SLAVERY, NEOLIBERALISM, NECROPOLITICS. THE SOLAR AND NOCTURNAL BODIES OF DEMOCRACY

Mateusz Pietryka

doi:10.18778/1689-4286.63.03

Authors

Mateusz Pietryka

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1689-4286.63.03

Keywords:

slavery, colonialism, necropolitics, neoliberalism, democracy

Abstract

The article explores the contemporary crisis of liberal democracy, framing it within the colonial heritage and ongoing economic dominance of Western countries. It traces the rise of the idea of human rights and free trade, linking it with the practices of slavery and exploitation of conquered territories. The author examines Enlightenment philosophers' views on slavery and colonialism and outlines the economic consequences of these historical phenomena to analyze how they contributed to the democratization and economic development of European countries. The text proceeds to examine current international economic relations to show how the imbalance of power between rich and developing countries leads to exploitation of the latter. The article argues that both colonial roots and contemporary unequal trade relations underpin the current rise of populism and xenophobia in Western countries faced. The main guiding theme of the work is Mbembe's proposed idea of the solar and nocturnal body of democracy: the constant intertwining of internal economic and cultural flourishing with the rise of inequality, populism and undemocratic practices.

References

Agamben, G. (1998). Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life (D. Heller-Roazen, Trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Andersen, J. J., Johannesen, N., & Rijkers, B. (2022). Elite Capture of Foreign Aid: Evidence from Offshore Bank Accounts. Journal of Political Economy, 130(2), 388–425. https://doi.org/10.1086/717455 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/717455

Applebaum, A. (2020). Twilight of democracy: The seductive lure of authoritarianism. New York: Doubleday.

Arendt, H. (1979). The origins of totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.

Balibar, É., & Wallerstein, I. (2020). Race, nation, class: Ambiguous Identities. London: Verso Books.

Bartel, F. (2022). The triumph of broken promises: The end of the Cold War and the rise of neoliberalism. Harvard: Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674275805 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674275805

Batou, J. (2011). Chapter Two. From Plantation to Plant: Slavery, the Slave Trade, and the Industrial Revolution. In Central European University Press eBooks (pp. 43–62). https://doi.org/10.1515/9786155053030-004 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9786155053030-004

Beckert, S. (2014). Empire of Cotton: A New History of Global Capitalism. London: Penguin UK.

Bernasconi, R. (1998). Hegel at the Court of the Ashanti. In S. Barnett (Ed.), Hegel After Derrida (pp. 41-63). London: Routledge.

Buck-Morss, S. (2009). Hegel, Haiti and Universal History. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt7zwbgz DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt7zwbgz

Buelens, F., & Marysse, S. (2009). Returns on Investments during the Colonial Era: The Case of the Belgian Congo. The Economic History Review, 62(S1), 135–166. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00482.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00482.x

Burnard, T., & Riello, G. (2020). Slavery and the new history of capitalism. Journal of Global History, 15(2), 225-244. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1740022820000029 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1740022820000029

Chiapello, E., & Boltanski, L. (2018). The New Spirit of Capitalism. London: Verso Books.

Chang, H. J. (2011). 23 things they don’t tell you about capitalism. London: Penguin UK.

Chang, H. J. (2022). Edible Economics. London: Penguin Books.

Chen, Y., Palma, N. P. G., & Ward, F. (2024). Goldilocks: American precious metals and the rise of the West. SSRN. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4714603 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4714603

Cope, Z. (2019). The Wealth of (some) Nations: Imperialism and the Mechanics of Value Transfer. London: Pluto Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvdmwxgt DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvdmwxgt

Derenoncourt, E. (2018). Atlantic slavery's impact on European and British economic development [Unpublished manuscript]. Harvard University. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/elloraderenoncourt/files/derenoncourt_atlantic_slavery_europe_2018.pdf

Dodson, H. (2002). Jubilee: The Emergence of African-American Culture. Washington: National Geographic Society.

Drescher, S. (1986). Capitalism and antislavery: British mobilization in comparative perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fanon, F. (1963). The wretched of the earth. New York: Grove Press.

Foucault, M. (2003). Society must be defended. Trans. D. Macey. New York: Picador.

Foucault, M. (2008). The birth of biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-1979. Trans. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Gabriel, R. D., Klein, M., & Pessoa, A. S. (2023). The Political Costs of Austerity. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 1–45. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01373 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01388

Gereffi, G. (1984). Power and Dependency in an Interdependent World: A Guide to Understanding the Contemporary Global Crisis. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 25(1):91-113. https://doi.org/10.1163/156854284X00070 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/156854284X00070

Giovannetti-Singh, G. (2022). Racial Capitalism in Voltaire’s Enlightenment. History Workshop Journal, 94, 22–41. https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbac025 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbac025

Global Financial Integrity. (2016). Financial Flows and Tax Havens: Combining to Limit the Lives of Billions of People, Centre for Applied Research, Norwegian School of Economics, Global Financial Integrity, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Instituto de Estudos Socioeconômicos, Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research.

Gowan, P. (1999). The Global Gamble: Washington’s Faustian Bid for World Dominance. London: Verso.

Graeber, D. (2006). Turning modes of production inside out. Critique of Anthropology, 26(1), 61–85. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275x06061484 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275X06061484

Gržinić, M. (2023). Capitalism and Death. Filozofski Vestnik, 43(3). https://doi.org/10.3986/fv.43.3.05 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3986/fv.43.3.05

Grotius, H. (2005). The Rights of War and Peace. Book II. Liberty Fund Inc.

Harley, K. (2015). Slavery, the British Atlantic economy, and the Industrial Revolution. In A. B. Leonard & D. Pretel (Eds.), The Caribbean and the Atlantic World Economy (Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137432728_8 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137432728_8

Harms, R. (1983). The World Abir made: The Margina-Lopori Basin, 1885-1903. African Economic History, 12, 125. https://doi.org/10.2307/3601320 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3601320

Hickel, J. (2017). The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions. London: William Heinemann.

Hodgson, G. M. (2016). 1688 and all that: property rights, the Glorious Revolution and the rise of British capitalism. Journal of Institutional Economics, 13(1), 79–107. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1744137416000266 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137416000266

Hopkin, J. (2020). Anti-system politics: The crisis of market liberalism in rich democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190699765.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190699765.001.0001

Horne, G. (2018). The apocalypse of settler colonialism: the roots of slavery, white supremacy, and capitalism in seventeenth-century North America and the Caribbean. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Kemasang, A. (2009). Tea - midwife and nurse to capitalism. Race & Class, 51(1), 69–83. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396809106164 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396809106164

Krastev, I., & Holmes, S. (2019). The light that failed: Why the West is losing the fight for democracy. London: Penguin Books.

Lemke, T. (2011). Biopolitics: An advanced introduction. New York: New York University Press.

Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How democracies die. New York: Crown.

Liu, J. (2023). An apologist for English colonialism? The use of America in Hobbes’s writings. History of European Ideas, 50, 17 - 33. https://doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2023.2238271 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2023.2238271

Locke, J. (1993). Political Writings. Dublin: Mentor.

Locke, J. (1980). Second Treatise of Government. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company.

Losurdo, D. (2011). Liberalism: A Counter-History. London: Verso Books.

Mbembe, A. (2019). Necropolitics. Trans. S. Corcoran. Durham: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1131298 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1131298

Mbembe, A. (2021). Notes on Late Eurocentrism. Critical Inquiry. https://critinq.wordpress.com/2021/07/01/notes-on-late-eurocentrism/

Mill, J. S. (2003). Utilitarianism and On Liberty. Padstow: Blackwell Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470776018.ch4 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470776018.ch4

Mintz, S. W. (1986). Sweetness and power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. London: Penguin.

Montesquieu, C. (1989). Montesquieu: The Spirit of the Laws. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Morel, E. D. (1902). Affairs of West Africa. London: W. Heinemann.

Nowak, A. W. (2011). Europejska nowoczesność i jej wyparte konstytuujące „zewnętrze”. Nowa Krytyka, 26-27. http://yadda.icm.edu.pl/yadda/element/bwmeta1.element.desklight-bfe3df51-cc77-465c-83b4-02e5b5a408f6.

Piketty, T. (2017). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Harvard: Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674982918 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674982918

Piketty, T. (2020). Capital and ideology. Harvard: Harvard University Press.

Pomeranz, K. (2000). The Great Divergence. Princeton: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400823499 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400823499

Przeworski, A. (2019). Crises of democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108671019 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108671019

Regatieri, R. P., & Da Silva Santos, P. (2022). The nocturnal body of democracies. Civitas - Revista De Ciências Sociais, 22. https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-7289.2022.1.14851 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-7289.2022.1.14851

Rajan, R. G. (2010). Fault lines: How hidden fractures still threaten the world economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400839803 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400839803

Robinson, J. (1970). Freedom and necessity; an introduction to the study of society. New York: Pantheon Books.

Sajó, A., Uitz, R., & Holmes, S. (Eds.). (2023). Routledge Handbook of Illiberalism. New York: Routledge.

Slobodian, Q. (2018). Globalists. Harvard: Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674919808 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674919808

Smith, A., Lectures on Jurisprudence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Snyder, T. (2017). On tyranny: Twenty lessons from the twentieth century. New York: Tim Duggan Books.

Springborg, P. (2015). Hobbes, Donne and the Virginia Company: Terra nullius and 'the Bulimia of Dominium'. History of Political Thought, 36, 1.

Streeck, W. (2014). Buying time: The delayed crisis of democratic capitalism. London: Verso.

Streeck, W. (2017). The return of the repressed as the beginning of the end of neoliberal capitalism. In H. Geiselberger (Ed.), The Great Regression. Cambridge: Polity.

Tocqueville, A. (2001). Writings on Empire and Slavery. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Traverso, E. (2019). The new faces of fascism: Populism and the far right. London: Verso.

Varoufakis, Y. (2011). The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the World Economy. New York: Zed Books.

https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350251052 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350251052

Vogl, J. (2014). The Specter of Capital. Stanford: Stanford University Press.