CfP: ‘Who are the ruling class and how do they rule?’

Critique Special Issue, ‘Who are the ruling class and how do they rule?’

Call for Papers

This special issue calls for papers from authors able to address key
questions about the global capitalist class.

The material and ideological basis for a global capitalist class to
sustain its’ rule are somewhat at odds. On the one hand, capital has
never been centralized in so fewer hands. The volume and intensity of
capital never more concentrated within a relatively few global
political, financial and economic organizations, head-quartered in
global cityscapes, such as London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong,
Beijing, whose power dwarfs that of the national economies they reside
in. On the other hand, the global population has never been so aware
they are the ‘99%’ looking back with a mixture of anger, fear and
resentment at the audacious scales of social economic and political
inequalities this centralization and concentration of wealth and power
brings forth. Indeed, against the backdrop of a concentrated and
centralized material basis for rule, the myth of the free market has
long been exposed, along with the ideological veneer of ‘globalization’,
leaving the capitalist class with a fragile political basis for rule
driven by a coherent ideology.

So who are the ruling class and how do they manage to sustain and
organize their rule globally? Is the ruling class best understood as
finance capital or transnational capital and what relationship does the
ruling class, so defined, have with productive capital? Is the global
ruling class aware that they are engaged in a global class struggle and
if so how does this awareness manifest? How consciously does the ruling
class act in administrating the flow of global accumulation and indeed
the contours of recession?

Moreover, how has the ruling class maintained control over the
inter-national state in order to develop their global interests? What
specific mechanisms, institutions and networks have become instruments
of the global ruling class to maintaining its rule, politically,
materially and ideologically? To what extent are they able to resist
sub-global interests and divisions and maintain global unity of purpose?
Does the ruling class have a long-term view of its prospects or have
collective horizons become myopic, motivated more by small pragmatic
advances than grand visions of future longer run accumulation

The deadline for submissions is February 30th 2016. The submission of
papers and any queries pertaining to this special issue should be
addressed to:

Peter Kennedy, organizing editor of the special issue, ‘Who are the
ruling class and how do they rule’, p.k.kennedy AT

Categories: Conferences


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