David Harvey: Deutscher Prize Lecture, November 11, 2011

I should have posted this earlier: David Harvey, “History versus Theory: A Commentary on Marx’s Method in Capital”, 11 November 2011, The Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Lecture

The Criminalization of Squatting in the UK: Some Reflections

I’ve recently commented on the proposal to make squatting in residential properties a criminal offence. There are two pieces in the Guardian (here and here) and one in Shift Magazine alongside a piece by SQUASH (Squatters’ Action for Secure Homes). I was also lucky enough to chat with Aaron Peters on Resonance FM where we explored the “Neo-Liberal City.”

Berlin, Summer 2010 (Photo: Author)

David Harvey at Occupy London

Here’s a video of David Harvey speaking on November 12th at the occupation at St. Paul’s. The full transcript can be found here.

Judith Butler on Precarity and Fiscal Crisis

An interesting new piece by Judith Butler in Greek Left Review on the political response to ‘fiscal crisis’.

Some excerpts include:

“…neo-liberalism works through producing dispensable populations; it exposes populations to precarity; it establishes modes of work that presume that labour will always be temporary; it decimates long-standing institutions of social democracy, withdraws social services from those who are most radically unprotected – the poor, the homeless, the undocumented – because the value of social services or economic rights to basic provisions like shelter and food has been replaced by an economic calculus that values only the entrepreneurial capacities of individuals and moralizes against all those who are unable to fend for themselves or make capitalism work for them.”

“…the call on the streets is precisely not to “fix” this fiscal crisis, but to insist that the dismantling of neo-liberalism is imperative for the renewal of radical democracy.”