Dominic Boyer (and others) on neoliberalism and “neosocialism” at Savage Minds

Just thought I’d give a shout out to what’s turning into an interesting conversation over at Savage Minds.org.  Guest blogger Dominic Boyer argues for greater anthropological attention be paid to “neosocialism” because:

If you look back on the entanglement of liberalism and socialism in modern European social theory and political philosophy, it makes no sense whatsoever to talk about the one without the other. If we think there’s something neoliberal out there then by goodness (!) there’s bound to be something neosocialist loose in the world as well. I admit that this is counterintuitive. We’ve all been schooled (not least by liberal and socialist theorists) to assume that liberalism and socialism are antithetical to one another. And, at some level, of course, there’s oppositionality there. But I’d argue there is also a strong relationship of complementarity between the two.

via Why not neosocialism? | Savage Minds.

Now this is an interesting enough kind of argument, and one I definitely agree with, but the discussion has also been particularly interesting, with Chris Kelty suggesting that perhaps the greatest example of the strength of this neosocialism might in fact be Walmart and (with a little provocation from your truly) Boyer making the claim that Bruno Latour, author of Reassembling the Social, is not in fact a social theorist (I’m still trying to wrap my head around that one to figure out if I agree or disagree).

Savage Minds on Michèle Lamont’s new book

i just couldn’t help making this a whole entry for itself, rather than just digg-ing it

Peer Review Revealed: Inside Higher Ed discussed Michèle Lamont’s new book How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgement. In the research for the book, Lamont sat in on multiple peer review panels and interviewed people making decisions. Her findings: that reviewers reward proposals that reminds them of their latest weekend vacation, dislike proposals that doesn’t speak to their own work, form alliances with other reviewers, read moral judgements into statements of purpose, etc. But in the end, Lamont seems to conclude, it’s the worst system except for every other kind.

via Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology — A Group Blog » Savage Minds Around the Web.