Soirée Critique VII
Free trade – the last internationalism?
Tuesday, 11 October 2016, 6 pm
tranzit.ro/ Cluj,
Brassai Sámuel St. 5
All ideology is based on a distinction between civilisation and barbarism. Following last year's events, The Economist draws the conclusion that the left/right divide is no longer operational and the politics of the future will be organized around the opposition between closed (protectionism, anti-migration, nationalism) and open (free trade, pro-migration...), with those from the closed camp being implicitly un-civilised and on the wrong side of History. The left is caught in the crossfire as this new distinction works as a double blackmail. On the one side economic liberalism legitimises itself through its social and cultural counterpart. On the other side, those made poor and vulnerable by the economic liberalism criticise it together with its social and cultural dimensions or set the blame solely on these. Left-wing or social-democratic parties and movements are drawn in zero-sum battles, thus losing political capital. In the end the bill is paid obviously by the migrant, dislocated by economic liberalism.
How to escape this deadlock will be the question that we will try to answer on Tuesday, at Soirée Critique.
