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Self Transformation for Post-Capitalism

Katherine Gibson

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Guest Introduction

My guest on this episode is Katherine Gibson, a fiercely creative thinker on the relationship between post-capitalism and consciousness. With Julie Graham, she is co-author of a number of books, including The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It), and A Postcapitalist Politics.

Katherine is an economic geographer at Western Sydney University, and founded the 'Community Economies Collective', which is a project that involves both academics and communities in theorizing and practicing new economic visions.

In our conversation, we explore:

  • The relationship between self-transformation and economic transformation
  • How post-capitalism is not something that can be learned or intellectually understood, so much as performed, acted out, and felt, which suggests why new economies require new selves, new configurations of how we experience our bodies and relations
  • How national scale policy like basic income can help support individuals in their own processes of exploration and transformation
  • Why self-entrepreneurship is the ultimate expression of neoliberal subjectivity

Time Map

  • 14 min – Do societies create individuals, or do individuals create societies? How can we think through this complex interaction?
  • 17 min – What role does self-transformation play in economic transformation?
  • 27 min – the role of committed practice in structural change - both of consciousness, and economies.
    "Being something different involves practicing it."
  • 32 min – When we talk about 'self-transformation', what are we transforming ourselves for? Why transform, if not only to become better economic subjects?
  • 38:30 – What is 'ontological reframing', and what does ontology have to do with politics and economics?
  • 50:36 – What's the relationship between national-scale policy like basic income with individual self-transformation? Can these two strategies support one another?

Links from the Conversation

Katherine's Books

Katherine's Organization

Related Resources