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Jürgen Habermas once investigated the structural transformation of the modern public using the term 'refeudalization'. He reconstructed how, in the course of the development of economic monopolies, pre-bourgeois forms of power again penetrated the public sphere. It is not only the fact that the social sciences today speak again of a crisis of the public sphere, however, that gives Habermas' concept of 'refeudalization' new relevance. On the contrary, a social change is taking place in numerous areas of present-day society which, in the course of a neoliberal modernization of the economy, is once again re-creating pre-modern social forms, hierarchies and power structures. This does not take place as a relapse into past social forms, but as a paradoxical result of social transformations that generate the old as the new and thereby produce 'neo-feudal' patterns in the distribution of wealth, recognition and power. In this paper 'refeudalization' is presented as a key concept for understanding the development of modern capitalist societies today. It will be shown that the dichotomy of 'progressive' and 'regressive' forms of transformation of capitalism must be complemented by more complex models of paradoxical social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the literature on basic income and work by articulating the case for disentangling the normative justification of basic income from the structural and temporal imperatives of the capitalist wage relation and the work ethic. It begins with a survey of the major normative justifications of basic income and their respective orientations towards capitalist development and labour markets. Next it presents an argument against tying the justification of basic income to posited labour supply responses based on predicted technological change, the extant empirical evidence from pilots or technical policy simulations. It then addresses the politico-cultural barrier to basic income presented by the wage relation and the work ethic, and critically evaluates the 'exit option' argument for basic income. The article concludes that asserting a right to an ad vitam basic income is an ethically justified and politically astute step towards a necessary decentring of (capitalist) work in basic income scholarship and advocacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, there has been a global rise in fear and hostility towards asylum seekers. Xenophobia – or 'fear of the stranger' – has become a pressing issue in a range of disciplines. Several causal models have been proposed to explain this fear and the hostility it produces. However, disciplinary boundaries have limited productive dialogue between these approaches. This article draws connections between four of the main theories that have been advanced in the existing literature: (1) false belief accounts, (2) xenophobia as new racism, (3) sociobiological explanations and (4) xenophobia as an effect of capitalist globalisation. While this article cannot provide an exhaustive review of theories of xenophobia, it aims to present a useful comparative introduction to current research into the social aspects of xenophobia, particularly as these theories have been applied to asylum seekers. In bringing together divergent models, it also invites interdisciplinary engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reflects on the role of public sociology in the debate on the systemic crisis of western capitalism reinvigorated by the 2007-8 global financial crisis. The article argues that, in the current moment in history, sociologists have a professional duty to challenge the growing irrationality of the economically rational public discourse and to more vigorously uphold the formulation of alternative 'real-utopian' discourses. The article first introduces capitalism's core ideology -- economic rationality -- arguing that it has hardened into the irrational dogma of the ostensibly rational West, with an unrelenting grip on the public discourse, especially in the 'neoliberal' Anglosphere. The ideology suppresses measures needed to address issues such as global warming and global financial disorder. Contemporary 'Anglo' sociology, including Australian sociology, is internally compartmentalized, self-referential and of marginal influence in the public sphere. Moreover, it espouses economic rationality in its practice within increasingly corporatized universities, while maintaining a progressive cloak over its intellectual products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasingly voluntary quality of religious expression has prompted many faith-based entities to embrace ‘secular’ means of evangelism. This is evident within the Sydney-based Hillsong Church, which has grown rapidly in attendees, capital resources and global reach. This ‘seeker-friendly’ strategy, however, raises questions around whether the ‘megachurch’ can sustain itself in offering respite from wearying Weberian processes of rationalisation and disenchantment. Hillsong’s resolution of this dilemma has been to create an encompassing arena of enchantment for constituents, a contemporary Goffmanian ‘total institution’ by reproducing the unalterable mechanisms of the economic order in a way that imbues them with greater meaning. Loyalties are sought by aligning desires for both personal reinvention and collective subsumption with the overarching evangelical aims of the Church. Thus for the committed devotee the transcendent and pragmatic may become synonymous and imbued with wonder, so that any gnawing dissonance felt as characteristic of late capitalism may be reconciled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]