Gramsci and Bourdieu Theories Relevance to Financial Crisis - Term Paper Example

Gramsci and Bourdieu Theories Relevance to Financial Crisis Introduction The year 2008 marked failures in insurance firms and banking institutions developed countries across the globe. This initiated a monetary crisis that efficiently stopped worldwide credit markets, ending in the formation of an extraordinary intervention. Major economic analysts from these developed states were gathered to analyze the status of banks, insurance and other depository financial institutions. Nevertheless, a financial crisis in banking systems implies a global financial crisis. Majority of countries were aware of the situation and reconsidered making radical changes in their banking systems adjust to the unfavorable situations. The dominance of financial institutions was not widely recognized and accepted. Beginning from 2007, these failures in European and American banks also rippled confidence amongst bankers, making them reluctant to lend money amongst themselves, and their causal borrowers too. The social status of every seemed to alter as the media vastly spread the situation making all states rapidly hold interventions with the aim of making new resolutions. Antonio Gramsci and Pierre Bourdieu Theorists Antonio Gramsci was a prominent Italian Marxist working as a journalist and philosopher. Gramsci spent his last seven years at Mussolini’s prisons where he composed and finished 32 notebooks with nearly 3,000 pages. The notebooks were illegally traded out of prison and issued following the way in the late seventies1. The main topics and theses of the notebooks was the growth of the Marxist assumption relevant to the circumstances of enhanced capitalism. Gramsci mainly concentrated on decisive awareness, the significance of scholars playing a role in daily life. Common sense was also considered a vital aspect of his guiding themes to sustain the position have assisted the disclosure of the transformational potential of schooling2. Pierre Bourdieu, a university lecturer of sociology at Collège de France in Paris, underwent a double conversion from a pre-capitalist livelihood, to a consumerist one3. When moving from Denguin in the small-scale farming Béarn regions Pyrenees, to urban Paris, Bourdieu drafted with the military and became a self-taught anthropologist following his second comeback from the countryside’s of South of Algeria. As a result, Bourdieu has been well established in his theory that the basic component of modernity is the past change towards the better implication of the financial system within the entire community. Similarly, Bourdieu aims at evading the oppositions grounded on freedom and discrimination that reverberate through the associated dualism of the “individual intellect” and the “masses.” This guiding principle in his argument notes the means by which the deskilling of the inferior social classes has been gone along with the “hyper-skilling” of the mastermind4. Thesis: Gramsci would argue that the general reluctance to protest and reform the economic system stems from the hegemonic consent built thru civil society and political society5. He would also believe that the potential of the movement could be realized only through a war of position and the support of a crushing majority. As for Bourdieu, the majority are reluctant to protest because it impedes their ability to accumulate capital. Furthermore, protestors’ inability t acknowledges the structural dynamics of their domination works to stick with their subordinate social position.  How would Gramsci theorize this reluctance in relation with his concepts? 1. Hegemony Gramsci received the analysis of capitalism that was established and spread by Marx in the previous century. The theory acknowledged the thrash between the highest and the inferior social class. Marxism is also driven by a force that developed throughout the community. This precise perspective is relevant and applicable to the “ignorance” that the current society is going through concerning the dominance of the banking systems. Capitalism is a lifestyle that Gramsci accepted in a similar manner the society does6. 2. Civil society On behalf of Gramsci’s theory, political transformation from authoritarianism to political hegemony visualized Polanyi’s economic change in late 19th century7. Market despotism to market hegemony was a significant change that was grounded on the institutes of civil society. The civil society in question by radical theorists at the time absorbed political confrontations to capitalism. According to Gramsci, the Polanyi society secured capitalism against financial wreckage causing dreadful conditions in its factors of productivity. 3. Consent With no feudal bequests, matching parasitical social classes agreed to an organized society formed by the government. According to Gramsci, such social classes will effectively rationalize or steer the economy the direction that they wish8. Under the consent concept, Gramsci was able to use Fordism as a typical expression of hegemony at its individual level of superstructures still under development. Therefore, state and civil communities become a likeness of the financial system. Gramsci asks,” is it better to take part in a conception of the world mechanically imposed by the environment?” The multiple social groups that currently exist have automatically been involved with capitalism without their own consent. 4. Common sense According to Gramsci, some of his concepts fall as factors that could have been used in opposition to financial dominance and supreme social classes to evade economic turmoil. Common sense is one such factor. Common sense embraces a global analysis that will not forget the past real experiences that drove towards the establishment of social classes. Such mistakes in capitalism should not be carried on to the future economic, social and political styles of living, lest we risk repeating and going through the same economic mayhem. Gramsci hypothesized these lived experiences as “common sense” that enclosed the most valuable part of common sense that stood for the establishment of diverse social classes9. How would Bourdieu theorize this reluctance in relation with his concepts? 1. Habitus According to Bourdieu, the internalization of intent opportunity as subjective anticipation is termed as Habitus. This form of interceding relationships was hypothesized to imply a social game adorned in biological individuals. As the opportunities and limits of communal action are integrated by individuals, the sensation towards the game turns out to be a second nature. Bourdieu studied ways in which peoples’ inborn feeling of what might be accomplished is outlined into a series of behaviors that create “an acquired system of generative development.” The financial system that runs the current global community can be applied to the Habitus. Nevertheless, the sensations that build the “system of generative development” are not used10. 2. Reproduction One of the leading roles of figurative hostility is the creation of a delusion that covers economic capital in an inherent instead of pure social values. Much of Bourdieu arguments have been committed to revealing the communal mechanisms that lie beneath the quest for an established or academic feature. This quest takes the form of competition for assets across a continuum of communal arenas or disciplines. As a result, political changes need acquisitive handling of means by which specific reproduction is developed and made useful n the current financial turmoil11. 3. Misrecognition According to Bourdieu, “the coercion set up only through the consent that the dominated cannot fail to give to the dominator.” Bourdieu means that figurative violence is differentiated by the comprehension of the situation and the correlation between “instruments of knowledge” and the “common denominator.” The integration of the form of structure between the associations and domination make this affiliation seem instinctive12. 4. Maintenance of capital The “social capital” hypothesis can be linked to the works and arguments of Bourdieu. Bourdieu states that the sustenance of social capital exists in the outline of relations between individuals in a certain social class, making it mostly insubstantial. Nevertheless, its strength was realized in a similar manner as human abilities and potency to facilitate productivity and labor13. Gramsci’s potential of movement against financial domination The year 2008 saw the decline of major a financial crisis caused by the most prominent associations and individuals in developed countries14. Even though Gramsci found the traditional Marxist view of the ruling class controlling entire economies very unacceptable, criticism represents a movement from an assertive and automatic concept of the world, represented by Hegemony. Another concept explained in Gramsci’s assumption coincides with the 2008 financial crisis. American, European and Australian societies left behind a classical Marxist economy to pursue a capitalist financial system that essentially sows the seeds of its own destruction. The capitalist financial system saw the dominance of the world community by the financially stable, and eventually crippling entire economies15. As a result, current banking systems are dominantly run, causing crisis such as excessive borrowing. Gramsci claims these events would not have happened if it were not for an “entry in to the conscious world.” Therefore, Gramsci states that we, “work out consciously and critically one’s own conception of the world16.” Such an approach to living is relevant in today’s society because financial dominance would have been greatly opposed in a society using “common sense” to eradicate social classes. Bourdieu’s potential of movement against financial domination As a result, the consciousness of the masses does not contribute to their own development of the entire economy. Financial dominance can be greatly demoted by the use of such feelings to take part in the larger enterprise that can restructure the existing capitalist community. The crisis in 2008 could have been solved by one of the many fruits that arise from reproduction. For instance, labor force would take part in making history through individual innovation from aggressive elements of getting capital, instead of relying on constant borrowing. Ultimately, financial dominance will be crippled if not much loans are taken by banking institutions17. Financial domination in the existing community can be faced with potential movements that clearly recognize the relationship between information and the widespread socialist livelihoods. Misrecognition is a concept that can be avoided to put pressure on reinforcing individual independence. Restructuring mass consciousness is the key to diverting the larger enterprise of the capitalist community that caused the financial crisis in 2008. According to Bourdieu, this is normally accomplished through the formation of social affiliations founded with time and enable individuals accomplish their interests in addition to those who could simply be reached independently18. Conclusion Bourdieu’s definitions of the complicated nature of the current society and the system where the ruling social classes are kept are an inspiring contribution to discussions such as its relevance to the financial crisis in 200819. On the other hand, Gramsci has made his most recent works put down in his prison notebooks to reflect human impacts of the capitalistic system and procedure20. Gramsci has managed to expose a repetitive pattern in the mistakes man has made beginning from the installation of a capitalistic society. Both writers argue out that the Marxist system of living can be friendly to the global community. Through their concepts, they have pointed out potential of prohibiting social classes that build financial dominance in all economies. The dominance of financial institutions was not widely recognized and accepted. As for Bourdieu, the majority are reluctant to protest because it impedes their ability to accumulate capital. Furthermore, protestors’ inability t acknowledges the structural dynamics of their domination works to stick with their subordinate social position. References Brigit Fowler. 1999. Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological theory of culture. Variant, Volume 2 Number 8, summer, Page 1 Michael Burawoy. 2002. Foundations of a Sociological Marxism: The Complementary Convergence of Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi. Berkeley: University of California Read More