At a glance, the commodity is a product and a variety of use-values, but, if examined in greater depth, it is an ideational form that acts in excess of human volition precisely to restrict or constrain human beings, a form into which everything is enclosed.
With the near-global lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many have claimed that the much touted "experience economy" has collapsed. But what if, as Rob Horning argues, this same simulacrum of authenticity has merely migrated online? And if so, what does this tell us about the nature of contemporary experience?
Franco 'Bifo' Berardi charts the spiralling collapse of the social order under the effects of COVID-19.
The Covid-19 crisis has lead to a huge drop in the demand for, and price of, oil globally. In this article, Adam Hanieh looks at what this might mean for the global economy.
A mysterious package arrives on the doorstep of journalist Jessica Bruder. It's the start of an eye-opening journey into the pervasiveness of government surveillance and how protect individual privacy while trusting your comrades.
One of Verso's favourite podcasts Suite (212) returns for a new series, with a series of interviews with a range of contemporary artists, writers and filmmakers and other cultural figures about their work, asking about the political issues that inspire them and the socio-economic conditions that have shaped their practice.
Whilst the full effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are yet to be seen, the near-global lockdown of urban centres has been a jarring experience for city-dwellers. But how does the rapid spreading of the virus change our perception of the city? Here, Ravi Ghosh argues that these conditions prompts us to see the city differently, and sets us the urgent task of extending the right to the city to all its inhabitants.
Lauren Velvick on the ways community arts organisations and festivals in Blackburn and Lincoln have responded to the economic and social effects of Covid-19.
Dialectical thought is an attempt to break through the coercion of logic by its own means. But since it must use these means, it is at every moment in danger of itself acquiring a coercive character: the ruse of reason would like to hold sway over the dialectic too.
Amid the lockdown, Labour has elected its new leader. Momentum co-founder and former Corbyn aide James Schneider gives a unique insight into the Corbyn years and weighs the prospects for the British left in the age of Keir Starmer.
Franco 'Bifo' Berardi charts the spiralling collapse of the social order under the effects of COVID-19.
Crises are always moments of decisions. They are moments when we must set out what our priorities are, and asks us how we can achieve them. Peter Hallward argues that the present one caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, could provide the immediate conditions for a new way of living. The clock is ticking, and the stakes are clear. What are we going to do?