Our lives are now besieged by all crises, from inflation, incoming recession, and deadly migration from the Global South to the advance of the far-right and apocalyptic climate disaster. In what ways capital, industrial or financial, is at the heart of these variegated crises? Which is the weakest link to be broken to put an emergency brake on today’s world and revitalize the resistance? What insights can the experiences of imperialism and capitalism outside the West offer on these questions? If you are concerned about any of these questions, please come and engage with Ken Kawashima’s investigation of the crisis of capitalism. His talk will draw on Japanese Marxist Uno Kozo’s seminal book he translated, The Theory of Crisis.

In this talk, Ken C. Kawashima will discuss how Uno’s Theory of Crisis can inform and guide the analysis of capitalism’s historical crises, and how it gives us a theoretical grasp of Marx’s Capital that emphasizes the concepts of labour-power, excess capital, and surplus populations. In this regard, Uno’s Theory of Crisis is very different from orthodox Marxist approaches to Capital. Kawashima will discuss the political implications of Uno’s Theory of Crisis for today.

This event is organized by Hyun Ok Park (Sociology, York University). This event is presented by the Korean Office for Research and Education (KORE) at York University, which is funded by the Academy of Korean Studies. This event is co-sponsored by the Department of East Asian Studies at University of Toronto and the Marxist Studies in Global and Asian Perspectives (MSGAP) at York University.

*Please RSVP for this event by Thursday, October 27th.