Jacobin Reading Group Discussion – September 2019

We’ll be doing a special reading for September: Nancy Fraser’s The Old is Dying and the New Cannot be Born!

The global political, ecological, economic, and social breakdown—symbolized by Trump’s election—has destroyed faith that neoliberal capitalism is beneficial to the majority. Nancy Fraser explores how this faith was built through the late twentieth century by balancing two central tenets: recognition (who deserves rights) and distribution (who deserves income). When these begin to fray, new forms of outsider populist politics emerge on the left and the right.

These, Fraser argues, are symptoms of the larger crisis of hegemony for neoliberalism, a moment when, as Gramsci had it, “the old is dying and the new cannot be born.”

In an accompanying interview with Jacobin publisher Bhaskar Sunkara, Fraser argues that we now have the opportunity to build progressive populism into an emancipatory social force.

The pamphlet is available for purchase here: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2937-the-old-is-dying-and-the-new-cannot-be-born. If you are not able to afford it, please contact me at [email protected] and I’ll make sure you have a copy.