces which were coming into
its political and economical view, so he planed to brake one of the
major European currencies by betting it would end its dependence on
the rate of exchange vs. DEM.
The problem of some European countries
stream directly from the fast process of reterritorialization which
took place in the 90s, and in which the European (especially the
Austrian, German and Italian) banks lent substantial sums of money to
the developing European nations. The speed of economic
reterritorialization was so fast that the banking systems of some
European countries now face catastrophic losses, which, if occurred,
would put the European economy on in its knees and severely endanger
every future political consensus among European nations, and thus,
again give potential for a future conflict among European nations, as
was the case throughout most the European history.
The, reterritrialization of the
economical and political landscape began with the policy advocated
during the Carter administration, which preached economic openness
towards China and Southeastern Asia, in order to stop the rapidly
growing communistic threat.
Now, we are in the final moments of a
final reterritorialization, a process which will ultimately lead
towards the goals outlined in Immanuel Kant's essay on politics
“Perpetual peace”. And surely, when the simulacrum of victory is
achieved, some little known philosopher will, once again, proudly
proclaim those very known words “History has ended “. But,
history never ends. It never ends for a simple reason, which is
deeply anthropological, and which says that the only thing more
delusional than the madness of humanity is its belief that it is
rational.
The political and economical
territorialization processes will never end, it may become slower, as
they did in the USSR, and thus reaffirm the belief that history has
truly ended. But somewhere, from the darkness of history, a process
of chaos (territorialization process) will lurk, preparing itself for
one more dialectical move, for one more affirmation of the constant
flow of history. It will grow stronger, and it will be considered
long dead, killed by the efforts of those who seeked to kill it, but
it will be there, to once again, show us the beautiful flow of chaos
and order.
This short paper's goal is to serve as
a short introduction and to stimulate your own research. Also its
purpose is to give you a foundation upon which you can build your
own, specialized, application of the basic ideas which we presented
here, and apply them in your field of specialization.
The second part of this column, Madness
and civilization; the death of Man and the hegemony of mathematical
irrationality, will be coming soon.
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I'm pretty sure this guy taught economics at my college.
A coming thinker, who will perhaps be faced with the task of really taking over this thinking that I am attempting to *prepare,* will have to obey a sentence Heinrich von Kleist once wrote, and that reads
"I step back before one who is not yet here, and bow, a millennium before him, to his spirit."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu_UFHrC02k
The "abstract methodological transcription" seems a lot like Control Theory, with not so much control as it describes a "sociological" experiment, as in economics, politics, etc.
Reterritorialization is like finding the next stable pole (or the same old one) after a feed/back injection, no? De/territorialization is too long a word to use frequently.
It really is interdisciplinary and I like the approach. I'll read the next one for sure.
PS: not the main point of the article but there's no "final collapse of communism". Quite the contrary, it is reincarnating in the same old form now in Venezuela as a satellite of Russia, including troops deployment when requested. There will be large blood stains like there is always when communism shows its true face.
Cheeky, it's rather fuzzy. Would love to see a summary leading to your point of view. My fav. econ blog describes the current failure the best:
http://www.psyfitec.com/2009/10/save-more-tomorrow.html
"The philosopher Isaiah Berlin elaborated the concepts of Positive and Negative Freedom in his lecture Two Concepts of Liberty. Positive Freedom is the freedom to do whatever we want as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. Negative Freedom is the freedom that comes from being compelled to act in our own best interests – think fluoride in drinking water, DNA databases to catch future perps or forced retirement savings."
The problem is, humans in their current stage of development are not ready for pure positive freedom. Therefore the best temporary solution is the balance between those two concepts and time for future generations to improve and learn to control their irrationalities (instincts).
Comrade. Your post reminds me of Adam Curtis's BBC documentary 'The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom'. 3 one-hour documentaries - well worth viewing if you haven't seen it. Part 3 covers Berlin's 'Two Concepts of Liberty'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_(television_documentary_series)
You can find it on Google video and Youtube.
Curtis's 'The Power of Nightmares' is fascinating viewing also.
thanks, i tend to miss all of the good stuff.
Adam Curtis is essential viewing. Don't forget about Century of the Self and the Mayfair Set which are more economically centered than the films you mentioned above that are more on the political side.
Century of the Self focuses on Edward Bernays, one of the most influential but least known people of the 20th century. Eddie Bernays is responsible for many things in your life that you aren't even aware of. For example, he popularized the bacon and eggs breakfast combo, made it cool for women to smoke, and found a creative way to dispose of sodium fluoride waste from the aluminum industry (our water supply).
The Mayfair Set is focused on buccaneer capitalism and exploitation of third world economies. It's a must watch for economic conspiracy theorists.
"The only thing more delusional than the madness of humanity is its belief that it is rational."
Amen to that.
If you invest your money like you just invested your time, I'd recommend you hit the GRE's and pray for tenure.
Amanda pics???
It seems the preoccupation with Ms. Drury is a relatively widely shared one. For those with a need for an immediate fix:
http://reportercaps.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=cnbc&action=print&thre...
Good stuff CD. Seems like each and every television appearance of Ms. Drury has been captured in there. She's definitely my favorite (after Alexis Glick, of course).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cPuaqGZGro&feature=player_embedded
and @ around 3:18 ... that's where CB song starts.
kidding
p.s. If you point - there is never complete order & large degree of certainty moreover our economic - social system needs some "chaos" in order for development & progress, than I couldn't agree more. If only people on the top were not afraid to acknowledge to themselves: "I don't know", we all would be better off.
Sorry, i just can't be serious tonight...after reading this the following song came to mind, and while listening, just imagine instead of the word she, insert he; for the word girls, insert boys, and instead of Betty Davis, insert Cheeky Bastard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPOIS5taqA8
If we could just have a remake, this would be Cheeky's song.
Sounds like it came from the Postmodernism Generator (Economic Edition):
http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
Cheeky,
I want to understand why deterritorialization and reterritorialization are synsitizing concepts that will show me something other concepts will not.
Should I think of them as shifting strange attractors? Processes and inputs codify/reify for a while until something thows the shape of it off. That instant of the input and resulting destabilization is what you are calling deterritorialization? Then when a new strange attractor emerges you are saying a reterritorializaion/restabilization has taken place? Your thesis anti thesis in a sense? And this is always going on in any system/territory you chose to define.
Let me know if this is where you intended to take your reader.
I had to read this about 5 times to understand it. At first I thought you were employing a circular logic around de- and reterritorialization, but I can see where you're going.
The problem that hangs me up is how do you identify a change in the dialectic versus a normalization? Perhaps what appears to be a de- is actually a re-?
Good paper but must academics always pepper such pieces with words like dialectic and paradigm. the first because it is just a fancy pants word for sound argument and the second because, like Keynes, it brings me out in hives.
Uh-oh, looks like someone has taken out that dusty handbook of Hegelian - marxist theories. Reminds me of listening to my Italian socialist high school professors and their incomprehensible structuralist jargon. Funny to find that on a website of financial bloggers. My guess is this Cheeky character is a frenchie.
"simulacrum of victory" = "mission accomplished"
Does this remind anyone else of when the Green Mile came out in serial form. Running home, reading fast and then the waiting. Wondering all week what will happen next?....haha, I love it. Keep it up Cheeky, I look forward to the next installment. Spanish inquisition
Ah yes ,simpler time's,marketing at it's best,but SK delivered the good's
Missed the scantilly-clad ladies myself
not only is he cheeky but his magnificent. i raise a glass of red bull and salute you sir.....:)
My guess is that Cheeky Bastard = Jean Baudrillard.
On Baudrillard: "his writing style is hyperbolic and declarative, often lacking sustained, systematic analysis when it is appropriate; he totalizes his insights, refusing to qualify or delimit his claims."
LOL!!
Luo Guanzhong summed this up several hundred years ago.
"The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been."
"The laws of impermanence are irrefutable" The Buddah
Love a good Koan. Kind of like this economy, a real brain fuck.
Sounds like Bill Bonner with a fucking thesaurus to me. Pretentious drivel.
Duuuuuude.... i have an english teacher in 5 grade that told me less is more....
My 5th grade teacher told me "Less is better than more" and my girlfriend tells me "More is better than less"
CB must be talking to my girlfriend!
Free beer tomorrow
Come talk to us Cheeky.
MsCreant, I have missed a lot of days over the last few months, and i have no idea when or what occurred to prompt the post by Andy for Cheeky, but whatever the case, i just responded to the idea that i would really hate to not see Cheeky's responses here...
this is embarrassing and i hope i am not offending anyone by my nosiness, but you are kind hearted and i know you'll forgive my ignorance and nosiness. Please help my understanding here if you don't mind, and if you do, i understand.
I don't know much. I saw that Andy said he thought he might have scared Cheeky away with some talk about how your IP address or something might be vulnerable if you don't take precautions when you post here. But I did not read it in great depth. I am just not worried about the gov or GS finding out I post here.
I hope Cheeky keeps posting too. It is not my sense that this post of Cheeky's has to do with that threat though. I did see, a while back, a post from Cheeky asking about being a contributor. I think this post represents something he has been rolling around on his pallet and that it is not related to the thing with Andy, but honestly, these are guesses.
Maybe we will learn more together.
Always enjoy you agrotera! I think more than a few of us are wondering "What's up?" Good on you to ask!
thank you so much for sharing MsCreant!!! Always love to hear from you too! I know that you share also my hope that cheeky will step in and tell us to stop wondering and/or worrying!
Please don't make me cry Cheeky!
Then again, What's the value of territory in the cyber era? Networks rule!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2TNcvPDXF8
OK, I'm sorry for being unable to give a reply to many of the comments i received under this post. I had some personal issues which have taken most of my time yesterday.
That said; i would also like to mention that i will not respond to every single comment individually, simply because there is at least 50% of all the comments that,in some way or another, are directed toward me to explain some little line, or a word in this post.
I will give a brief summary of the responses in this comment; so i hope that you will read it, and that the things which were unclear before will become, if nothing else, then little brighter.
So, let me start.
To those who made remarks about me constructing this article on the platform of Marxist philosophy, i think you have overlooked the way i used the arguments based on Marxism in this article. I was in no way condoning Marxist principles, nor making my case in order to support them. They are only here as a) a historical reminder a ) the other side of an argument c ) a side note from political history.
Also, the volks-interpretation of Marxism and what Marxism is, in my opinion, based on the historical exposure received in the years of the Cold War, and i need to say, that the mask which was put on the real face of Marxism, by both sides of that Cold Conflict, is a degradation to the many ideas which stream from Karl Marx's program and which are now inseparable part of what many call post-modern capitalism. Some of those ideas are an 8 hrs. work day, women rights, children rights, minimal wage, to name just some of them.
What is also, important to note is that Marxism, Communism and Socialism are 3 separable constructs. Marxism is a philosophy which, in itself, unites the teachings on many areas, such as; economy, politics, anthropology, philosophy, sociology, psychology and history, while Communism is a political ideology with some of its roots in Karl Marxs program, but is, in no way equal to it. The horrors of Stalinist Russia, were never based on anything written by Karl Marx or any of the post-Marxist. They are, as are all the other horrors of history, based on the savagery and insanity of the political cast that ruled.
Also, i have seen, in some of the comments, a parallel being made between the constant shifts with in the territory and the particular areas of mathematics, will find the answer to those question IF the next article gets published ( and of course read by those who seek of me to answer them the questions which i mentioned above ). But, it is in order, for me to give, if nothing else, then a little abstract of why this article is first and foremost conceived as a critique of some wide spread economical interpretations and opinions.
While strong mathematical generalization can be made using some mathematical tools, such as Category theory, or Catastrophe theory, those mathematical constructs will never provide sufficient understanding as will the approach based on philosophical techniques and reasoning rooted in it.While MacLane, Eilenberg and Grothendieck provide, the necessary mathematical frame for us to study social processes using their tools, i do not wish to use them simply because, and let me draw my argumentation using the one provided by Steenrod, and refer to them as " abstract nonsense "
Also, i would like to address those who found that the best argumentation is ad hominem argumentation, that i am not French, nor structuralist, nor post-structuralist, nor am i a Marxist ( as many here know from the conversations we had in the past ).
I would also like, that IF the next article is published, you take some of you precious time and read it, because some of the basic ideas introduced by this article will be expanded and arguments will be made, also some new ideas will be introduced.
Again, thank you for reading this article.
CB, I find Network Theory to be the most useful area of Mathematics in understanding economics. Network Theory is highly inter-disciplinary, which helps in using phenomena from other areas to understand economic and social dynamics.
Heat
PS. Interesting documentary....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcCpEf6_Ofg
Cheeky Bastard! Thank you for the summary and so good to know you are here.
Have a great day!
Agrotera, you have a great day yourself. thank you for reading the article.
thank you CB and thank you for the article, and i look forward to the next chapter!
Cheeky, I can't let this pass. Here's my problem: why does anyone take Guattari (or Deleuze) seriously? (Also, it would be nice if you spelled his name correctly.) It is nonsensical stuff with a lot of redefined terms that don’t make much sense.
For the unenlightened, Felix Guattari was a French radical neo-Marxist post-Trotskyite (whatever that is) psychiatrist. He studied psychology, rejected Freud, and supported group therapy to break down what he believed were barriers to releasing one’s energy and passion to things that mattered, such as radicalism. In other words he was a political psychiatrist. He believed that much of our neuroses were the result of capitalism.
His group of intellectuals also called themselves anti-fascists because they thought capitalism was basically the same as fascism. He was very prominent in the student revolts of 1968 in France and was a collaborator with Danny “The Red” Cohn-Bendit and other leaders.
The language you use in your commentary does sound “structuralist” as someone pointed out, but you claim you aren’t one, so I’m guessing that Guattari was really a part of the deconstructionist movement. Let me say, I haven’t thought about this crap for years and didn’t realize it was still an intellectual movement. Pardon me, Cheeky.
Deconstructionists break down the meaning of words and concepts and try to rearrange them. They use an incomprehensible vocabulary that doesn’t make any sense unless you’re really into it. What they do is discard the rational meanings of things. That is they jettison the whole structure of rationalism that has been developed and cultivated in Western Civilization since Aristotle. I am firmly in the Aristotelian camp, as a point of reference.
In reading your article I felt that I was entering a world of the past, a world of experimentation and radicalism that was a mainstay of the neo-Marxist movements in the 1960s. But I wasn’t really sure what you were talking about.
I think you were saying that things change and markets respond to change, perhaps in creative new ways. Also, that political systems also respond to this change. Are you saying something else? Perhaps some deterministic organic process? (Sorry, I got carried away with the lingo.)
It is hard to tell. Try some fifty cent words.
Here's some language on capitalism from the Wiki on this stuff. Can anyone figure this out? Maybe you just had to be there.
The capitalist axiomatic
Capitalism can be "understood as a mechanism or set of mechanisms for the maintenance of a relatively stable assemblage of the social factors required to sustain the extraction of flow surplus" (Paul Patton, "Deleuze and the political", Routledge, 2000: 95). This set of mechanisms is an axiomatic (or an axiomatic system), which should not be confused with any kind of code, overcoding, or recoding: "the axiomatic deals directly with purely functional elements and relations whose nature is not specified, and which are immediately realized in highly varied domains simultaneously; codes, on the other hand, are relative to those domains and express specific relations between specific elements that cannot be subsumed by a higher formal unity (overcoding) except by transcendence and in an indirect fashion" (ATPC 501).
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe...
show us the beautiful flow of chaos and order
so be it, cheeky†
your b o l d
be b o l d.
you may not be able to recognize your own greatness and your ability with words, prose and thoughts.
happens to a lot of great artists. destruction of greatness is inherent in the advancement of so called ever advancing civilizations. scam on the ego.
be mindful, vigilent of destroyers.
bless you child, you have formed a bit of a burden on your shoulders, happens when you know to much.
CC = cold conflict, who da know†
baby i am so unaware of this conflict
amongst us. never knew. pretty sorry, actually.U R sweet. And Velolicious.
It is fun to watch your avatars change with your shifting mood.
You are not unaware. We are pawns, exploited. Bad times are coming. Prepare. That is all any of us needs to know. Some of us are obsessed with the details hoping we can time it. We are silly, we know generally what is coming. May be tomorrow, may happen in 10 years. But it is coming. I am trying to figure out how to live my life knowing what I know and be about other things besides what I know. It is hard. It is not working well with some of my relationships with others. I have to go into a kind of pause or denial to get it to work.
Take care. Biking is good, make sure you have something simple that you can get around on in all terrains and repair fairly easily. No Italian components easily available in the new world order. Your situation sounds great. You are probably fine. As fine as any of us!!!
6th RULE: No shirts, no shoes.
sorry stupid rant