In this issue of Mute there is a generalised refusal to have our selves, in the widest sense of the word, put to work. As we start to see the real repercussions of the financial crisis bite, the Bretton Woods ideological state apparatus is looking rather threadbare. The strategy to placate social desires through cheap credit, property acquisition and the decoration of domestic surfaces continues against a muted backdrop of factory occupations, boss-nappings, foreclosures, and the dregs of what looks to be Big Brother’s last season. It is tempting to imagine that the mass tutelage in narcissism which has helped pacify the social body for so long might collapse under the weight of its own vacuity and unsustainable cruelty. As capitalism falters in its corralling of desires, writers in this issue think about how such energies might escape from their official channels.

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Editorial

Not Fast Food, Women!

Reviewing Alina Marazzi's film We Want Roses Too, Agnese Trocchi surveys the ruins of Italy's sexual revolution

The Return of the Red Bourgeoisie

Stefan Szczelkun interviews artist Nada Prilja on Black Wave cinema and the cultural influences of her Yugoslavian upbringing

Unstable Equilibrium

Howard Slater on Yugoslav film-maker Dušan Makavejev's fragmentary genius

State Capitalism in Britain

Neither creative nor productive, Britain's private sector is the biggest benefits scrounger of all, writes James Heartfield

The Buck Stops Here?

Daniel Berchenko on the haphazard rise and potential fall of the dollar's hegemony

Out of Time 

Artist's project by David Osbaldeston

Notes on the Last Days of Jack Sheppard

Benedict Seymour on Anja Kirschner & David Panos' recent film, and the class politics of representation in financial times

When Nothing is Produced

Marcel Stoetzler jolts sexual politics out of its missionary position

In Praise of Usura

Angela Mitropoulos and Melinda Cooper praise subprim 'speculators' who are inverting the exorbitant demands of debt

Be Realistic, Demand the Negative

Marina Vishmidt reviews Negativity & Revolution - an anthology that puts Adorno's negative dialectivs back on the menu

Contents of this cluster

1. Editorial
2. Not Fast Food, Women!
3. The Return of the Red Bourgeoisie – An Interview with Nada Prlja
4. Unstable Equilibrium
5. State Capitalism in Britain
6. The Buck Stops Here?
7. Notes on The Last Days of Jack Sheppard: Capital Crimes and Paper Claims
8. When Nothing is Produced
9. In Praise of Usura
10. Be Realistic, Demand the Negative