Globalization Now: Outstripping Critical Analysis‪?‬

The article takes the editorial of the first issue of the New Left Review (new series) as its point of departure. NLR's review of globalizing capitalism accents stabilization; it is silent on the renewal of contradiction but notably independent intellectually. This article asks how such a standpoint is to be theorized under contemporary conditions. It emphasizes the shift of the intellectually related practices to the centre of social life and their direct fusion with culture and economy. It argues that an historically far less prominent type of contradiction is now emerging. Defining it as cultural contradiction, the discussion proposes that, if it is to be theorized, the distinctive mode of social interconnection which marks the intellectual practices must be recognized. It is constitutively more abstract than social relations typified by interactivity and mutual presence. When recognised as such a more directly comprehensive cultural contradiction may be seen in relation to class contradiction and as providing a renewed point of departure for critical practice and overview. I