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International Economy

Philip Allott

in Eunomia: New Order for a New World

This chapter discusses the economy of international society. Every society, from the society of the family to the international society of the whole human race, is, as part of its socializing, an ... More

This chapter discusses the economy of international society. Every society, from the society of the family to the international society of the whole human race, is, as part of its socializing, an economy. In the economy, society transforms its physical situation, as the substance of its becoming. The economic transformation of the physical world takes five forms: object of labour; object of use; object of desire; object of property; and object of trade. The economy of a society organizes such transformations systematically, in order to serve the purposes of society through the generation of self-creating surplus social energy.Less

The Social Exchange

Philip Allott

in Eunomia: New Order for a New World

This chapter focuses on the exchange of social energy which creates society as a structure and a system within consciousness. Society creates itself by transforming natural power into social power in ... More

This chapter focuses on the exchange of social energy which creates society as a structure and a system within consciousness. Society creates itself by transforming natural power into social power in a social exchange which involves the adding of social purpose to natural power. Social power includes the power contained in legal relations which seek to determine the interaction of the willing and acting of members of society in order that their interactive willing and acting should serve the self-creating and socializing purposes of society.Less

The New Constitutional Question

Gunther Teubner

in Constitutional Fragments: Societal Constitutionalism and Globalization

This chapter is an introduction to the major themes ofthe book. It begins with a discussion of the ‘new constitutional question’ raised by public scandals, such as multinational corporations' ... More

This chapter is an introduction to the major themes ofthe book. It begins with a discussion of the ‘new constitutional question’ raised by public scandals, such as multinational corporations' violation of human rights and the World Trade Organization decisions that have endangered the environment or human health in the name of global free trade. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the concern was to release the energies of political power in nation states and at the same time to limit that power effectively. Today, these energies are being unleashed in social spheres beyond the nation state. Constitutionalism beyond the nation state means two different things: constitutional problems arising outside the borders of the nation state in transnational political processes, and at the same time outside the institutionalized political sector, in the ‘private’ sectors of global society. The chapter also addresses the following questions: What are the questionable premises that set the contemporary debate on transnational constitutions off in the wrong direction? With which assumptions should they be replaced?Less

Introduction

Jürgen Pieters

in Speaking With the Dead: Explorations in Literature and History

This book began with the persistent echo of a justly famous opening sentence by Stephen Greenblatt. This is: ‘I began with the desire to speak with the dead’. Ten simple words, joined together in a ... More

This book began with the persistent echo of a justly famous opening sentence by Stephen Greenblatt. This is: ‘I began with the desire to speak with the dead’. Ten simple words, joined together in a rhythm that has the fluency of Shakespearean verse but the metre of a classical French alexandrin. This book illustrates how Greenblatt's conversation with the dead is related to others' use of the concept – Machiavelli and Michelet being his most probable direct sources. The dead speak by means of traces that are the direct product of the very voice which first gave them shape. Greenblatt introduced another concept closely related to his desire to converse with the dead: social energy.Less

Views with Postmodernist Affinities

in On the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath

In history, the social energy that shaped temporary forms of unity also caused their decline when its initial strength dissipated. Historians have often spoken about exhausted states, empires, and ... More

In history, the social energy that shaped temporary forms of unity also caused their decline when its initial strength dissipated. Historians have often spoken about exhausted states, empires, and societies, but have embedded such talk usually into cyclical theories of decadence. Adams, much in the manner of structural postmodernists, referred to one universal history with its development and end. As in Cournot's view, the much-vaunted idea of progress would be the major force that drove history to its ironic end in permanent stability. The acceleration of innovations and change witnessed not just a greater human control over the world but also the accelerating dissipation of social energy. The function of the modern period was thus ultimately a destructive one.Less