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?

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Sources:

McMurtry, John. "Making Sense of Economic Determinism." Canadian Journal of Philosophy 3, no. 2 (1973)24961.

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

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What Does Anybody Know About Anything? by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons License