Rated Agency

Belgian philosopher Feher (Rated Agency ) argues that, though industrial capitalism once pitched employers’ interests against those of workers, in the present ‘financialized’ form of capitalism the conflict is between investors (those who decide when to extend credit) and ‘investees,’ and activism must adjust accordingly….The phenomena that Feher describes and the counterstrategy he outlines are likely to spark intra-left debate.

Feher clearly and systematically lays out how following the money may not be the grand capitulation that the Left considers it to be…his subtle but important conceptual shift of emphasis from “value” to “credit” may be Rated Agency’s most enduring contribution to political economy going forward.

Offers a story of how we got here and how activists can, if not throw off the yoke of debt, at least begin to alter the deal a bit more in their favor.

Offers both critical evaluations and political discussions of the existing socio-economic theories about the dynamics of capitalism in the past half-century and the possible alternative directions current capitalism could take. His original and timely contribution lies in the argument that we can move beyond neoliberalism once we know how to use it as the source of resistance.

A new book by the philosopher Michel Feher takes on the crucial task of imagining a politics capable of responding to the dominance of finance. Feher’s project focuses on a major consequence of the neoliberal turn: the centrality of speculative investment in the contemporary economy. Though this “financialization” was not an intended result of the architects of neoliberalism, it has had a profound impact on the scope of political possibilities today. And despite the formidable constraints a financialized economy places on the democratic left, Feher believes it is possible to find within its logic the tools for social change.

Michel Feher, a Belgian philosopher, is the author of Powerless by Design: The Age of the International Community and the editor of Nongovernmental Politics and Europe at a Crossroads, among other titles. Founder of Cette France-là, a monitoring group on French immigration policy, Feher is also a founding editor of Zone Books.

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