Economic Determinism, Identity Politics & Overdetermination: 2018

What is the primary cause of an event or action? How do we look at the causes of the big political shifts of the past few years; Brexit, Trump, Populism. The Marxist philosopher, Louis Althusser, in an essay titled ‘Contradiction and Overdetermination’ argued that ruptures are overdetermined – it’s the plurality of causes that create a shift, but driven by economic determinism ‘in the last instance.’ Karl Polanyi disputed Marx’s economic determinism, arguing, along with Keynes, that it was ideas that drove history, not economics. I look at determinism in context with identity politics and the linguistic turn and poststructural turn of the mid-twentieth century. Is there anything we can learn? Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Or send me a one-off tip of any amount and help me make more videos: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=JJ76W4CZ2A8J2 Buy on Amazon through this link to support the channel: https://amzn.to/2ykJe6L Follow me on: Facebook: http://fb.me/thethenandnow Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thethenandnow/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/lewlewwaller Sources: McMurtry, John. "Making Sense of Economic Determinism." Canadian Journal of Philosophy 3, no. 2 (1973): 249-61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40230440. Jack Amariglio, Stephen E Cullenberg, David F Ruccio, Post-Modernism, Economics and Knowledge Claus Thomasberger (2012) The Belief in Economic Determinism, Neoliberalism, and the Significance of Polanyi s Contribution in the Twenty-First Century, International Journal of Political Economy, 41:4, 16-33, DOI: 10.2753/IJP0891-191641040 Althusser, Louis, Contradiction and Overdetermination, For Marx Barnett, Anthony, The Lure of Greatness Newsnight, It’s the Economy Stupid, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06qb6h0 Wolf, Martin, From Brexit to Trump (Lecture), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4jok3RpvXM&t=926s Credits: Stock footage provided by Videvo, downloaded from https://www.videvo.net What Does Anybody Know About Anything? by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/