{"id":56,"date":"2011-06-19T23:54:36","date_gmt":"2011-06-19T23:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/wordpress\/?p=56"},"modified":"2026-03-17T12:50:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T12:50:23","slug":"spectacular-capitalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/?p=56","title":{"rendered":"Spectacular Capitalism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script src=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/sdk\/js?client-id=BAAZVqDzpOe4wiR8CaLD_oJEvsW8k_r43j2m8f0nPZpK9MqpD3c_nCgZ1_fgqtEOiF3kkO3be21V5NnwRU&#038;components=hosted-buttons&#038;disable-funding=venmo&#038;currency=GBP\">\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>Spectacular Capitalism: Guy Debord and the Practice of Radical Philosophy<br \/>\n<\/strong>by Richard Gilman-Opalsky<\/p>\n<p>Despite recent crises in the financial system, uprisings in Greece, France, Tunisia, and Bolivia, worldwide decline of faith in neoliberal trade policies, deepening ecological catastrophes, and global deficits of realized democracy, we still live in an era of \u201cspectacular capitalism.\u201d But what is \u201cspectacular capitalism?\u201d Spectacular capitalism is the dominant mythology of capitalism that disguises its internal logic and denies the macroeconomic reality of the actually existing capitalist world. Taking on this elusive mythology, and those who too easily accept it, Richard Gilman-Opalsky exposes the manipulative and self-serving narrative of spectacular capitalism.<\/p>\n<p>Drawing on the work of Guy Debord, Gilman-Opalsky argues that the theory of practice and practice of theory are superseded by upheavals that do the work of philosophy. One could ask: Who better raises questions about public and private spheres of influence and control, J\u00fcrgen Habermas or the water war activists who made a rebellion in Cochabamba, Bolivia in the spring of 2000? Or, has any sociological theorist done better than the Zapatistas to reframe and raise questions about indigenous identity? <em>Spectacular Capitalism<\/em> makes the case not only for a new philosophy of praxis, but for praxis itself as the delivery mechanism for philosophy \u2013 for the field of human action, of contestation and conflict, to raise directly the most irresistible questions about the truth and morality of the existing state of affairs.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Richard Gilman-Opalsky\u2019s <em>Spectacular Capitalism<\/em> rescues Situationist theory and praxis from merely antiquarian and art-historical commentary and puts it in dialogue with the project of a radical philosophy for leaving the 21st century.\u201d \u2013 McKenzie Wark, author of <em>A Hacker Manifesto<\/em> and <em>Gamer Theory<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Richard Gilman-Opalsky is Assistant Professor of Political Philosophy in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Springfield. He is the author of <em>Unbounded Publics: Transgressive Public Spheres, Zapatismo, and Political Theory<\/em> (Lexington Books, 2008), as well as numerous articles.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ordering Information<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"paypal-container-4BZYGTK9JMK4C\"><\/div>\n<p><script>\n  paypal.HostedButtons({\n    hostedButtonId: \"4BZYGTK9JMK4C\",\n  }).render(\"#paypal-container-4BZYGTK9JMK4C\")\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p>Available for \u00a310 from this site.<br \/>\nYou can also download it here:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/spectacularcapitalism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Spectacular Capitalism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>UK: \u00a316 \/ US: $22<br \/>\n134 pages, 6 x 9<br \/>\nISBN 978-1-57027-228-8<\/p>\n<p>Release date July 1st, 2011.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/cfep.org.uk\/?p=443\">Release event<\/a> Saturday June 25th @ X Marks the B\u00f6kship, London, Saturday June 25th @ 7PM. Sponsored by the Centre for Ethics and Politics.<\/p>\n<p>Chosen as the <a href=\"http:\/\/sites.google.com\/site\/marcusesociety\/marcuse-society-bookstore\/2011-recommended-books\">Book of the Month<\/a> for October 2011 \u00a0by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marcusesociety.com\/\">The International Herbert Marcuse Society<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spectacular Capitalism: Guy Debord and the Practice of Radical Philosophy by Richard Gilman-Opalsky Despite recent crises in the financial system, uprisings in Greece, France, Tunisia, and Bolivia, worldwide decline of faith in neoliberal trade policies, deepening ecological catastrophes, and global deficits of realized democracy, we still live in an era of \u201cspectacular capitalism.\u201d But what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gilman-opalsky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1802,"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions\/1802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}