An English Edition of the Postfordism Book Presented in Berlin

Public discussion »New School of Capitalism« took place in Berlin on December 15, 2010. It was organized by Workers-Punks Art School and B_books as well as Gal Kirn, the editor of the book Postfordism and Its Discontents. The event was third in series of public events by WorkersPunks Art School (a twin-initiative of the Workers-Punks University, an ongoing project of the Peace Institute Ljubljana), with talks by film director Želimir Žilnik, other discussions and workshops devoted to Old School of Capitalism.

Discussion »New School of Capitalism« started with presentation of the recently published book Postfordism and Its Discontents (in April 2010 a Slovenian version of the same book was published by the Peace Institute in its book series Politike, entitled as Postfordizem: razprave o sodobnem kapitalizmu). Topics discussed in the first part of the event were, for instance, how to think changes in contemporary capitalism and what are possibilities of critical thinking about some tendencies in Post-Fordist research, such as non-relationship with the Karl Marx’s theoretical legacy. In this part of the event the design aspect of the book was presented by Nina Larseen and Žiga Testen, designers of the edition. They reflected Fordist and Post-Fordist elements in production of the book Postfordism… as well as material conditions in book publishing in general. In the second part of the event Hito Steyerl made parallels between shock/super-producing work and the work in contemporary cultural production. She emphasized some theses on the class aspect being rejected by the emerging »cognitariat«. Last speaker was Katja Diefenbach who presented some theses on ontological threats in theories developed by Toni Negri and other political thinkers of our time. These presentations were followed by a vivid and long discussion. (G.K.)