Theorizing alternatives to capital Towards a critical cosmopolitanist framework1

• Published in: European journal of social theory Vol. 20; no. 4; pp. 437 - 454
• Main Authors: Gills, Barry K, Goodman, James, Hosseini, S A Hamed
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.11.2017; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Capitalism; Collaboration; Conflict; Crises; Dominance; Ideology; Political movements; Post Cold War period; Praxis; Social change; Social relations; alternatives to capital; critical cosmopolitanism; capitalism; transformative movement praxis; meta-ideology
• ISSN: 1368-4310; 1461-7137
• DOI: 10.1177/1368431016642609

We are living in an era of multiple crises, multiple social resistances, and multiple cosmopolitanisms. The post-Cold War context has generated a plethora of movements, but no single unifying ideology or global political program has yet materialized. The historical confrontation between capital and its alternatives, however, continues to pose new possibilities for social and systemic transformations. Critical analysis of ideological divisions among today’s diverse emancipatory and transformative movements is important in order to understand past and present shortcomings, and many continuing difficulties in imagining crisis-free alternative futures. Inspired by a multiplicity of responses from the Global South and the Global North, and by furthering Delanty’s critical cosmopolitanist approach, this article aims to create a new framework for interpreting ‘transformative visions’ that challenge systems of domination embedded in capitalist social relations. The framework is designed to enable the evaluative analysis of such visions, as well as the exploration of embedded ideological obstacles to dialogue and collaboration among them.