Galliano, Alexander; Why can capitalism dream and we can't?

Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI, 2020, 192 pp.

Authors

  • Juan Martín Messiga Farizano National University of the South (UNS) / Interdisciplinary Center on Our America (CEINA) image/svg+xml

Keywords:

Galliano, Alejandro, capitalism, handbook of leftist ideas

Abstract

Alejandro Galliano's book postulates as a subtitle its intention to be a “brief manual of leftist ideas to think about the future”. Conceived in a pre-pandemic time to introduce the reader to debates that exceed the urgencies of the situation, its publication took place in the first months of the quarantine. In this way, the acceleration of historical time to which the pandemic seemed to subject us, brought to the present and to the forefront some of the topics that the author raises. Edited by Siglo XXI within the series promoted in conjunction with Crisis magazine - a publication where Galliano is a regular contributor - the book tries to be an accessible manual for a diverse audience. Therefore, it is presented with a jovial language and stripped of the typical critical apparatus of the academy. This is how he achieves a work that rigorously addresses different issues and enters a complex conceptual universe but that Galliano manages to lower to the plain. The bibliographical references ordered by chapter at the end of the text allow the reader to deepen the study of the topics that are of interest to him. Although the book has components from different subjects such as economics -an outstanding feature in the first part-, sociology and philosophy, the author's personal training can be seen. Galliano is a historian and from that point of view he orders the text which, in his own words, is part of a general register of the "history of ideas". From this record he intends to talk about the future as "alternative futures" (p.12) anchored in the conditions of the present. As its title indicates, Galliano observes a contemporary scenario where capital is encouraged to imagine -or dream- future prospects while the left -its us- finds itself trapped in a defensive policy, regardless of the success of its actions. . We can think of the Argentine author's proposal as a necessary intellectual exercise for the times, but under the clarification that they do not necessarily have an immediate political application. It is far from wanting to be a manual for militancy or limited solely to a reading for those who consider themselves on the left. On the other hand, it is important to highlight the observation in a regional key that Galliano provides, since it provides precise coordinates of the space located where he is doing this intellectual exercise. The Latin American and particularly Argentine perspective will be present to a greater or lesser extent throughout the entire book, which is organized into four parts. Except for the last one, the remaining three have their respective chapters, counting seven in total plus two appendices corresponding to the second and third part. In the first, it systematically focuses on presenting the economic, technological and social transformations that have taken place in these years and that have led to the inability to think about the future. The next two parts of the book introduce us to the alternative projects that Galliano separates from two different matrices -In the kingdom of scarcity and In the world of abundance- and a fourth part that the author reserves for "catastrophic gazes" (p.13) to the future.

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Author Biography

Juan Martín Messiga Farizano, National University of the South (UNS) / Interdisciplinary Center on Our America (CEINA) image/svg+xml

Bachelor of History at the National University of the South (UNS)-Member of the Interdisciplinary Center on Our America "José Martí" (CEINA). Email: jm1991m@gmail.com

Published

2022-06-03

How to Cite

Messiga Farizano, J. M. (2022). Galliano, Alexander; Why can capitalism dream and we can’t? Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI, 2020, 192 pp. Interdisciplinary Journal of Social Studies, (24), 115–122. Retrieved from https://ceiso.com.ar/ries/index.php/ojs/article/view/118