Daoism and Capitalism

Daoism and Capitalism

Veranstalter
Centre for Cultural Studies / Department of Politics, Goldsmiths, University of London Max Weber Studies
Veranstaltungsort
Richard Hoggart Building, Cinema (11:00-­16:00); Whitehead Building, Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre (16:00-­20:00) Goldsmiths, University of London
Ort
London
Land
United Kingdom
Vom - Bis
10.03.2015 -
Von
Julia Ng, Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London

Daoism and Capitalism

A Workshop
Tuesday, 10 March 2015
11:00 -­ 20:00

Richard Hoggart Building, Cinema (11:00­-16:00)
Whitehead Building, Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre (16:00­-20:00) Goldsmiths, University of London

Confirmed participants:
Michael Dutton, Peter Fenves, Colin Gordon, Leigh Jenco, François Jullien, Scott Lash, Julia Ng, Daniel Weiss, Sam Whimster

At a nascent juncture in the critique of political economy in the 20th and 21st centuries, a diverse array of thinkers converged upon a singular topic: Daoism.

Daoism is a philosophical, political and devotional movement that emerged in early China as a critique of Confucian orthodoxy. Sharing an emphasis on paradox, the interconnection of all things, and the dynamic and processual character of the cosmos, the sets of philosophical reflections that accumulated under the name of “Daoism” represented an anti­authoritarian, non­ coercive, and counter­governmental alternative to Confucianism’s predilection for paternalistic administration and political management.

Versions of Daoism enjoyed something of a renaissance in the German­speaking intellectual world during the early twentieth century. Max Weber's The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism was written as a sequel to The Protestant Ethic in order to establish that modern industrial capitalism was uniquely facilitated by the religious tradition found in Europe—for which purpose Weber treated Daoism and Confucianism as essentially consistent in their theories of “wu wei” (inactivity, or effortless or non­coercive action) and “dao” (the idea of an order of nature), and similarly devoid of the creative impulse to dominate over nature that he found characteristic of Puritan rationalism. The image conjured by Weber impresses itself upon recent critiques of political economy, as when Michel Foucault notes in The Birth of Biopolitics that the common starting point for both the Ordoliberals and the Frankfurt School was Weber’s displacement of Marx’s concern with the contradictory logic of capital onto the problem of the irrational rationality of capitalism.The obverse of the same image leads towards the problem of how to decipher not only the forms of capitalism that have emerged in contemporary China, but also the mobilization of the Daoist and Confucianist classics—which in nuce outline the resources of political state power—for the articulation and analysis of economic policy in the PRC.

Weber was by no means alone in his interest in Daoist ideas; others, including Benjamin, Bloch, Rosenzweig, Brecht, Scholem and Buber, also found in their non­systematic study of Chinese thought a critique of the theory of action that developed from the Greeks onward. Benjamin’s theory of the religious character of capitalism—an early fragment indebted to Weber’s study of the Protestant Ethic—and his study of non­coercive force and political state power—Towards the Critique of Violence, which was published in a form he did not find entirely satisfactory in Weber’s journal Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik—invite reconsideration in light of Benjamin’s extension of “non­activity” beyond Weber’s usage of the term. In regard to the theory of action and the associated theories of the image and pre­linguistic purity that were in circulation, the composite, multiply translative texts, ideas, and practices of European literary modernism and German­Jewish modernity accrue into a “Daoism” of sorts. In their variation and non­systematicity, these images of China point towards another orientation of critical theory as developed by the Frankfurt School, one that, contra Schmitt, does not regard politics and ethics as distinct or politics as therefore merely ideology, or imagine the emergence of markets as necessarily coterminous with the withdrawal of government, and that situates the composite image of ancient and modern China at the center of understanding contemporary political economy.

This day­long workshop brings together for the first time experts from sociology, political theory, cultural theory, German literary studies, philosophy, and Jewish studies in discussion of Daoism in contemporary political economy.
Jointly sponsored by the Centre for Cultural Studies and the Department of Politics at Goldsmiths, and Max Weber Studies.

Free and open to the public.

Goldsmiths: http://www.gold.ac.uk/calendar/?id=8440​
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/390215034493321/?pnref=story​
Contact: j.ng@gold.ac.uk

Programm
Kontakt

Julia Ng

Centre for Cultural Studies
Goldsmiths, University of London

j.ng@gold.ac.uk

http://www.gold.ac.uk/calendar/?id=8440