But there's something odd about Collier's book since he doesn't talk about China, surveillance, debt or climate change. A lot of it seems to be the kind of centrist Labour rubbish of the 90s that helped neoliberalism survive. That or a mixture of nostalgia for reciprocity and 'belonging'
We need: an 'ethical state', 'ethical firms', etc. Well, okay. But a telling line: a state can only be as ethical as the society it represents. Collier is, essentially, an advocate of the status quo. As with others his main emphasis seems to be on how to save capitalism (from what? Itself?).
Blackburn takes him apart in the NLR:
"The values that family life depends upon—obligation, trustworthiness, commitment—are precisely those that are held to be obsolete in the new capitalism, where work relations are characterized by impermanence and unpredictability; they are systematically undermined by the need for two jobs, travel, relocation."
We need: an 'ethical state', 'ethical firms', etc. Well, okay. But a telling line: a state can only be as ethical as the society it represents. Collier is, essentially, an advocate of the status quo. As with others his main emphasis seems to be on how to save capitalism (from what? Itself?).
Blackburn takes him apart in the NLR:
"The values that family life depends upon—obligation, trustworthiness, commitment—are precisely those that are held to be obsolete in the new capitalism, where work relations are characterized by impermanence and unpredictability; they are systematically undermined by the need for two jobs, travel, relocation."
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