Radical Politics Facing the ‘Emancipation Paradox’

A critical-realist look at contemporary capitalism: goodbye to wishful thinking We stand at a peculiar historical junction.The neoliberal form of capitalism -the combination between free and open markets that has been the dominant formula of the political economy for the past four decades 1 -has come under pressure, as it has been blamed for skyrocketing inequalities, financial instability, deepened exploitation, and environmental degradation.This is creating the opening for an emancipatory transformation.However, three facilitating factors for radical change are missing -a systemic crisis, the likelihood of a revolutionary upheaval, and a motivating utopia. 2 First, there is no systemic crisis of capitalism, apart from the periodic crises that are endemic to it -capitalism is surely not on its death bed, as the economic dynamic of profit-creation is doing fine. 3Rather than a terminal crisis of capitalism, we find ourselves in a condition of societal meta-crisis: the crisis has entered a crisis of its own, it has looped itself into 3 For a discussion of opposing views on the 'terminal crisis of capitalism' see Janzen (2022).I subscribe to the position that cyclical crises are part of the restorative dynamic of capitalism.For a good exposition of this view, see Agnoletto (2013).