Can societies be commodities all the way down?

Nancy Fraser starts out by introducing the multidmiensional cirises of the 21st century. Three dimensions are especially alarming to her: the ecological, the financial and social aspects of the crisis. Fraser then revives the ideas of Karl Polanyi, which he first presented in his 1944 book "The great transformation". She updates the concepts of "fictious commodities" (land, labor, money) and "double movement" and highlights the relevance of them for understanding the crises of the 21st century. She integrates these Polanyian concepts into a comprehensive crisis theory, which offers insights into the ecological, social and financial ciris. Thereby she attempts to overcome the divisions between political ecologist, feminist, and political economist thinkers.

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Comment from our editors:

This talk was held at the 11th Annual Collegium Lecture at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Nancy Fraser is a Professor for Political and Social Science at the New School for Social Research in New York. Her work concentrates on social and political theory, feminist theory as well as contemporary French and German thought. She is known for her critique on identity politics. The lecture was also published as a paper with the same title.

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