Living on Borrowed Time: Conversations with Citlali Rovirosa-MadrazoPolity, 2010 - 202 pagina's The global financial crisis has shattered the illusion that all was well with capitalism and forced us to confront the great challenges we face today with a new sense of urgency. Few are better placed to do this than Zygmunt Bauman, a social thinker whose writings on liquid modernity have pioneered a new way of seeing the world in which we live at the dawn of the 21st Century. Our liquid modern world is characterized by the transition from a society of producers to a society of consumers, the natural extension of which is the society of perpetual debtors. The ruling idea of the society of consumers is to prevent needs from being satisfied and to create demand; its natural extension is to enable consumers to consume more by borrowing. Debt was transformed into a crucial profit-earning asset of capitalism in liquid modern times. The present-day ‘credit crunch' is not the outcome of the banks' failure but rather the fruit of their success in transforming the majority of men and women, young and old, into a race of debtors. They got what they were looking for: a society of debtors whose condition of being in debt was made self-perpetuating, with more debts being offered, and more undertaken, as the only way of escaping from the debts already incurred. Starting from this reflection on the current global financial crisis and prompted by the probing questions of his interlocutor, Citlali Rovirosa-Madrazo, Bauman examines in an historical perspective some of the most pressing moral and political issues of our time, from international terrorism and the rise of religious and secular fundamentalism to the decline of the nation-state and the threats posed by global warming, issues whose seriousness and urgency attest to the fact that we are living today not only on borrowed money but also on borrowed time. |
Overige edities - Alles bekijken
Living on Borrowed Time: Conversations with Citlali Rovirosa-Madrazo Zygmunt Bauman Gedeeltelijke weergave - 2013 |
Living on Borrowed Time: Conversations with Citlali Rovirosa-Madrazo Zygmunt Bauman Geen voorbeeld beschikbaar - 2009 |
Veelvoorkomende woorden en zinsdelen
banks become Book of Job Cambridge capitalism capitalist Carl Schmitt Citlali Rovirosa-Madrazo concept condition consumer markets countries credit crunch crisis decades declared democracy deployed deregulation developed divine dystopias economic effects enemy ethical exabytes exploitation fate fear forces freedom future genetic genocide Genographic Project genomics Giorgio Agamben global Holocaust hope human bonds human rights idea imagination indigenous individual industry insecurity institutions issue La Jornada labour League of Nations liquid modern living longer million moral nation-state Nations nature neohumans norm once perhaps philosophy planet policies political population Postmodern potential poverty practice problems prospect question recent recession religious reproductive role rule scientific secular seems sexual social society of consumers society of producers sovereign sovereignty territorial theory theory of everything thing threats tion uncertainty University Press utopia violence virgin lands welfare women Zygmunt Bauman