Originally published in Europe:
In-Between Documentary and Fiction (ex cat), edited by Marina Grzinic and Walter Seidl. Vienna,Erste Foundation, 2009
Global Capitalism and the European Expansion:
An Introduction to the ÒEconomies of the HomeÓ
Rozalinda
Borcila and Cristian Nae
Mapping Discursive Fields in
the Representation of ÒEuropeanismÓ
Discussions
about the expansion of the European Union have revolved around the construction
of European identity itself. Many have also used a post-colonial perspective in
order to discuss questions of this identityÕs representation and (re)construction. Treating this matter from a historical
point of view (even if the history concerned is of an economic nature), these
discussions have focused mainly on the idea of self-colonization of the former
East in the context of recent European expansion. Thus, they attempted by
various means to deconstruct the binary opposition between East and West as it
was politically and ideologically represented. Therefore, overcoming an
ÒinterstitialÓ condition for the East and the reconceptualization of difference
as such has become one of the main points—if not the main point—of
these debates.
In this
respect, we think that shifting the ground (a certain displacement of perspective)
can contribute to opening up new ways of imagining and positioning ourselves
relative to Power. This text intends to propose and expand such a possible
model of analysis on the question of how we represent European expansion,
focusing precisely on how this expansion led to the dismantling of certain
social relations as a consequence of profit maximization in so-called Eastern
Europe, which can be identified first and foremost at the level of private life
or what may be called the sphere of the Òhome.Ó In short, it is the
instrumentalization of reproduction, home labor and caregiving-as-labor
that are at stake.
The suggestion for such a model comes from our reading of the ÒShell Global Scenarios to 2025,Ó[1]
produced by the futurists of the Shell Oil conglomerate in 2005. This document
imagines possible alternative futures for the year 2025 as structured by the
possible relationships of three major forces which are
seen as being unlikely to all be active simultaneously. Their combination
strategically reshapes possibilities for social action and describes strategies
of governmentality. In the ÒShell Scenarios,Ó the three forces
which are considered the major drives in the socio-economic field are:
1.) Òthe force of community,Ó, 2.) a coercive and regulative force which acts in
the name of (global and local) "security", and, last but not least, 3.) Òmarket
incentives,Ó which aim at maximizing economic efficiency.[2]
What we will try to suggest is that this type of analysis of the
present-day mapping of forces and of geo-political spatial representations of
European blocs might open up a discussion about a recent social phenomenon
accompanying the integration of the ÒEastÓ into the capitalist expansion of
the former ÒWest.Ó In a previous project[3]
we developed a critical reading of the first Shell Scenario written after the
fall of the Berlin Wall; without suggesting that postcolonial critique can
simply be applied to the former East, we asked how such foreclosure on the
future via corporate scenario planning could be productively questioned using Achille MbembeÕs notion of necropolitics,[4]
which refers to the production of death or the subjugation of life to the power
of death. We proposed that necroeconomics predicates itself on the advantage of
the individual and the amelioration of life, with this calculus entailing the
exercise of the right to Òlet dieÓ or Òexpose to deathÓ upon certain
populations in the name of the future superiority of the economic argument.
The ÒShell ScenariosÓ as
Spatial Narratives
What is also important for us in working with these scenarios is the
type of knowledge production they open up via spatialized
narratives. It represents an expansion of a condensed spatio-temporal
continuum, which stands for the present-day geopolitically given space or what
we could call the specific ÒplaceÓ we refer to—such as, for instance,
ÒEurope.Ó As described by the above-mentioned scenarios, it also represents a
place where predetermined future possibilities of action serve to determine its
spatial coordinates.
Take, for instance, the present-day European space as it is mapped in
geo-political terms as the ÒEuropean Union.Ó Its (future) spatial
representations depend on how these scenarios represent its expansion Òabove
and belowÓ the national economies of the integrated/excluded countries. Space
becomes, therefore, a ÒplaceÓ ordered according to the logic, the calculative
reason, of these narrative scenarios. And it is ordered by means of temporal
predictions and confinements of actions which actually foreclose upon any
possible but uncontrollable expansion or re-orientation of its territorial
borders. This representation calculates in which way the market can take
advantage of the economic relations which settle
borders parallel to the territorial ones. Last, but not least, it expands
towards a complete rationalization and instrumentalization of the way people
live their lives, affecting human relations at their deepest level: those of
the economy of Òprivate life,Ó existence and subsistence.
In the social space described by the trilemma model of the ÒShell Global
Scenarios to 2025,Ó the three determining forces (security, market incentives
and the force of community) are either convergent or concurrential. None of
them is mutually exclusive, but only the combination of two out of three forces
is possible at any one time, reducing the influence of the third (Òtwo wins,
one lossÓ options). Their combination might also be represented as determining
what Gilles Deleuze called ÒplateuxÓ by their
cooperation or opposition.[5]
Each such ÒplateauÓ is, in fact, a different combination of economic positions,
territorial security measures and communitarian reactions, each of which
produces different representations in the distribution and exercise of power.
Shell has been producing future scenarios since the early 1970Õs,
imagining various possible futures in order to Òrediscover the original
entrepreneurial power of foresight.Ó Strategy, in this vision, entails
identifying a set of tendences lourdes,
a set of unstoppable forces or tendencies, which function to structure a field
of unknown forces within a restricted set of possible futures: the inevitable
against which the unknowable could be played out. Far from imagining the future
as open to unlimited possibilities, the goal is Òto imagine a future that is
worth creating—and to reap the competitive advantages of preparing for it
and making it happen.Ó[6]
All the narratives written by Shell futurists after the fall of the Berlin Wall
assume the expansion of market liberalization as an unstoppable force,
producing a meta-narrative whose persuasive logic works to eliminate any
alternative in the political construction of the global future.
The
scenario written in 2005 signals a re-conceptualization of the state under globalization
in response to the Òdual crisis of security and trustÓ associated with the
Enron crisis and 9/11. Shell conceptualizes the Òmarket-stateÓ which Òretains
its power to coerceÓ but which also deploys Òmarket incentives and mechanisms
to transform behaviors and to implement strategies.Ó As the market state
incentivizes, it also excludes populations which
cannot be Òentrepreneurialized.Ó In the scenarios, the logic of the futures markets can be seen operating
upon the unknown forces of the future, which are put to work and operated upon
as future assets. This calculus extends to the formatting of subjectivity and
of life itself through a set of practices operating upon and within Òthe force of community,Ó which is the key
factor in the transformation from Ònation-stateÓ to Òmarket-state.Ó While the
ability to deploy direct coercive measures underscores the narratives, the
scenarios also rehearse the production of forms of being, of identification and
participation through financial practices (social development programs,
incentivizing practices targeting the cultivation of Òself-interest,Ó massive
resource allocation as a way to reform and re-form populations, etc.).
Necropolitics and the Security
Principle
In a previous text,[7]
we introduced the issue of ÒnecropoliticsÓ—the
generalized instrumentalization of human
life—in order to describe how, in the end, both presumed security and
communitarian measures act in order to maximize economic profit. What we
suggested was that the global capitalist expansion is
unstoppable as described by these Shell Scenarios, since they in fact
envisioned only a single possibility or goal. This goal referred to the
predictive calculus of costs in terms of human life and to controlled or
predetermined Òexposure to death.Ó We proposed that necroeconomics predicates
itself on the advantage of the individual and the amelioration of life, while
this calculus entails exercising the right to Òlet dieÓ or to Òexpose to deathÓ
certain populations. This can be exercised by economically
exploiting territorial or civil war in long-term investments, and/or by
creating and maintaining a permanent state of insecurity in certain regions.
Such an example of necroeconomic thinking is
suggested by Anna Zalik[8]
with regard to the Niger Delta, where the
Òforce of communityÓ is used in order to create further instability and
therefore works to increase opportunities for profit maximization. This is an application of the ways in which
the dynamics of the current and futures market are at least partially
constituted through violence and social instability.[9]
However, long-term economic development requires managing Òconsumer
confidence,Ó which leads to the oil industryÕs direct intervention in national
and local processes of social regulation.
In the European context, we could look at the way in which the eastward
expansion of the market was determined within a specific phase of inter-capitalist rivalry, occurring within an alliance
united by market liberalization as the new planetary logic. This is necessarily
underwritten by NATO as the military force which works both to forcefully open
the eastern markets (as many analyses of the war in Yugoslavia have
demonstrated, for instance) and to ÒstabilizeÓ the business environment of the
former East. But its
expansion as a regulative principle only created a state of perpetual
insecurity. The regulative force of NATO also worked in order to ideologically
legitimate the capitalist expansion protecting against the Òsocialist,Ó
ÒbarbaricÓ former methods of production. It guaranteed that the socio-economic
process of Òde-Sovietization,Ó described as a
civilizing and desirable structural reform meant to ameliorate peopleÕs lives,
could safely take place in the region.
However, we are also suggesting that the very regulative force described
by the Shell scenarios—that is, ÒsecurizationÓ through the intervention
of the (market) state (which in our case can be regarded not only as the
military intervention of NATO, but also, and mainly, as the economic regulations
imposed by EU)—can also act as a necroeconomic agent by entailing social
measures and structural reforms which regard as profitable the destructuration
of human relations and the exposure to death of certain unprofitable categories
of persons. We have also applied this at the level of the production of
subjectivity, suggesting that the maximization of profit is behind the drive to
create Òperpetual states of insecurityÓ in certain areas. From
this necroeconomic point of view, these Òstates of insecurityÓ can be treated
as Òstates of precariousness,Ó[10]
creating and maintaining precarious conditions of subsistence and insecurity
about peopleÕs futures. These Òprecarious statesÓ only reinforce an
ongoing instrumentalization of the ÒhomeÓ sphere,
accompanied by the destruction of certain types of social relations and a
restructuring of the sphere of ÒhomeÓ labor.
Proposals for an Economy of the Home
1) The instrumentalization of the home and the Òeconomy of careÓ
This sort of intervention of the Coercive Principle is therefore of
major importance for what we call here the Òeconomies of care,Ó reflecting the
exercise of governmentality and of biopolitical
adjustments to the private sphere, the sphere of Òthe homeÓ and of Òdomestic
labor.Ó
It should also be noticed that ÒhomeÓ represents not only the basic form
of communitarian organization, but also an Òinstitution of power,Ó a Òspace of
enclosureÓ specific to disciplinary societies as defined by Michel Foucault,[11]
the place where power relations are internalized and, ultimately, where
strategies of biopolitical governance and biopower[12]
are silently exercised. In his view, various technologies serve to produce
subjectivity by ÒnormalizingÓ the life of the individual. They serve to
predetermine the realm of private life, confine it to Òhome,Ó and then to
exercise control over the individual by strictly imposing a technology of
reproduction, moral codes, social norms, etc. Thus, ÒhomeÓ is actually regarded
as a region of the public sphere which plays the role
of a Òstate of exception.Ó It is allowed by public governance, but is
circumscribed via the imposition of control upon the ways people live their
private lives and make decisions about their ÒprivateÓ milieus. It is basically
a symbolic space, where individuals should internalize the outward control and
discipline exercised upon ÒpublicÓ space.[13]
For Foucault, the question of governmentality and exercising
normalization upon individuals and their lives in the name of the Òamelioration
of lifeÓ also passes through the seemingly ÒcivilizingÓ measures implemented in
late modernity, such as Òsocial careÓ and Òhealth social insuranceÓ which
Foucault identified as actually being cynical regulative strategies meant to
maximize profit for the state—since the working body is more valuable to thestate than a dead person.[14]
Although this description may seem contrary to the necropolitical description
of Òlive and let dieÓ or the Òright to kill (and let die)Ó expressed as a form
of economic sovereignty, what we suggest is that the Òeconomy of careÓ as
expressed by various social measures and structural economic reforms is only
part of a larger Coercive Principle, one which is meant to strengthen the labor
force and expand the capitalist production of labor towards an on-going
instrumentalization of the home. Therefore, capitalist ÒameliorationÓ of living
conditions, especially as presented to the ex-socialist countries of the EU, is
nothing but a deeper instrumentalization of these living conditions—and
at its core it implies a necroeconomic principle.
The instrumentalization of the sphere of home
refers to how the issue of home governance (the entire sphere of reproductive
work, including care of the elderly and children) is inserted into the economic
principles of profit maximization as described by the Shell Scenarios. Unlike
the cozy and idealized representation of the home as the symbolic order of
intimacy and protection, home can at the same time also be regarded as place of
labor and production.[15]
In short, in the context of this economic representation, the home is an
invisible factory. More than that, it is a factory where subjectivity is
produced, and where macro-capital can be accumulated at the expense of the
exploitation of this underpaid and unrecognized labor.
2.) Necrocapitalism and the European
Expansion: Suggestions for Further Analysis
The perspective of necroeconomics requires the analysis of what kinds of
social relations are disrupted and destroyed as a result. There are several
possibilities we can suggest for an application of necroeconomic principles
according to the logic of the Shell Scenarios in the context of the European
Expansion.
a. Instability, precariousness and
migration in the field of ÒhomeÓ labor.
Ò Very briefly, IÕd like to say that, as a
collateral (or mainÉ) effect of sovereignty and sovereignty thinking
exhaustion, precariousness is the most problematic state, dimension, of the
societies and individuals in the time of globalization, that it describes the
human condition in a Òsociety of spectacleÓ or in the Òsociety of riskÓ in the
times of Ònormative or disciplinary powerÓ.Ó [16]
There is a simple thesis about recent European Expansion which links theinstrumentalization of the home and the intervention
of necrocapitalism, as reflected by the dissipation of certain societal
relations being regarded as a profitable avenue of investment—similar to
the creation of Òmarket volatilityÓ in the Shell Scenarios logic. It reflects
the European expansion as an expression of the need to find cheap labor, as
well as profitable new markets for capital fleeing the demands of Western
workers; the consequence is a destruction of the previous labor relations in
the East and an imposed circulation of the labor force towards the West.
In many nations, European integration indeed allowed merely for the
Òfree circulation of the labor force.Ó[17]
This resulted in the ÒabandonmentÓ[18]
of education and child care in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Iron
Curtain, as many had to leave their work at ÒhomeÓ and their families in order
to seek employment in the West at underpaid wages and often in specific sectors
of activity: as nurses for the elderly and babysitters.
Expanding the question of necropolitics in this context, therefore, is
related to the question of creating European regulative economic measures which
are meant only to perpetuate instability on the level of societal relations and
precariousness at the level of living conditions, thus coercively
ÒincentivizingÓ migration of the labor force towards the West.
Put
in more concrete terms, instability has been created through the destruction of
any activity that is not subordinated to the logic of accumulation. This can be
seen in two major areas: a move to annihilate any guarantees of subsistence recognized
by the former socialist states,[19]
and the marketization of the space of the home and
the work of reproduction—the privatization of the sphere of domestic and
family relations.
b). Capitalization of agriculture
We can also see how capitalist expansion into formerly Eastern Bloc
countries has resulted in the massive privatization of rural areas, which had
been the basis of reproduction for many ex-socialist regions before 1989. This marketization of the entire range of reproductive work has
meant the radical reconfiguration of family relations (including childcare and
eldercare) as well as the annihilation of self-subsisting micro-economies
(involving the trading of homemade goods) by imposing common European regulations which are settled in favor of corporatist
production. This is why, for us, it makes sense to identify and examine the
expressions of necrocapitalism, particularly in terms of the capitalization of agriculture and the
downward pressure on wages, pushing many into the cheap labor force of Europe
in both domestic and agricultural work. What does this mean for the ÒruralÓ
mode of production in the former East and the attendant systems of social
relations—for the ÒruralÓ as a place (as above) and for the ÒhomeÓ as a
place, both as they relate to reproductive labor? In this respect, familial
property systems and modes of exchange are being silently destroyed.
3.Reclaiming the Home
In
the current stage of the financial crisis, issues of housing and reproduction
are for the first time becoming critical in both the East and the West, raising
the possibility of a real crisis of legitimacy for capitalism. It is perhaps
here that we find an imperative to think about oppositionality: reclaiming the
(re)production of life which is not productive for
capitalism, which is not subjugated to capitalist accumulation.