Peraess accummodolorvelisis dolutpa tismodolore dolenim diam vent la at ad min vel ut at. Duis atum verit aut nulput auguerat lor iurero eu feuipisi blam, vel ulla feum digniscing ex exercing er iriure do eraesse quipsustrud dolor sequis at. Ustissi tisi bla conulput ut lut am dolobor peraess equismodolum dolum eliquisi. Te tio odo dionsent lamconsequat ipsum aute tin henissectet ulput lore vent nullutpat, sum iureet, si. Endre magna alismod delis do dolobore dolorer iustrud del diam vent la at ad min vel ut at. Duis atum verit aut nulput auguerat lor iurero eu feuipisi blam, vel ulla feum digniscing ex exercing er iriure do eraesse quipsustrud dolor sequis at. Ustissi tisi bla conulput ut lut am dolobor peraess equismodolum dolum eliquisi.Te tio odo dionsent lamconsequat ipsum aute tin henissectet ulput lore vent nullutpat, Stuart Sim Idunt laor susting et prat adit praestrud ea faccum quamcon sendre velesed dit at la augiam eu faccum zzrit lorerit Lute vel ute dolesse ver at. faccum quamcon sendre velesedIgniamc onsecte facillan henim ipit, vel diam zzril ulla conulla facin quamcon sendre velesed dit at la augiam. Nonsecte dit wis autat. Ed euismod te feugiate tie magnibh eliquatio con henisi blandrem adiam, quat. Incidui te feugait praestrud ese el ex ex euipsum sandiamet. ad tat lut wiscidui et ipisi te doloreriure. alismod delis do dolobore alismod delis do dolobore quamcon sendre velesed dit at la augiam. T E  MODERNITY T E   WHAT THE FINANCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS IS REALLY TELLING US STUART SIM T End of M STUART SIM Edinburgh WHAT THE FINANCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS IS REALLY TELLING US STUART SIM ISBN 978 0 7486 4035 5 Jacket image: © iStockphoto Cover design: Cathy Sprent Edinburgh University Press 22 George Square Edinburgh EH8 9LF www.euppublishing.com The End of Modernity M2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd iM2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd i 24/3/10 17:09:4824/3/10 17:09:48 M2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd iiM2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd ii 24/3/10 17:09:4824/3/10 17:09:48 The End of Modernity What the Financial and Environmental Crisis Is Really Telling Us STUART SIM EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS M2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd iiiM2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd iii 24/3/10 17:09:4824/3/10 17:09:48 © Stuart Sim, 2010 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh www.euppublishing.com Typeset in 10.5/13 pt Palatino by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 4035 5 (hardback) The right of Stuart Sim to be identi ed as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. M2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd ivM2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd iv 24/3/10 17:09:4824/3/10 17:09:48 v Contents Acknowledgements vii Preface ix Part I The End of Modernity? The Cultural Dimension 1 Introduction: The End of Modernity 3 2 Modernity: Promise and Reality 24 3 Beyond Postmodernity 38 Part II The End of Modernity? The Economic Dimension 4 Marx was Right, But . . . 57 5 Diagnosing the Market: Fundamentalism as Cure, Fundamentalism as Disease 71 6 Forget Friedman 102 Part III Beyond Modernity 7 Learning from the Arts: Life After Modernism 123 8 Politics After Modernity 139 9 Conclusion: A Post- Progress World 161 Notes 183 Bibliography 205 Index 216 M2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd vM2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd v 24/3/10 17:09:4824/3/10 17:09:48 M2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd viM2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd vi 24/3/10 17:09:4824/3/10 17:09:48 vii Acknowledgements This book marks twenty years of publishing ventures with my editor, Jackie Jones, and I would like to express my very deepest gratitude for all her help and guidance over that time. Dr Helene Brandon was her usual supportive self throughout the writing process, and provided many helpful suggestions on draft material. My thanks also go to Peter Andrews for the copy- editing. M2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd viiM2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd vii 24/3/10 17:09:4824/3/10 17:09:48 M2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd viiiM2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd viii 24/3/10 17:09:4824/3/10 17:09:48 ix Preface Financial crisis, environmental crisis: what is the combination of credit crunch and global warming telling us about the way we live? I would contend that such events signal modernity has reached its limit as a cultural form. In consequence, we have to face up to the prospect of life ‘after modernity’ where a very different kind of mental set than the one we have been indoctrinated with will be required. Modernity, my argument will go, has collapsed under the weight of its internal contradictions; the modern world’s insatiable need for technologically driven economic progress has  nally been revealed as unsustainable and, even more importantly, potentially destructive of both the planet and the socio- economic systems so painstakingly developed over the past few centuries. We have been encouraged to believe that those systems would roll on into the inde nite future, yielding ever better returns as they went; now, we shall have to think again. In 1989 Francis Fukuyama had pro- claimed that the Western system had emerged triumphant from a period of sustained ideological con ict, and that history therefore had ‘ended’. 1 It has, but not in the way he envisaged it: less than two decades later, we can recognise it is modernity as a historical phenomenon that has ground to a halt rather than its competitors. Some commentators are even beginning to speak of ‘the end of the Western world’, warning us that we shall have to plan soon for a very different sort of future than we had been expecting, with a M2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd ixM2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd ix 24/3/10 17:09:4824/3/10 17:09:48 [...]... we have at the very least to invest more effort in the EU, otherwise there is a distinct danger at the level of the individual nation state of going under when crisis strikes: The crisis cries out to be transformed into a long overdue new founding of the EU Europe would then stand for a new realpolitik of political action in a world at risk In the interconnected world, the circular maxim of national... overwhelming.16 The greater the Earth’s population and the greater the increase in global standards of living, then the greater also is the volume of carbon emissions being released into the atmosphere and the subsequent rise in global average temperatures The rise in temperature this century, amounting to roughly 0.7 ºC so far, is relatively modest, but it is already enough to be causing the break-up of the ice... public fearful of using up its savings given the uncertain economic indicators for the future The more the public held back then the more likely the prospect of 8 M2131 - SIM TEXT.indd 8 24/3/10 17:10:11 Introduction: the end of modernity deflation became, and since unemployment had the effect of further depressing demand, and of reducing tax revenues into the bargain, this merely exacerbated the problem... outside their own circle of true believers is at present very low We have seen the damage done to the economy and are understandably wary of those who caused it Hand in hand with this economic collapse has come the x M2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd x 24/3/10 17:09:48 Preface unmistakable beginnings of the collapse of the planet’s environmental systems, in the wake of the onslaught of decades of accelerated global... Introduction: the end of modernity world is a reality, and no area or political grouping can go it alone when it comes to dealing with economic or environmental crisis; everyone gets dragged in whether they deserve that fate or not It is not just trade that has been globalised, crisis has too, and the full implications of this are only just coming to be widely realised We have to face up to the fact that the. .. 17:10:10 Introduction: the end of modernity and assuming we’d have the chance to do it again’, thus stoking up the crisis even further.6 It is an interesting argument, and there is no denying that the public has little say in what the corporate sector gets up to I think it goes deeper than that, however, and that corporations are a part of the problem rather than the problem itself: it is the belief system... care to name The ranks of vegetarianism or veganism could well swell considerably under those circumstances Aftermaths There is little doubt that the credit crisis will have a profound effect on both public and private life, and that we do not yet know where 16 M2131 - SIM TEXT.indd 16 24/3/10 17:10:11 Introduction: the end of modernity this will all end It is in the nature of such serious crises that... religious figures, as is becoming more frequent, is a welcome contribution to the debate over the credit crisis and its causes) In a sense it is easier to predict what the effects of global warming will be than those of the credit crisis, since the former are more susceptible to computer modelling, which has become a highly developed method in the scientific community in recent years and the basis for... growth.4 The more that national economies expand (and, as Neal Lawson has put it, we are now locked into a lifestyle of ‘turbo-consumerism’),5 then the more fossil fuels they use to meet their energy requirements; the more fossil fuels they use, then the more carbon emissions are released into the atmosphere While there is widespread recognition among the world’s governments that this cannot go on, there is. .. waste land, and no-one seemed to know quite how to lead us out of it: doom and gloom had become the prevailing mood The waste land was characterised by a drastic drying-up of loans and credit from the financial sector – even between banks themselves, who could no longer bring themselves to trust in each others’ liquidity, and with genuine reason (such lending being the deep, arterial life-source of modern . FINANCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS IS REALLY TELLING US STUART SIM T End of M STUART SIM Edinburgh WHAT THE FINANCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS IS REALLY TELLING US STUART SIM ISBN 978. 17:09:48 M2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd iiM2131 - SIM PRELIMS.indd ii 24/3/10 17:09:4824/3/10 17:09:48 The End of Modernity What the Financial and Environmental Crisis Is Really Telling Us STUART SIM EDINBURGH. 17:09:48 ix Preface Financial crisis, environmental crisis: what is the combination of credit crunch and global warming telling us about the way we live? I would contend that such events signal