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Thursday, March 28, 2024

(Guest Post) Cheeky Bastard Speaks: Through the eyes of an outsider

Courtesy of Andy Dufresne

 

Andy Dufresne made every effort to not remove 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 Still, this outdated process of thinking about the economy is prevalent with the general and mainstream economic theories and widely used by various economic structures within the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-thinkconsidering the processes which took place since the books were publishedthe 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 spaceabstract, physical, or bothin 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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