IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/171219.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From Power Over Creation to the Power of Creation: Cornelius Castoriadis on Democratic Cultural Creation and the Case of Hollywood

Author

Listed:
  • Holman, Christopher
  • McMahon, James

Abstract

This article is a critical investigation and application of the aesthetic theory of Cornelius Castoriadis, one of the most important 20th-century theorists of radical democracy. We outline Castoriadis’s thoughts on autonomy, the social-historical nature of Being, and creation -- key elements that inform his model of democratic culture. We then develop a Castoriadian critique of culture produced by capitalist institutions. By also drawing on the political economic thought of Thorstein Veblen, Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler, our critique focuses on one sector of contemporary culture: Hollywood film. We show how Hollywood, as a business enterprise, uses techniques of sabotage and capitalization to control and occult the social-historical nature of creation. Lastly, by way of conclusion, we gesture toward a mode of artistic production that is able to affirm the democratic values that organize Castoriadis’s thought.

Suggested Citation

  • Holman, Christopher & McMahon, James, 2015. "From Power Over Creation to the Power of Creation: Cornelius Castoriadis on Democratic Cultural Creation and the Case of Hollywood," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 33(Spring), pages 157-181.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:171219
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/171219/1/20150000_holman_mcmahon_from_power_over_creation_to_power_of_creation.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bichler, Shimshon & Nitzan, Jonathan, 2012. "The Asymptotes of Power," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue 60, pages 18-53.
    2. McMahon, James, 2013. "The Rise of a Confident Hollywood: Risk and the Capitalization of Cinema," EconStor Preprints 157854, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    3. McMahon, James, 2013. "The Rise of a Confident Hollywood: Risk and the Capitalization of Cinema," Review of Capital as Power, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism, vol. 1(1), pages 23-40.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. McMahon, James, 2015. "What Makes Hollywood Run? Capitalist Power, Risk and the Control of Social Creativity," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 157994, September.
    2. McMahon, James, 2022. "The Political Economy of Hollywood: Capitalist Power and Cultural Production; introduction," EconStor Open Access Book Chapters, in: The Political Economy of Hollywood: Capitalist Power and Cultural Production, pages 1-10, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. McMahon, James, 2018. "Is Hollywood a Risky Business? A Political Economic Analysis of Risk and Creativity," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Online Fi, pages 1-24.
    2. Hager, Sandy Brian, 2013. "Public Debt, Ownership and Power: The Political Economy of Distribution and Redistribution," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 157991, September.
    3. Bichler, Shimshon & Nitzan, Jonathan, 2020. "Growing through Sabotage: Energizing Hierarchical Power," Review of Capital as Power, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism, vol. 1(5), pages 1-78.
    4. Nitzan, Jonathan & Bichler, Shimshon, 2018. "The CasP Project: Past, Present, Future," Review of Capital as Power, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism, vol. 1(3), pages 1-39.
    5. McMahon, James, 2022. "Star Power and Risk. A Political Economic Study of Casting Trends in Hollywood," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2022/01, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    6. McMahon, James, 2015. "What Makes Hollywood Run? Capitalist Power, Risk and the Control of Social Creativity," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 157994, September.
    7. Baines, Joseph, 2014. "Wal-Mart's Power Trajectory: A Contribution to the Political Economy of the Firm," Review of Capital as Power, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism, vol. 1(1), pages 79-109.
    8. Nitzan, Jonathan & Bichler, Shimshon, 2014. "Can Capitalists Afford Recovery? Three Views on Economic Policy in Times of Crisis," Review of Capital as Power, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism, vol. 1(1), pages 110-155.
    9. Bichler, Shimshon & Nitzan, Jonathan, 2015. "Still About Oil?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue 70, pages 49-79.
    10. Bichler, Shimshon & Nitzan, Jonathan, 2013. "Can Capitalists Afford Recovery? Economic Policy When Capital is Power," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2013/01, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    11. Bichler, Shimshon & Nitzan, Jonathan, 2023. "The Capital As Power Approach. An Invited-then-Rejected Interview with Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan," Review of Capital as Power, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism, vol. 2(2), pages 96-174.
    12. Fix, Blair, 2018. "Capitalist income and hierarchical power: A gradient hypothesis," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2018/06, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    13. Baines, Joseph, 2015. "Price and Income Dynamics in the Agri-Food System: A Disaggregate Perspective," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 157992, September.
    14. Cochrane, David Troy, 2015. "What’s Love Got to Do with It? Diamonds and the Accumulation of De Beers, 1935-55," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 157995, September.
    15. Fix, Blair, 2018. "Capitalist Income and Hierarchical Power," SocArXiv u8epv, Center for Open Science.
    16. McMahon, James, 2022. "The Political Economy of Hollywood: Capitalist Power and Cultural Production; introduction," EconStor Open Access Book Chapters, in: The Political Economy of Hollywood: Capitalist Power and Cultural Production, pages 1-10, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    17. McMahon, James, 2015. "Risk and Capitalist Power: Conceptual Tools for Studying the Political Economy of Hollywood," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 3(2), pages 28-54.
    18. Tihomir Domazet, 2014. "Investicije kao uzrok krize i investicije u novoj ekonomici rasta i pune zaposlenosti," Ekonomija Economics, Rifin d.o.o., vol. 21(1), pages 1-26.
    19. Bichler, Shimshon & Nitzan, Jonathan, 2014. "How Capitalists Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Crisis," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue 66, pages 65-73.
    20. Žarko Primorac, 2014. "Investicije kao pokretac rasta i izlaska iz recesije," Ekonomija Economics, Rifin d.o.o., vol. 21(1), pages 67-84.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:171219. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.