Ethics

Ethics is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what
the fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics or morality is (meta-
ethics), how moral values should be determined (normative ethics), how a moral outcome can be
achieved in specific situations (applied ethics), how moral capacity or moral agency develops
and what its nature is (moral psychology), and what moral values people actually abide by
(descriptive ethics).

Contents
 1 Meta-ethics
 2 Normative ethics
o 2.1 Greek philosophy
 2.1.1 Socrates
 2.1.2 Aristotle
 2.1.3 Hedonism
 2.1.3.1 Cyrenaic hedonism
 2.1.3.2 Epicureanism
 2.1.4 Stoicism
 3 Applied ethics
o 3.1 Specific questions
o 3.2 Post-critique ethics
o 3.3 Particular fields of application
 3.3.1 Relational ethics
 3.3.2 Military ethics
 4 Moral psychology
o 4.1 Evolutionary ethics
 5 Descriptive ethics

Meta-ethics
Meta-ethics is concerned primarily with the meaning of ethical judgments and/or prescriptions
and with the notion of which properties, if any, are responsible for the truth or validity thereof.
Meta-ethics as a discipline gained attention with G.E. Moore's famous work Principia Ethica
from 1903 in which Moore first addressed what he referred to as the naturalistic fallacy. Moore's
rebuttal of naturalistic ethics, his Open Question Argument sparked an interest within the
analytic branch of western philosophy to concern oneself with second order questions about
ethics; specifically the semantics, epistemology and ontology of ethics.

The semantics of ethics divides naturally into descriptivism and non-descriptivism.

Descriptivism holds that ethical language (including ethical commands and duties) is a
subdivision of descriptive language and has meaning in virtue of the same kind of properties as
descriptive propositions. Non-descriptivism contends that ethical propositions are irreducible in
the sense that their meaning cannot be explicated sufficiently in terms of descriptive truth-
conditions.

Correspondingly, the epistemology of ethics divides into cognitivism and non-cognitivism; a

distinction that is often perceived as equivalent to that between descriptivists and non-
descriptivists. Non-cognitivism may be understood as the claim that ethical claims reach beyond
the scope of human cognition or as the (weaker) claim that ethics is concerned with action rather
than with knowledge. Cognitivism can then be seen as the claim that ethics is essentially
concerned with judgments of the same kind as knowledge judgments; namely about matters of
fact.

The ontology of ethics is concerned with the idea of value-bearing properties, i.e. the kind of
things or stuffs that would correspond to or be referred to by ethical propositions. Non-
descriptivists and non-cognitivists will generally tend to argue that ethics do not require a
specific ontology, since ethical propositions do not refer to objects in the same way that
descriptive propositions do. Such a position may sometimes be called anti-realist. Realists on the
other hand are left with having to explain what kind of entities, properties or states are relevant
for ethics, and why they have the normative status characteristic of ethics.

Normative ethics
Traditionally, normative ethics (also known as moral theory) was the study of what makes
actions right and wrong. These theories offered an overarching moral principle to which one
could appeal in resolving difficult moral decisions.

At the turn of the 20th century, moral theories became more complex and are no longer
concerned solely with rightness and wrongness, but are interested in many different kinds of
moral status. During the middle of the century, the study of normative ethics declined as meta-
ethics grew in prominence. This focus on meta-ethics was in part caused by an intense linguistic
focus in analytic philosophy and by the popularity of logical positivism.

In 1971, John Rawls published A Theory of Justice, noteworthy in its pursuit of moral arguments
and eschewing of meta-ethics. This publication set the trend for renewed interest in normative
ethics.

Greek philosophy

Socrates

Socrates was one of the first Greek philosophers to encourage both scholars and the common
citizen to turn their attention from the outside world to the condition of man. In this view,
Knowledge having a bearing on human life was placed highest, all other knowledge being
secondary. Self-knowledge was considered necessary for success and inherently an essential
good. A self-aware person will act completely within their capabilities to their pinnacle, while an
ignorant person will flounder and encounter difficulty. To Socrates, a person must become aware
of every fact (and its context) relevant to his existence, if he wishes to attain self-knowledge. He
posited that people will naturally do what is good, if they know what is right. Evil or bad actions,
are the result of ignorance. If a criminal were truly aware of the mental and spiritual
consequences of his actions, he would neither commit nor even consider committing them. Any
person who knows what is truly right will automatically do it, according to Socrates. While he
correlated knowledge with virtue, he similarly equated virtue with happiness. The truly wise man
will know what is right, do what is good and therefore be happy.[1]

Aristotle

Aristotle posited an ethical system that may be termed "self-realizationism". In Aristotle's view,
when a person acts in accordance with his nature and realizes his full potential, he will do good
and be content. At birth, a baby is not a person, but a potential person. In order to become a
"real" person, the child's inherent potential must be realized. Unhappiness and frustration are
caused by the unrealized potential of a person, leading to failed goals and a poor life. Aristotle
said, "Nature does nothing in vain." Therefore, it is imperative for persons to act in accordance
with their nature and develop their latent talents, in order to be content and complete. Happiness
was held to be the ultimate goal. All other things, such as civic life or wealth, are merely means
to the end. Self-realization, the awareness of one's nature and the development of one's talents, is
the surest path to happiness.[2]

Aristotle asserted that man had three natures: vegetable (physical), animal (emotional) and
rational (mental). Physical nature can be assuaged through exercise and care, emotional nature
through indulgence of instinct and urges, and mental through human reason and developed
potential. Rational development was considered the most important, as essential to philosophical
self-awareness and as uniquely human. Moderation was encouraged, with the extremes seen as
degraded and immoral. For example, courage is the moderate virtue between the extremes of
cowardice and recklessness. Man should not simply live, but live well with conduct governed by
moderate virtue. This is regarded as difficult, as virtue denotes doing the right thing, to the right
person, at the right time, to the proper extent, in the correct fashion, for the right reason.[3]

Hedonism

Hedonism posits that the principle ethic is maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. There are
several schools of Hedonist thought ranging from those advocating the indulgence of even
momentary desires to those teaching a pursuit of spiritual bliss. In their consideration of
consequences, they range from those advocating self-gratification regardless of the pain and
expense to others, to those stating that the most ethical pursuit maximizes pleasure and happiness
for the most people.[4]

Cyrenaic hedonism

Founded by Aristippus of Cyrene, Cyrenaics supported immediate gratification. "Eat, drink and
be merry, for tomorrow we die." Even fleeting desires should be indulged, for fear the
opportunity should be forever lost. There was little to no concern with the future, the present
dominating in the pursuit for immediate pleasure. Cyrenaic hedonism encouraged the pursuit of
enjoyment and indulgence without hesitation, believing pleasure to be the only good.[4]

Epicureanism

Epicurus rejected the extremism of the Cyrenaics, believing some pleasures and indulgences to
be detrimental to human beings. Epicureans observed that indiscriminate indulgence sometimes
resulted in negative consequences. Some experiences were therefore rejected out of hand, and
some unpleasant experiences endured in the present to ensure a better life in the future. The
summum bonum, or greatest good, to Epicurus was prudence, exercised through moderation and
caution. Excessive indulgence can be destructive to pleasure and can even lead to pain. For
example, eating one food too often will cause a person to lose taste for it. Eating too much food
at once will lead to discomfort and ill-health. Pain and fear were to be avoided. Living was
essentially good, barring pain and illness. Death was not to be feared. Fear was considered the
source of most unhappiness. Conquering the fear of death would naturally lead to a happier life.
Epicurus reasoned if there was an afterlife and immortality, the fear of death was irrational. If
there was no life after death, then the person would not be alive to suffer, fear or worry; he
would be non-existent in death. It is irrational to fret over circumstances that do not exist, such as
one's state in death in the absence of an afterlife.[5]

Stoicism

The Stoic philosopher Epictetus posited that the greatest good was contentment and serenity.
Peace of mind, or Apatheia, was of the highest value; self-mastery over one's desires and
emotions leads to spiritual peace. The "unconquerable will" is central to this philosophy. The
individual will should be independent and inviolate. Allowing a person to disturb the mental
equilibrium is in essence offering yourself in slavery. If a person is free to anger you at will, you
have no control over your internal world, and therefore no freedom. Freedom from material
attachments is also necessary. If a thing breaks, the person should not be upset, but realize it was
a thing that could break. Similarly, if someone should die, those close to them should hold to
their serenity because the loved one was made of flesh and blood destined to death. Stoic
philosophy says to accept things that cannot be changed, resigning oneself to existence and
enduring in a rational fashion. Death is not feared. People do not "lose" their life, but instead
"return", for they are returning to God (who initially gave what the person is as a person).
Epictetus said difficult problems in life should not be avoided, but rather embraced. They are
spiritual exercises needed for the health of the spirit, just as physical exercise is required for the
health of the body. He also stated that sex and sexual desire are to be avoided as the greatest
threat to the integrity and equilibrium of a man's mind. Abstinence is highly desirable. Epictetus
said remaining abstinent in the face of temptation was a victory for which a man could be proud.
[6]

Applied ethics
Applied ethics is a discipline of philosophy that attempts to apply ethical theory to real-life
situations. The discipline has many specialized fields, such as bioethics and business ethics.
The lines of distinction between meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics are often
blurry. For example, the issue of abortion can be seen as an applied ethical topic since it involves
a specific type of controversial behaviour. But it can also depend on more general normative
principles, such as possible rights of self-rule and right to life, principles which are often litmus
tests for determining the morality of that procedure. The issue also rests on meta-ethical issues
such as, "where do rights come from?" and "what kind of beings have rights?"

Another concept which blurs ethics is moral luck. A drunk driver may safely reach home without
injuring anyone, or he might accidentally kill a child who runs out into the street while he is
driving home. The action of driving while drunk is usually seen as equally wrong in each case,
but its dependence on chance affects the degree to which the driver is held responsible.

Specific questions

Applied ethics is used in some aspects of determining public policy. The sort of questions
addressed by applied ethics include: "Is getting an abortion immoral?" "Is euthanasia immoral?"
"Is affirmative action right or wrong?" "What are human rights, and how do we determine
them?" and "Do animals have rights as well?"

A more specific question could be: "If someone else can make better out of his/her life than I
can, is it then moral to sacrifice myself for them if needed?" Without these questions there is no
clear fulcrum on which to balance law, politics, and the practice of arbitration — in fact, no
common assumptions of all participants—so the ability to formulate the questions are prior to
rights balancing. But not all questions studied in applied ethics concern public policy. For
example, making ethical judgments regarding questions such as, "Is lying always wrong?" and,
"If not, when is it permissible?" is prior to any etiquette.

People in-general are more comfortable with dichotomies (two choices). However, in ethics the
issues are most often multifaceted and the best proposed actions address many different areas
concurrently. In ethical decisions the answer is almost never a "yes or no", "right or wrong"
statement. Many buttons are pushed so that the overall condition is improved and not to the
benefit of any particular faction.

Post-critique ethics

The 20th century saw a remarkable expansion of critical theory and its evolution. The earlier
Marxist Theory created a paradigm for understanding the individual, society and their
interaction. The Renaissance Enlightened Man had persisted up until the Industrial Revolution
when the romantic vision of noble action began to fade.

Modernism, exemplified in the literary works of Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, wrote out
God, then antihumanists such as Louis Althusser and Michel Foucault and structuralists such as
Roland Barthes presided over the death of the author and man himself. As critical theory
developed in the later 20th century, post-structuralism queried the very existence of reality.
Jacques Derrida placed reality in the linguistic realm stating ‘There is nothing outside the text’,
while Jean Baudrillard theorised that signs and symbols or simulacra had usurped reality,
particularly in the consumer world.

Post-structuralism and postmodernism are both heavily theoretical and follow a fragmented, anti-
authoritarian course which is absorbed in narcissistic and near nihilistic activities. Normative
issues are generally ignored. This has led to some opponents of these later movements echoing
the critic Jurgen Habermas who fears ‘that the postmodern mood represents a turning away from
both political responsibilities and a concern for suffering’(cited in Lyon, 1999, p.103).

David Couzens Hoy says that Emmanuel Levinas’ writings on the face of the Other and
Derrida’s mediations on the relevance of death to ethics are signs of the ‘ethical turn’ in
Continental philosophy that occurs in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Hoy clarifies post-critique ethics as
the ‘obligations that present themselves as necessarily to be fulfilled but are neither forced on
one or are enforceable’ (2004, p.103).

This aligns with Australian philosopher Peter Singer’s thoughts on what ethics is not. He firstly
claims it is not a moral code particular to a sectional group. For example it has nothing to do with
a set of prohibitions concerned with sex laid down by a religious order. Neither is ethics a
‘system that is noble in theory but no good in practice’ (2000, p.7). For him, a theory is good
only if it is practical. He agrees that ethics is in some sense universal but in a utilitarian way it
affords the ‘best consequences’ and furthers the interests of those affected (2000, p.15).

Hoy in his post-critique model uses the term ethical resistance. Examples of this would be an
individual’s resistance to consumerism in a retreat to a simpler but perhaps harder lifestyle, or an
individual’s resistance to a terminal illness. Hoy describes these examples in his book Critical
Resistance as an individual’s engagement in social or political resistance. He provides Levinas’s
account as ‘not the attempt to use power against itself, or to mobilise sectors of the population to
exert their political power; the ethical resistance is instead the resistance of the powerless’(2004,
p.8).

Hoy concludes that

"The ethical resistance of the powerless others to our capacity to exert power over them is
therefore what imposes unenforceable obligations on us. The obligations are
unenforceable precisely because of the other’s lack of power. That actions are at once
obligatory and at the same time unenforceable is what put them in the category of the
ethical. Obligations that were enforced would, by the virtue of the force behind them, not
be freely undertaken and would not be in the realm of the ethical" (2004, p.184).

In present day terms the powerless may include the unborn, the terminally sick, the aged, the
insane, and animals. It is in these areas that ethical action will be evident. Until legislation or
state apparatus enforces a moral order that addresses the causes of resistance these issues will
remain in the ethical realm. For example, should animal experimentation become illegal in a
society, it will no longer be an ethical issue. Likewise one hundred and fifty years ago, not
having a black slave in America may have been an ethical choice. This later issue has been
absorbed into the fabric of a more utilitarian social order and is no longer an ethical issue but
does of course constitute a moral concern. Ethics are exercised by those who possess no power
and those who support them, through personal resistance.

[Particular fields of application

Relational ethics

Relational ethics are related to an ethics of care.[7] They are used in qualitative research,
especially ethnography and authoethnography. Researchers who employ relational ethics value
and respect the connection between themselves and the people they study, and "between
researchers and the communities in which they live and work" (Ellis, 2007, p. 4).[8] Relational
ethics also help researchers understand difficult issues such as conducting research on intimate
others that have died and developing friendships with their participants.[9][10]

Military ethics

Military ethics is a set of practices and philosophy to guide members of the armed forces to act in
a manner consistent with the values and standards as established by military tradition, and to
actively clarify and enforce these conditions rigorously in its administrative structure. Military
ethics is evolutionary and the administrative structure is modified as new ethical perspectives
consistent with national interests evolve.

Many issues of ethics involve any country's military establishment, including issues relating to:

1. justification for using force

2. race (loss of capability due to race bias or abuse)
3. gender equality (loss of capability due to gender bias or abuse)
4. age discrimination (authority based upon age instead of accomplishment or productivity)
5. nepotism (unfair control by family members; also known as "empire building")
6. political influence (military members having a political position or political influence)

And others.

Moral psychology
Evolutionary ethics

Evolutionary ethics concerns approaches to ethics (morality) based on the role of evolution in
shaping human psychology and behavior. Such approaches may be based in scientific fields such
as evolutionary psychology or sociobiology, with a focus on understanding and explaining
observed ethical preferences and choices.[11]

Descriptive ethics
Main article: Descriptive ethics

Descriptive ethics is a value-free approach to ethics which examines ethics not from a top-down
a priori perspective but rather observations of actual choices made by moral agents in practice.
Some philosophers rely on descriptive ethics and choices made and unchallenged by a society or
culture to derive categories, which typically vary by context. This can lead to situational ethics
and situated ethics. These philosophers often view aesthetics, etiquette, and arbitration as more
fundamental, percolating "bottom up" to imply the existence of, rather than explicitly prescribe,
theories of value or of conduct. The study of descriptive ethics may include examinations of the
following:

 Ethical codes applied by various groups. Some consider aesthetics itself the basis of
ethics – and a personal moral core developed through art and storytelling as very
influential in one's later ethical choices.
 Informal theories of etiquette which tend to be less rigorous and more situational. Some
consider etiquette a simple negative ethics, i.e. where can one evade an uncomfortable
truth without doing wrong? One notable advocate of this view is Judith Martin ("Miss
Manners"). According to this view, ethics is more a summary of common sense social
decisions.
 Practices in arbitration and law, e.g. the claim that ethics itself is a matter of balancing
"right versus right," i.e. putting priorities on two things that are both right, but which
must be traded off carefully in each situation.
 Observed choices made by ordinary people, without expert aid or advice, who vote, buy,
and decide what is worth valuing. This is a major concern of sociology, political science,
and economics.

Business ethics
Business ethics is a form of applied ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical
problems that arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspects of business conduct and is
relevant to the conduct of individuals and business organizations as a whole. Applied ethics is a
field of ethics that deals with ethical questions in many fields such as medical, technical, legal
and business ethics.

In the increasingly conscience-focused marketplaces of the 21st century, the demand for more
ethical business processes and actions (known as ethicism) is increasing.[1] Simultaneously,
pressure is applied on industry to improve business ethics through new public initiatives and
laws (e.g. higher UK road tax for higher-emission vehicles).[2] Businesses can often attain short-
term gains by acting in an unethical fashion; however, such antics tend to undermine the
economy over time.

Business ethics can be both a normative and a descriptive discipline. As a corporate practice and
a career specialization, the field is primarily normative. In academia descriptive approaches are
also taken. The range and quantity of business ethical issues reflects the degree to which business
is perceived to be at odds with non-economic social values. Historically, interest in business
ethics accelerated dramatically during the 1980s and 1990s, both within major corporations and
within academia. For example, today most major corporate websites lay emphasis on
commitment to promoting non-economic social values under a variety of headings (e.g. ethics
codes, social responsibility charters). In some cases, corporations have redefined their core
values in the light of business ethical considerations (e.g. BP's "beyond petroleum"
environmental tilt).

Contents
 1 Overview of issues in business ethics
o 1.1 General business ethics
 1.1.1 Ethics of accounting information
 1.1.2 Ethics of human resource management
 1.1.3 Ethics of sales and marketing
 1.1.4 Ethics of production
 1.1.5 Ethics of intellectual property, knowledge and skills
o 1.2 International business ethics and ethics of economic systems
 1.2.1 International business ethics
 1.2.2 Ethics of economic systems
 2 Theoretical issues in business ethics
o 2.1 Conflicting interests
o 2.2 Ethical issues and approaches
 3 Business ethics in the field
o 3.1 Corporate ethics policies
o 3.2 Ethics officers
 4 Religious views on business ethics
 5 Related disciplines

General business ethics

 This part of business ethics overlaps with the philosophy of business, one of the aims of
which is to determine the fundamental purposes of a company. If a company's main
purpose is to maximize the returns to its shareholders, then it should be seen as unethical
for a company to consider the interests and rights of anyone else.[3]
 Corporate social responsibility or CSR: an umbrella term under which the ethical rights
and duties existing between companies and society is debated.
 Issues regarding the moral rights and duties between a company and its shareholders:
fiduciary responsibility, stakeholder concept v. shareholder concept.
 Ethical issues concerning relations between different companies: e.g. hostile take-overs,
industrial espionage.
 Leadership issues: corporate governance.
 Political contributions made by corporations.
  Law reform, such as the ethical debate over introducing a crime of corporate
manslaughter.
 The misuse of corporate ethics policies as marketing instruments.

Ethics of accounting information

 Creative accounting, earnings management, misleading financial analysis.

 Insider trading, securities fraud, bucket shops, forex scams: concerns (criminal)
manipulation of the financial markets.
 Executive compensation: concerns excessive payments made to corporate CEO's and top
management.
 Bribery, kickbacks, facilitation payments: while these may be in the (short-term) interests
of the company and its shareholders, these practices may be anti-competitive or offend
against the values of society.

Cases: accounting scandals, Enron, WorldCom

Ethics of human resource management

The ethics of human resource management (HRM) covers those ethical issues arising around the
employer-employee relationship, such as the rights and duties owed between employer and
employee.

 Discrimination issues include discrimination on the bases of age (ageism), gender, race,
religion, disabilities, weight and attractiveness. See also: affirmative action, sexual
harassment.
 Issues arising from the traditional view of relationships between employers and
employees, also known as At-will employment.
 Issues surrounding the representation of employees and the democratization of the
workplace: union busting, strike breaking.
 Issues affecting the privacy of the employee: workplace surveillance, drug testing. See
also: privacy.
 Issues affecting the privacy of the employer: whistle-blowing.
 Issues relating to the fairness of the employment contract and the balance of power
between employer and employee: slavery,[4] indentured servitude, employment law.
 Occupational safety and health.

All of the above are also related to the hiring and firing of employees. A employee or future
employee can not be hired or fired based on race, age, gender, religion, or any other
disciminatory act.

Ethics of sales and marketing

Marketing, which goes beyond the mere provision of information about (and access to) a
product, may seek to manipulate our values and behavior. To some extent society regards this as
acceptable, but where is the ethical line to be drawn? Marketing ethics overlaps strongly with
media ethics, because marketing makes heavy use of media. However, media ethics is a much
larger topic and extends outside business ethics.

 Pricing: price fixing, price discrimination, price skimming.

 Anti-competitive practices: these include but go beyond pricing tactics to cover issues
such as manipulation of loyalty and supply chains. See: anti-competitive practices,
antitrust law.
 Specific marketing strategies: greenwash, bait and switch, shill, viral marketing, spam
(electronic), pyramid scheme, planned obsolescence.
 Content of advertisements: attack ads, subliminal messages, sex in advertising, products
regarded as immoral or harmful
 Children and marketing: marketing in schools.
 Black markets, grey markets.

Ethics of production

This area of business ethics deals with the duties of a company to ensure that products and
production processes do not cause harm. Some of the more acute dilemmas in this area arise out
of the fact that there is usually a degree of danger in any product or production process and it is
difficult to define a degree of permissibility, or the degree of permissibility may depend on the
changing state of preventative technologies or changing social perceptions of acceptable risk.

 Defective, addictive and inherently dangerous products and services (e.g. tobacco,
alcohol, weapons, motor vehicles, chemical manufacturing, bungee jumping).
 Ethical relations between the company and the environment: pollution, environmental
ethics, carbon emissions trading
 Ethical problems arising out of new technologies: genetically modified food, mobile
phone radiation and health.
 Product testing ethics: animal rights and animal testing, use of economically
disadvantaged groups (such as students) as test objects.

Ethics of intellectual property, knowledge and skills

Knowledge and skills are valuable but not easily "ownable" as objects. Nor is it obvious who has
the greater rights to an idea: the company who trained the employee, or the employee
themselves? The country in which the plant grew, or the company which discovered and
developed the plant's medicinal potential? As a result, attempts to assert ownership and ethical
disputes over ownership arise.

 Patent infringement, copyright infringement, trademark infringement.

 Misuse of the intellectual property systems to stifle competition: patent misuse, copyright
misuse, patent troll, submarine patent.
  Even the notion of intellectual property itself has been criticised on ethical grounds: see
intellectual property.
 Employee raiding: the practice of attracting key employees away from a competitor to
take unfair advantage of the knowledge or skills they may possess.
 The practice of employing all the most talented people in a specific field, regardless of
need, in order to prevent any competitors employing them.
 Bioprospecting (ethical) and biopiracy (unethical).
 Business intelligence and industrial espionage.

Cases: private versus public interests in the Human Genome Project

Ethics and Technology The computer and the World Wide Web are two of them most
significant inventions of the twentieth century. There are many ethical issues that arise from this
technology. It is easy to gain access to information. This leads to data mining, workplace
monitoring, and privacy invasion.[5]

Medical technology has improved as well. Pharmaceutical companies have the technology to
produce life saving drugs. These drugs are protected by patents and there are no generic drugs
available. This raises many ethical questions.

International business ethics and ethics of economic systems

The issues here are grouped together because they involve a much wider, global view on
business ethical matters.

International business ethics

While business ethics emerged as a field in the 1970s, international business ethics did not
emerge until the late 1990s, looking back on the international developments of that decade.[6]
Many new practical issues arose out of the international context of business. Theoretical issues
such as cultural relativity of ethical values receive more emphasis in this field. Other, older
issues can be grouped here as well. Issues and subfields include:

 The search for universal values as a basis for international commercial behaviour.
 Comparison of business ethical traditions in different countries.
 Comparison of business ethical traditions from various religious perspectives.
 Ethical issues arising out of international business transactions; e.g. bioprospecting and
biopiracy in the pharmaceutical industry; the fair trade movement; transfer pricing.
 Issues such as globalization and cultural imperialism.
 Varying global standards - e.g. the use of child labor.
 The way in which multinationals take advantage of international differences, such as
outsourcing production (e.g. clothes) and services (e.g. call centres) to low-wage
countries.
 The permissibility of international commerce with pariah states.
Foreign countries often use dumping as a competitive threat, selling products at prices lower than
their normal value. This can lead to problems in domestic markets. It becomes difficult for these
markets to compete with the pricing set by foreign markets. In 2009, the International Trade
Commission has been researching anti-dumping laws. Dumping is often seen as an ethical issue,
as larger companies are taking advantage of other less economically advanced companies.

Ethics of economic systems

This vaguely defined area, perhaps not part of but only related to business ethics,[7] is where
business ethicists venture into the fields of political economy and political philosophy, focusing
on the rights and wrongs of various systems for the distribution of economic benefits. The work
of John Rawls and Robert Nozick are both notable contributors.

Theoretical issues in business ethics

Conflicting interests

Business ethics can be examined from various perspectives, including the perspective of the
employee, the commercial enterprise, and society as a whole. Very often, situations arise in
which there is conflict between one or more of the parties, such that serving the interest of one
party is a detriment to the other(s). For example, a particular outcome might be good for the
employee, whereas, it would be bad for the company, society, or vice versa. Some ethicists (e.g.,
Henry Sidgwick) see the principal role of ethics as the harmonization and reconciliation of
conflicting interests.

Ethical issues and approaches

Philosophers and others disagree about the purpose of a business ethic in society. For example,
some suggest that the principal purpose of a business is to maximize returns to its owners, or in
the case of a publicly-traded concern, its shareholders. Thus, under this view, only those
activities that increase profitability and shareholder value should be encouraged, because any
others function as a tax on profits. Some believe that the only companies that are likely to
survive in a competitive marketplace are those that place profit maximization above everything
else. However, some point out that self-interest would still require a business to obey the law and
adhere to basic moral rules, because the consequences of failing to do so could be very costly in
fines, loss of licensure, or company reputation. The noted economist Milton Friedman was a
leading proponent of this view.

Some take the position that organizations are not capable of moral agency. Under this, ethical
behavior is required of individual human beings, but not of the business or corporation.

Other theorists contend that a business has moral duties that extend well beyond serving the
interests of its owners or stockholders, and that these duties consist of more than simply obeying
the law. They believe a business has moral responsibilities to so-called stakeholders, people who
have an interest in the conduct of the business, which might include employees, customers,
vendors, the local community, or even society as a whole. Stakeholders can also broken down
into primary and secondary stakeholders. Primary stakeholders are people that are affected
directly such as stockholders, where secondary stakeholders are people who are not affected
directly such as the government. They would say that stakeholders have certain rights with
regard to how the business operates, and some would suggest that this includes even rights of
governance.

Some theorists have adapted social contract theory to business, whereby companies become
quasi-democratic associations, and employees and other stakeholders are given voice over a
company's operations. This approach has become especially popular subsequent to the revival of
contract theory in political philosophy, which is largely due to John Rawls' A Theory of Justice,
and the advent of the consensus-oriented approach to solving business problems, an aspect of the
"quality movement" that emerged in the 1980s. Professors Thomas Donaldson and Thomas
Dunfee proposed a version of contract theory for business, which they call Integrative Social
Contracts Theory. They posit that conflicting interests are best resolved by formulating a "fair
agreement" between the parties, using a combination of i) macro-principles that all rational
people would agree upon as universal principles, and, ii) micro-principles formulated by actual
agreements among the interested parties. Critics say the proponents of contract theories miss a
central point, namely, that a business is someone's property and not a mini-state or a means of
distributing social justice.

Ethical issues can arise when companies must comply with multiple and sometimes conflicting
legal or cultural standards, as in the case of multinational companies that operate in countries
with varying practices. The question arises, for example, ought a company to obey the laws of its
home country, or should it follow the less stringent laws of the developing country in which it
does business? To illustrate, United States law forbids companies from paying bribes either
domestically or overseas; however, in other parts of the world, bribery is a customary, accepted
way of doing business. Similar problems can occur with regard to child labor, employee safety,
work hours, wages, discrimination, and environmental protection laws.

It is sometimes claimed that a Gresham's law of ethics applies in which bad ethical practices
drive out good ethical practices. It is claimed that in a competitive business environment, those
companies that survive are the ones that recognize that their only role is to maximize profits.

Business ethics in the field

Corporate ethics policies

As part of more comprehensive compliance and ethics programs, many companies have
formulated internal policies pertaining to the ethical conduct of employees. These policies can be
simple exhortations in broad, highly-generalized language (typically called a corporate ethics
statement), or they can be more detailed policies, containing specific behavioral requirements
(typically called corporate ethics codes). They are generally meant to identify the company's
expectations of workers and to offer guidance on handling some of the more common ethical
problems that might arise in the course of doing business. It is hoped that having such a policy
will lead to greater ethical awareness, consistency in application, and the avoidance of ethical
disasters.
An increasing number of companies also requires employees to attend seminars regarding
business conduct, which often include discussion of the company's policies, specific case studies,
and legal requirements. Some companies even require their employees to sign agreements stating
that they will abide by the company's rules of conduct.

Many companies are assessing the environmental factors that can lead employees to engage in
unethical conduct. A competitive business environment may call for unethical behavior. Lying
has become expected in fields such as trading. An example of this are the issues surrounding the
unethical actions of the Saloman Brothers.

Not everyone supports corporate policies that govern ethical conduct. Some claim that ethical
problems are better dealt with by depending upon employees to use their own judgment.

Others believe that corporate ethics policies are primarily rooted in utilitarian concerns, and that
they are mainly to limit the company's legal liability, or to curry public favor by giving the
appearance of being a good corporate citizen. Ideally, the company will avoid a lawsuit because
its employees will follow the rules. Should a lawsuit occur, the company can claim that the
problem would not have arisen if the employee had only followed the code properly.

Sometimes there is disconnection between the company's code of ethics and the company's
actual practices. Thus, whether or not such conduct is explicitly sanctioned by management, at
worst, this makes the policy duplicitous, and, at best, it is merely a marketing tool.

To be successful, most ethicists would suggest that an ethics policy should be:

 Given the unequivocal support of top management, by both word and example.
 Explained in writing and orally, with periodic reinforcement.
 Doable....something employees can both understand and perform.
 Monitored by top management, with routine inspections for compliance and
improvement.
 Backed up by clearly stated consequences in the case of disobedience.
 Remain neutral and nonsexist.

Ethics officers

Ethics officers (sometimes called "compliance" or "business conduct officers") have been
appointed formally by organizations since the mid-1980s. One of the catalysts for the creation of
this new role was a series of fraud, corruption and abuse scandals that afflicted the U.S. defense
industry at that time. This led to the creation of the Defense Industry Initiative (DII), a pan-
industry initiative to promote and ensure ethical business practices. The DII set an early
benchmark for ethics management in corporations. In 1991, the Ethics & Compliance Officer
Association (ECOA) -- originally the Ethics Officer Association (EOA)-- was founded at the
Center for Business Ethics(at Bentley College, Waltham, MA) as a professional association for
those responsible for managing organizations' efforts to achieve ethical best practices. The
membership grew rapidly (the ECOA now has over 1,100 members) and was soon established as
an independent organization.
Another critical factor in the decisions of companies to appoint ethics/compliance officers was
the passing of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations in 1991, which set standards
that organizations (large or small, commercial and non-commercial) had to follow to obtain a
reduction in sentence if they should be convicted of a federal offense. Although intended to assist
judges with sentencing, the influence in helping to establish best practices has been far-reaching.

In the wake of numerous corporate scandals between 2001-04 (affecting large corporations like
Enron, WorldCom and Tyco), even small and medium-sized companies have begun to appoint
ethics officers. They often report to the Chief Executive Officer and are responsible for assessing
the ethical implications of the company's activities, making recommendations regarding the
company's ethical policies, and disseminating information to employees. They are particularly
interested in uncovering or preventing unethical and illegal actions. This trend is partly due to the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the United States, which was enacted in reaction to the above scandals. A
related trend is the introduction of risk assessment officers that monitor how shareholders'
investments might be affected by the company's decisions.

The effectiveness of ethics officers in the marketplace is not clear. If the appointment is made
primarily as a reaction to legislative requirements, one might expect the efficacy to be minimal,
at least, over the short term. In part, this is because ethical business practices result from a
corporate culture that consistently places value on ethical behavior, a culture and climate that
usually emanates from the top of the organization. The mere establishment of a position to
oversee ethics will most likely be insufficient to inculcate ethical behaviour: a more systemic
programme with consistent support from general management will be necessary.

The foundation for ethical behavior goes well beyond corporate culture and the policies of any
given company, for it also depends greatly upon an individual's early moral training, the other
institutions that affect an individual, the competitive business environment the company is in
and, indeed, society as a whole.

Religious views on business ethics

The historical and global importance of religious views on business ethics is sometimes
underestimated in standard introductions to business ethics. Particularly in Asia and the Middle
East, religious and cultural perspectives have a strong influence on the conduct of business and
the creation of business values.

Examples include:

 Islamic banking, associated with the avoidance of charging interest on loans.

 Traditional Confucian disapproval of the profit-seeking motive.[8]
 Quaker testimony on fair dealing.

Related disciplines
Business ethics should be distinguished from the philosophy of business, the branch of
philosophy that deals with the philosophical, political, and ethical underpinnings of business and
economics. Business ethics operates on the premise, for example, that the ethical operation of a
private business is possible -- those who dispute that premise, such as libertarian socialists, (who
contend that "business ethics" is an oxymoron) do so by definition outside of the domain of
business ethics proper.

The philosophy of business also deals with questions such as what, if any, are the social
responsibilities of a business; business management theory; theories of individualism vs.
collectivism; free will among participants in the marketplace; the role of self interest; invisible
hand theories; the requirements of social justice; and natural rights, especially property rights, in
relation to the business enterprise.

Business ethics is also related to political economy, which is economic analysis from political
and historical perspectives. Political economy deals with the distributive consequences of
economic actions. It asks who gains and who loses from economic activity, and is the resultant
distribution fair or just, which are central ethical issues.

Social anarchism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  (Redirected from Socialist anarchism)

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Not to be confused with Social Anarchism (journal).
Part of the Politics series on

Anarchism

Schools of thought[show]

Social anarchism, socialist anarchism,[1] anarcho-socialism, anarchist socialism[2] or

communitarian anarchism,[3] (used interchangeably with libertarian socialism,[4] left-
libertarianism[5] or left-anarchism[6] in its terminology) is an umbrella term used to differentiate
two broad categories of anarchism, this one being the collectivist, with the other being
individualist anarchism. Where individualist forms of anarchism emphasize personal autonomy
and the rational nature of human beings, social anarchism sees "individual freedom as
conceptually connected with social equality and emphasize community and mutual aid."[7] Unlike
individualist anarchism, which stresses the importance of private property or possession, socialist
anarchism rejects private property, seeing it as a source of social inequality.[8] Social anarchism is
used to specifically describe tendencies within anarchism that have an emphasis on the
communitarian and cooperative aspects of anarchist theory and practice. Social anarchism
includes (but is not limited to) anarcho-collectivism, anarcho-communism, some forms of
libertarian socialism, anarcho-syndicalism and social ecology.

In the United States, the term "social anarchism" is used by the circle involved in
publishing the Social Anarchism journal and has been promoted by the late Murray
Bookchin. Bookchin identifies social anarchism with the "left," by which he refers to the
"great tradition of human solidarity and a belief in the potentiality for humanness,"
internationalism and confederalism, the democratic spirit, anti-militarism, and rational
secularism. However, religious anarchists and those on the Religious Left in general would
object to identifying the left with "rational secularism" as there are and have been many
powerful left-wing religious movements such as Liberation theology and the Civil rights

movement. Social anarchism aims for "free association o Left-

libertarianism
Left-libertarianism (sometimes synonymous with left-wing libertarianism and libertarian
socialism[1][2]) is a term that has been used to describe several different libertarian political
movements and theorists.

Left-libertarianism, as defended by contemporary theorists such as Peter Vallentyne, Hillel

Steiner, and Michael Otsuka, is a doctrine that has a strong commitment to personal liberty and
has an egalitarian view concerning natural resources, believing that it is illegitimate for anyone
to claim private ownership of resources to the detriment of others.[3][4] Some left-libertarians of
this type support some form of income redistribution on the grounds of a claim by each
individual to be entitled to an equal share of natural resources.[4] Social anarchists, including
Murray Bookchin[5], anarcho-communists[6] such as Peter Kropotkin and anarcho-collectivists
such as Mikhail Bakunin, are sometimes called left-libertarian.[7] Noam Chomsky also refers to
himself as a left libertarian.[8] The term is sometimes used synonymously with libertarian
socialism[9] or used in self-description by geoists who support individuals paying rent to the
community for the use of land. Left libertarian parties, such as Green, share with "traditional
socialism a distrust of the market, of private investment, and of the achievement ethic, and a
commitment to expansion of the welfare state."[10]

In contrast, right libertarianism holds that that that there are no fair share constraints on use or
appropriation.[11] Radical right libertarians hold that individuals have the power to appropriate
unowned things by claiming them (usually by mixing their labor with them), and deny any other
conditions or considerations are relevant. Thus they believe there is no justification for the state
to redistribute resources to the needy or to overcome market failures.[12]
Differing from the above definition, some anarchists who support private ownership of resources
and a free market call themselves left libertarian and also use a different definition for right
libertarianism. These individuals include Roderick T. Long[13] and Samuel Edward Konkin III[14]
Others, such as scholar David DeLeon, do not consider free-market private property anarchism
to be on the left.[15]

Contents
 1 In analytic philosophy
o 1.1 Property and natural resources
 2 Radical free-marketeers
o 2.1 Rapprochement with the Left
o 2.2 Cultural politics
 3 Criticism

In analytic philosophy
Political theorist Philippe Van Parijs has contributed to the academic literature on left-
libertarianism

Left-libertarianism combines the libertarian premise that each person possesses a natural right of
self-ownership with the egalitarian premise that natural resources should be shared equally. Left-
libertarianism holds that unappropriated natural resources are either unowned or owned in
common, believing that private appropriation is only legitimate if everyone can appropriate an
equal amount, or if private appropriation is taxed to compensate those who are excluded from
natural resources. This contrasts with right libertarians who argue for a right to appropriate
unequal parts of the external world, such as land.[16]

A number of Anglo-American political philosophers argue for the validity and necessity of some
social welfare programs within the context of libertarian self-ownership theory. Peter Vallentyne
and Hillel Steiner edited a primer, The Origins of Left-Libertarianism: An Anthology of
Historical Writings. This text places Hugo Grotius, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Spence, Thomas
Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer and Henry George in the left libertarian tradition.[17]
Steiner himself wrote An Essay on Rights, a pioneering look at rights and justice from a left-
libertarian perspective.

Philippe Van Parijs has written extensively on what he calls "real libertarianism," an approach
very similar to Steiner and Otsuka's, and usually subsumed under the rubric of left-
libertarianism. More recently, Michael Otsuka published Libertarianism Without Inequality,
where he argues for incorporating egalitarian ideas into libertarian rights schemes.

Though not left-libertarians themselves, G. A. Cohen, John Roemer, and Jon Elster have also
written extensively about the notions of self-ownership and equality, which provide the basis for
this branch of left libertarian thought. This self-styled left-libertarianism's historical roots in the
school of analytical Marxism has cast a cloud of doubt over it for both leftists and libertarians of
more conventional stripe.[citation needed]

Property and natural resources

Henry George (1839 – 1897) proposed the abolition of all taxes except those on land value.

Pro-capitalist libertarian theory is sometimes called "right-libertarianism." It places a very strong

emphasis on private property. Unrestricted capitalism and free markets are advocated by all
right-libertarians, with some of them believing that property rights are the most basic rights of
all, or that all genuine rights can be understood as property rights rooted in self-ownership (right-
libertarians can and do differ on the notion of intellectual property). However, Vallentyne and
some other left-libertarian philosophers take a more moderate – and, in their view, realistic -
approach. They differ from mainstream right-libertarians on the issue that Robert Nozick calls
the "original acquisition of holdings". That is the question of how property rights came about in
the first place, and how property was originally acquired.

Right-libertarians hold that "wilderness" is unowned, and that unowned resources are made into
property by use. This is generally referred to as homesteading. According to John Locke, when a
person "mixes his labor" with a previously unowned object, it becomes his. A person who
cultivates a field in the wilderness, by virtue of "mixing his personality" with the land, becomes
the rightful owner of it (subject to the Lockean proviso that equally-good land remains free for
the taking for others).

Vallentyne and some other left-libertarians hold that "wilderness" is commonly owned by all the
people in a given area. Since there is no predetermined distribution of land and (they argue) since
there is no reason to believe that, all things being equal, some people deserve more property than
others, it makes sense to think of resources as commonly owned. Thus this brand of left-
libertarianism denies that first use or "mixing labor" has any bearing on ownership. As such, it
argues that any theory of left-libertarianism must structure its social and legal system around
enforcing this idea of common ownership. Different proponents of this school of thought have
different ideas about what can be done with property. Some believe that one must gain some
kind of permission from their community in order to use resources. Others argue that people
should be allowed to appropriate land in exchange for some kind of rent and they must either pay
taxes on the profits made from the appropriated resources or allow the products of those
resources to become common property.

Historically, the Georgists were a leftist tendency within libertarianism. They believed that all
humanity rightfully owned all land in common and that individuals should pay rent to the rest of
society for taking sole or exclusive use of that land. People in this movement were often referred
to as "single taxers," since they believed that the only legitimate tax was land rent. However,
they did believe that private property could be created by applying labor to natural resources.

Radical free-marketeers
Mutualism emerged from early 19th-century socialism, and is generally considered a market-
oriented part of the libertarian socialist tradition. Mutualists generally accept property rights, but
with a short abandonment time period. In other words, a person must make (more or less)
continuous use of the item or else he loses ownership rights. This is usually referred to as
"possession property" or "usufruct." Thus, in this usufruct system, absentee ownership is
illegitimate, and workers own the machines they work with.

Mutualism has reemerged more recently, incorporating modern economic ideas such as marginal
utility theory. Kevin A. Carson's book Studies in Mutualist Political Economy was influential in
this regard, updating the labor theory of value with Austrian economics. Agorism[18], an anarchist
tendency founded by Samuel Edward Konkin III, advocates counter-economics, working in
untaxed black or grey markets, and boycotting as much as possible the unfree taxed market with
the intended result that private voluntary institutions emerge and outcompete statist ones.
Geoanarchism, an anarchist form of Henry George's philosophy, is considered left-libertarian
because it assumes land to be initially owned in common, so that when land is privately
appropriated the proprietor pays rent to the community. These philosophies share similar
concerns and are collectively known as left-libertarianism.

Rapprochement with the Left

The first attempt at rapprochement between the postwar American libertarian movement and the
Left came in the 1960s, when Austrian School economist Murray Rothbard came to question
libertarianism's traditional alliance with the Right in light of the Vietnam War. During this
period, Rothbard came to advocate strategic alliances with the New Left over issues such as the
military draft and black power.

Working with radicals like Ronald Radosh, Rothbard argued that the consensus view of
American economic history, wherein government has stepped in as a countervailing interest to
corporate predation, is fundamentally flawed. Rather, he argued, government intervention in the
economy has largely benefited established players at the expense of marginalized groups, to the
detriment of both liberty and equality. Moreover, the "Robber Baron Period", adulated by the
right and despised by the left as a laissez-faire haven, was not laissez-faire at all but in fact a time
of massive state privilege accorded to capital. Rothbard criticized the "frenzied nihilism" of left-
libertarians but also criticized right-wing libertarians who were content to rely only on education
to bring down the state; he believed that libertarians should adopt any non-immoral tactic
available to them in order bring about liberty.[19]

Rothbard's initial leftward impulse was maintained by Karl Hess, picked up by activists like
Samuel Edward Konkin III and Roderick Long. These left-libertarians agree with Rothbard that
presently-existing capitalism does not even vaguely resemble a free market, and that most
presently-existing corporations are the beneficiaries and chief supporters of statism. By this line
of reasoning, libertarianism should make common cause with the anti-corporate left.
Rapprochement with the left has led many left-libertarians to reject some traditional right-
libertarian stances, such as hostility to labor unions and support for intellectual property, or even
to limit valid real-property rights to use-and-occupancy.
Cultural politics

Contemporary left-libertarians also show markedly more sympathy than mainstream or paleo-
libertarians towards various cultural movements which challenge non-governmental relations of
power. For instance, left-libertarians Roderick Long and Charles Johnson have called for a
recovery of the nineteenth-century alliance between radical liberalism and feminism.[20] Left-
libertarians are more likely to take recognizably leftist stances on issues as diverse as feminism,
gender and sexuality, sexual freedom, drug policy, race, class, immigration, environmentalism,
gun rights, and foreign policy. Current writers who have significantly impacted or explored this
aspect of left-libertarianism include Chris Sciabarra, Roderick Long, Charles Johnson, Kevin
Carson, and Arthur Silber.

Criticism
Criticisms of left-libertarianism have come from both the right and left alike. Right-libertarians
like Robert Nozick hold that self-ownership and property acquisition need not meet egalitarian
standards, they must merely follow the Lockean idea of not worsening the situation of others.
Gerald Cohen, an Analytical Marxist philosopher, has extensively criticized left-libertarianism's
emphasis on both the values of self-ownership and equality. In his Self-ownership, Freedom, and
Equality, Cohen claims that any system that takes equality and its enforcement seriously is not
consistent with the full emphasis on self-ownership and "negative freedom" of libertarian
thought. Tom G. Palmer of the Cato Institute has responded to Cohen's critique in Critical
Review[21] and has provided a guide to the literature criticizing libertarianism in his
bibliographical review essay on "The Literature of Liberty."[22]

Situationist International
The Situationist International (SI) was a small group of international political and artistic
agitators with roots in Marxism, Lettrism and the early 20th century European artistic and
political avant-gardes. Formed in 1957, the SI was active in Europe through the 1960s and
aspired to major social and political transformations. In the 1960s it split into a number of
different groups, including the Situationist Bauhaus, the Antinational and the Second Situationist
International. The first SI disbanded in 1972.[2] The Situationist International has also had a
significant influence on anarchism since the 1970s.[citation needed]

Contents
 1 Etymology and definitions
 2 Core arguments
o 2.1 Anti-capitalism and human life
o 2.2 Influences of Jorn and Debord
 2.2.1 Influence of Jorn
 2.2.2 Influence of Debord
 3 History
 o 3.1 Earlier groups
o 3.2 Members
o 3.3 May 1968
 4 Situationist prank
o 4.1 Notre-Dame Affair on National TV
o 4.2 Strasbourg scandal
o 4.3 Sanguinetti's Report to save capitalism
o 4.4 Others
 5 Efforts to minimize the political and social role of the S.I.
 6 Glossary of key concepts and ideas in Situationist theory
o 6.1 Quotations
 7 Criticism
 8 Related groups
o 8.1 Situationist Bauhaus
o 8.2 Second Situationist International
 9 Influence and legacy
 10 Works
o 10.1 SI writings

Etymology and definitions

When still choosing the name for the new movement and the journal, the generic name
Situationist was chosen to avoid narrowing the scope to some specialization (like architecture,
psychogeography, etc.).[3]

The first issue of the journal Internationale Situationiste defined a situationist as "having to do
with the theory or practical activity of constructing situations. One who engages in the
construction of situations. A member of the Situationist International".[4] The same journal
defined situationism as "a meaningless term improperly derived from the above. There is no such
thing as situationism, which would mean a doctrine of interpretation of existing facts. The notion
of situationism is obviously devised by antisituationists."

Core arguments
Anti-capitalism and human life

The Situationist International, in the 15 years from its formation in 1957 and its dissolution in
1972, is characterized by a marxist and surrealist perspective on aesthetics and politics,[5] without
separation between the two: art and politics are faced together and in revolutionary terms.[6] The
SI analyzed the modern world from the point of view of everyday life.[7] The core arguments of
the Situationist International were an attack on the capitalist degradation of the life of people[8][9]
[10]
and the fake models advertised by the mass media,[11] to which the Situationist responded with
alternative life experiences.[12][13] The alternative life experiences explored by the Situationists
were the construction of situations, unitary urbanism, psychogeography, and the union of play,
freedom and critical thinking.[14]

Influences of Jorn and Debord

Influence of Jorn

The role of the artists in the SI was of great significance, particularly Asger Jorn, Constant
Nieuwenhuys and Pinot Gallizio.[14] Asger Jorn, who invented Situgraphy and Situlogy, had the
social role of catalyst and team leader among the members of the SI between 1957 and 1961.[16]
Jorn's texts Critique Of Economic Policy, Originality and Magnitude and Open Creation and its
Enemies, published in Internationale Situaionniste 4 and 5 established Situgraphology (the study
of situations) as a critique of Marxism in 1960, following on from the arguments in Guy
Debord's Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist
Tendency’s Conditions of Organization and Action of 1957.

In Critique of Economic Policy, originally published in French in 1959 by the Internationale

Situationniste, Jorn critiques Marx's dialectical method in Das Kapital as well as Einstein's
theory of relativity,[17] introducing the idea of situations.[verification needed] In later work, Jorn lays out
the idea of Situgraphy, Situlogy and even Situmetry. The idea of the Situation is drawn from
Henri Poincare's Situ-Analysis which went on to be translated as Topology and ties into Neils
Bohr's ideas of complementarity.

Jorn was also influential on not only the SI but also the Situationist Bauhaus and the 2nd
International as well as the Antinational. Even after Jorn's direct involvement with the SI, he
continued to finance the organisation through sales of paintings.[18] While the 2nd Situationist
International and the Situationist Antinational sought to challenge the separation of art and
politics from everyday life, Debord and the so-called 'specto-situationists'[19] sought to
concentrate solely on abstract political aims.[20] The development of core ideas in the SI can be
seen as a move from practical methods such as unitary urbanism, detournment, situgraphy -
before the Debordist expulsions of the 2nd SI - to one of abstract theory (principaly theory of the
spectacle ), after the expulsions.[21] In the early times of the SI, the interest for artistic
experimentation prevailed, while later the focus was on revolutionary politics.[22]

[edit] Influence of Debord

Many intellectuals consider Guy Debord as the main intellectual of the SI.[23][24][25] Debord's work
The Society of the Spectacle (1967) established Situationism as a Marxist critical theory.[citation
needed]
The Society of the Spectacle is widely recognized as the main and most influential
Situationist essay.[26] The concept of revolution created by the Situationist International was anti-
capitalist,[27][28][29] Marxist, Young Hegelian,[30] and from the very beginning in the 50s,
remarkably differently from the established Left, anti-Stalinist and against all repressive regimes.
[31]
Debord starts his 1967 work with a revisited version of the first sentence with which Marx began
his critique of classical political economy, Das Kapital.[32][33] In a later essay, Debord will argue
that his work was the most important social critique since Marx's work. Drawing from Marx,
which argued that under a capitalist society the wealth is degraded to an immense accumulation
of commodities, Debord argues that in advanced capitalism, life is reduced to an immense
accumulation of spectacles, a triumph of mere appearance where "all that once was directly lived
has become mere representation".[34][35] The spectacle, which according to Debord is the core
feature of the advanced capitalist societies,[36] has its "most glaring superficial manifestation" in
the advertising-mass media-marketing complex.[37]

Elaborating on Marx's argument that under capitalism our lives and our environment are
continually depleted, Debord adds that the Spectacle, is the system by which capitalism tries to
hide such depletion. Debord added that, further than the impoverishment in the quality of life,[8]
[14]
our psychic functions are altered, we get a degradation of mind and also a degradation of
knowledge.[38] In the spectacular society, knowledge is not used anymore to question, analyze,
resolve contradictions, but to assuage reality. Such argument on the Spectacle as a mask[39] of a
degrading reality, has been elaborated by many Situationist artists, producing detournements of
advertising where instead of a shiny life the crude reality was represented.[citation needed]

[edit] History
[edit] Earlier groups

Main article: Report on the Construction of Situations

«First, we believe that the world must be changed. We desire the most liberatory possbile change
of the society and the life in which we find ourselves confined. We know that such change is
possible by means of pertinent actions.»

The SI was formed at a meeting in the Italian village of Cosio d'Arroscia on 28 July 1957 with
the fusion of several extremely small avant-garde artistic tendencies: the Lettrist International,
the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus (an off-shoot of COBRA), and the London
Psychogeographical Association. The group later drew ideas from the left communist group
Socialisme ou Barbarie.
Already in 1950, the Lettrist International was very active in perpetrating public outrages such as
the Notre-Dame Affair. At the Easter mass at Notre Dame de Paris, they infiltrated Michel
Mourre, who, dressed like a monk, "stood in front of the altar and read a pamphlet proclaiming
that God was dead".[40][41]

In June 1957 Debord wrote the manifesto of the Situationist International, titled Report on the
Construction of Situations. This manifesto plans a systematic rereading of Karl Marx and
advocates a cultural revolution in western countries.[9]

[edit] Members

See also: Members of the Situationist International

This section needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged
and removed. (March 2009)

The most prominent French member of the group, Guy Debord, has tended to polarise opinion.
Other members included the Dutch painter Constant Nieuwenhuys, the Italo-Scottish writer
Alexander Trocchi, the English artist Ralph Rumney (sole member of the London
Psychogeographical Association, Rumney suffered expulsion relatively soon after the formation
of the Situationist International), the Scandinavian artist Asger Jorn (who after parting with the
SI also founded the Scandinavian Institute of Comparative Vandalism), the architect and veteran
of the Hungarian Uprising Attila Kotanyi, the French writer Michele Bernstein, and Raoul
Vaneigem. Debord and Bernstein later married.

[edit] May 1968

Main articles: May 1968 in France and Council for Maintaining the Occupations

The Situationists played a preponderant role in the May 1968 uprisings,[30] and to some extent
their political perspective and ideas fueled such crisis,[30][42][43] providing a central theoretic
foundation.[44][45][46][47][48][49] This has now been widely acknowledged as a fact by studies of the
period,[50][51][52][53][54][55] what is still wide open to interpretation is the "how and why" that
happened.[30] De Gaulle, in the aftermath televised speech of June 7th, acknowledged that "This
explosion was provoked by groups in revolt against modern consumer and technical society,
whether it be the communism of the East or the capitalism of the West."[56]

They also made up the majority in the Occupation Committee of the Sorbonne.[30] An important
event leading up to May 1968 was the scandal in Strasbourg in December 1966.[57] The Union
Nationale des Étudiants de France declared itself in favor of the SI's theses, and managed to use
public funds to publish Mustapha Khayati's pamphlet On the Poverty of Student Life.[58]
Thousands of copies of the pamphlet were printed and circulated and helped to make the
Situationists well known throughout the nonstalinist left.

Quotes from two key situationist books, Debord's The Society of the Spectacle (1967) and
Khayati's On the Poverty of Student Life (1966), were written on the walls of Paris and several
provincial cities.[57] This was documented in the collection of photographs published in 1968 by
Walter Lewino, L'immagination au pouvoir.[59]

Those who followed the "artistic" view of the SI might view the evolution of the SI as producing
a more boring or dogmatic organization.[citation needed] Those following the political view would see
the May 1968 uprisings as a logical outcome of the SI's dialectical approach: while savaging
present day society, they sought a revolutionary society which would embody the positive
tendencies of capitalist development. The "realization and suppression of art" is simply the most
developed of the many dialectical supersessions which the SI sought over the years. For the
Situationist International of 1968, the world triumph of workers councils would bring about all
these supersessions.

Though the SI were a very small group, they were expert self-propagandists, and their slogans
appeared daubed on walls throughout Paris at the time of the revolt. SI member René Viénet's
1968 book Enragés and Situationists in the Occupations Movement, France, May '68 gives an
account of the involvement of the SI with the student group of Enragés and the occupation of the
Sorbonne.

The occupations of 1968 started at the University of Nanterre and spread to the Sorbonne. The
police tried to take back the Sorbonne and a riot ensued. Following this a general strike was
declared with up to 10 million workers participating. The SI originally participated in the
Sorbonne occupations and defended barricades in the riots. The SI distributed calls for the
occupation of factories and the formation of workers’ councils,[59] but, disillusioned with the
students, left the university to set up The Council For The Maintenance Of The Occupations
(CMDO) which distributed the SI’s demands on a much wider scale. After the end of the
movement, the CMDO disbanded.

[edit] Situationist prank

Main article: Situationist prank

[edit] Notre-Dame Affair on National TV

Main article: Notre-Dame Affair

The Notre-Dame Affair was an intervention performed by members of the radical wing of the
Lettrist movement (Michel Mourre, Serge Berna, Ghislain Desnoyers de Marbaix and Jean
Rullier), on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1950, at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, while the mass was
aired lived on National TV. Michel Mourre, dressed in the habit of a Dominican monk and
backed by his co-conspirators, chose a quiet moment in the Easter High Mass to climb to the
rostrum and declaim before the whole congregation a blasphemous anti-sermon on the death of
God, penned by Serge Berna.[60][61][62]

[edit] Strasbourg scandal

French cover of On the Poverty of Student Life
Main article: On the Poverty of Student Life

Taking advantage of the apathy of their colleagues, five "Pro-situs", Situationist-influenced

students, had infiltrated the University of Strasbourg's student union in November 1966 and
began scandalising the authorities.[63][64] Their first action was to form an "anarchist appreciation
society" called The Society for the Rehabilitation for Karl Marx and Ravachol; next they
appropriated union funds to flypost "Return of the Durruti Column", Andre Bertrand's détourned
comic strip.[64] They then invited the Situationists to contribute a critique of the University of
Strasbourg, and On the Poverty of Student Life, written by Tunisian Situationist Mustapha/Omar
Khayati was the result.[64]

The students promptly proceeded to print 10,000 copies of the pamphlet using university funds
and distributed them during a ceremony marking the beginning of the academic year. This
provoked an immediate outcry in the local, national and international media.[64]

[edit] Sanguinetti's Report to save capitalism

By 1972, Gianfranco Sanguinetti and Guy Debord were the only two remaining members of the
SI. Working with Debord, in August 1975, Sanguinetti wrote a pamphlet titled Rapporto
veridico sulle ultima opportunita di salvare il capitalismo in Italia (Eng: The Real Report on the
Last Chance to Save Capitalism in Italy), which (inspired by Bruno Bauer) proported to be the
cynical writing of "Censor", a powerful industrialist. The pamphlet was to show how the ruling
class of Italy supported the Piazza Fontana bombing and other mass slaughter, for the higher goal
of defending the capitalist status quo from the communist claims. The pamphlet was mailed to
520 of Italy's most powerful individuals. It was received as genuine, and powerfully politicians,
industrialists and journalist praised its content and guessed on the identity of its high profile
author. After reprinting the tract into a small book, Sanguinetti revealed himself to be the true
author. Scandal raised after the revelation, as it successfully exposed the truth and hypocrisy on
the mass slaughters,[65] and under pressure from Italian authorities, Sanguinetti left Italy in
February 1976, and was denied entry to France.[citation needed]

[edit] Others
Film Hurlements en faveur de Sade (Howls for Sade) (1952) by Guy Debord, had 24 minutes of
black screen. Book Mémoires (1959) by Guy Debord and Asger Jorn had the cover made of
sandpaper.

[edit] Efforts to minimize the political and social role of the

S.I.
The S.I. poses a challenge to the model of political action of a portion of the Left,[66] the
"established Left" and "Left opinion-makers".[30] The first challenging aspect is the fueling role
that the S.I. had in the up-heavals of the political and social movements of the sixties,[50][43] up-
heavals for which much is still at stake and which many foresee as recurring in the 21st century.
The second challenging aspect,[43] is the comparison between the Situationists marxist theory of
the Society of the spectacle, which is still very topical thirty years later,[50][12] and the current
status of the theories supported by the 'established Left' in the same period, like Althusserianism,
Maoism, workerism, Freudo-Marxism and others.[50]

The response of a portion of the Left to such challenge, has been an attempt to silence and
misinterpret, to "turn the SI safely into an art movement, and thereby to minimize its role in the
political and social movements of the sixties."[66][43]

The core aspect of the revolutionary perspectives, and the political theory, of the Situationist
International, has been neglected by some commentators,[67] which either limited themselves to
an apolitical reading of the situationist avant-garde art works, or dismissed the Situationist
political theory. Examples of this are Simon Sadler's The Situationist City,[67] and the accounts on
the S.I. published by the New Left Review.[30]

The concept of revolution created by the Situationist International was anti-capitalist,[27][28][29]

Marxist, Young Hegelian,[30] and from the very beginning in the 50s, remarkably differently from
the established Left, anti-Stalinist and against all repressive regimes.[31] The S.I. called on May
1968 for the formation of Workers councils,[59] and someone has argued that they were aligned
with council communism.[citation needed]

There was no separation between the artistic and the political perspectives.[6] For instance, Asger
Jorn never believed in a conception of the Situationst ideas as exclusively artistic and separated
from political involvement. He was at the root and at the core of the Situationist International
project, fully sharing the revolutionary intentions with Debord.[68][69]

[edit] Glossary of key concepts and ideas in Situationist

theory
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A recurring argument against Situationist theory has been on its supposed difficulty. Here is a list
of definitions of some of its central concepts and ideas:

 Situgraphy and Situlogy: Drawing from the artistic Lettrist praxis of hypergraphy as
well as older developments in mathematics and topology in Henri Poincare's Analysis
Situs, the main theorist of the SI Asger Jorn formulated theories of plastic, anti-Euclidean
geometry and topology which was at the heart of Situationist critiques of urbanism and
other manifestations of contemporary capitalist culture and politics.
 The Situation: this concept, central to the SI, was defined in the first issue of their
journal as "A moment of life concretely and deliberately constructed by the collective
organization of a unitary ambiance and a game of events." As the SI embraced dialectical
Marxism, the situation came to refer less to a specific avant-garde practice than to the
dialectical unification of art and life more generally. Beyond this theoretical definition,
the situation as a practical manifestation thus slipped between a series of proposals. The
SI thus were first led to distinguish the situation from the mere artistic practice of the beat
happening, and later identified it in historical events such as the Paris Commune or the
Watts riots, and eventually not with partial insurrections, but with total revolution itself.
 The Spectacle: Debord's 1967 book The Society of the Spectacle attempted to provide the
SI with a Marxian critical theory. The concept of 'the spectacle' expanded to all society
the Marxist concept of reification drawn from Marx's Das Kapital, entitled "The
Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret thereof" and developed by Georg Lukács. This
was an analysis of the logic of commodities whereby they achieve an ideological
autonomy from the process of their production, so that “social action takes the form of
the action of objects, which rule the producers instead of being ruled by them.” (Marx,
Capital) Developing this analysis of the logic of the commodity, The Society of the
Spectacle generally understood society as divided between the passive subject who
consumes the spectacle and the reified spectacle itself.
 Unitary urbanism: "Unitary urbanism is one of the central concerns of the SI"
(Internationale Situationniste #3, December 1959). This was originally developed by the
Lettrist International and the International Movement For An Imaginist Bauhaus, and
then taken up by the SI. This development marked a move away from metagraphy and
towards the use of Dérive and psychogeography and also situgraphy. Following
expulsions and the move towards the theory of the spectacle, UU became a lesser concern
for the SI in later years. See separate articles on Unitary urbanism, Dérive, and
psychogeography.
 Recuperation: "To survive, the spectacle must have social control. It can recuperate a
potentially threatening situation by shifting ground, creating dazzling alternatives- or by
embracing the threat, making it safe and then selling it back to us" – Larry Law, from
The Spectacle – The Skeleton Keys, a 'Spectacular Times pocket book.
 Detournement: "short for: detournement of pre-existing aesthetic elements. The
integration of past or present artistic production into a superior construction of a milieu.
In this sense there can be no Situationist painting or music, but only a Situationist use of
these means.", Internationale Situationiste Issue 1, June 1958.

One could view detournement as forming the opposite side of the coin to 'recuperation'
(where radical ideas and images become safe and commodified), in that images produced
 by the spectacle get altered and subverted so that rather than supporting the status quo,
their meaning becomes changed in order to put across a more radical or oppositionist
message.
The concept of detournement has had a popular influence amongst contemporary
radicals, and the technique can be seen in action in the present day when looking at the
work of Culture Jammers including the Cacophony Society, Billboard Liberation Front,
and Adbusters, whose 'subvertisements' 'detourn' Nike adverts, for example. In this case
the original advertisement's imagery is altered in order to draw attention to said
company's policy of shifting their production base to cheap-labour third-world 'free trade
zones'. However, the line between 'recuperation' and 'detournement' can become thin (or
at least very fuzzy) at times, as Naomi Klein points out in her book No Logo. Here she
details how corporations such as Nike, Pepsi or Diesel have approached Culture Jammers
and Adbusters and offered them lucrative contracts in return for partaking in 'ironic'
promotional campaigns. She points out further irony by drawing attention to
merchandising produced in order to promote Adbusters' Buy Nothing day, an example of
the recuperation of detournement if ever there was one. Klein's arguments about irony
reifying rather than breaking down power structures is echoed by Slavoj Zizek. Zizek
argues that the kind of distance opened up by detournement is the condition of possibility
for ideology to operate: by attacking and distancing oneself from the sign-systems of
capital, the subject creates a fantasy of transgression that "covers up" his/her actual
complicity with capitalism as an overarching system. In contrast, evoLhypergrapHyCx
are very fond of pointing out the differences between hypergraphics, 'detournement', the
postmodern idea of appropriation and the Neoist use of plagiarism as the use of different
and similar techniques used for different and similar means, effects and causes.
Another (possibly less contentious) extension of the concept of detournement lies within
the technique of sampling in music production.

[edit] Quotations

 "Live without dead time" - Vivez sans temps mort - Anonymous graffiti, Paris 1968
 "I take my desires for reality because I believe in the reality of my desires" - Anonymous
graffiti, Paris 1968
 "What beautiful and priceless potlatches the affluent society will see – whether it likes it
or not! – when the exuberance of the younger generation discovers the pure gift; a
growing passion for stealing books, clothes, food, weapons or jewelry simply for the
pleasure of giving them away"- Raoul Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life
 "Be realistic - demand the impossible!" - Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible! -
Anonymous graffiti, Paris 1968
 "Beneath the paving stones - the beach!" - Sous les pavés, la plage! - Anonymous graffiti,
Paris 1968
 "Never work" - Ne travaillez jamais - Anonymous graffiti, rue de Seine Paris 1952
 "Down with a world in which the guarantee that we will not die of starvation has been
purchased with the guarantee that we will die of boredom." - Raoul Vaneigem, The
Revolution Of Everyday Life
 "People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to
everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive
 in the refusal of constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth"- Raoul Vaneigem,
The Revolution Of Everyday Life

[edit] Criticism
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Critics of the Situationists frequently assert that their ideas are not in fact complex and difficult
to understand, but are at best simple ideas expressed in deliberately difficult language, and at
worst actually nonsensical. For example, anarchist Chaz Bufe asserts in Listen Anarchist! that
"obscure situationist jargon" is a major problem in the anarchist movement.[70]

[edit] Related groups

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[edit] Situationist Bauhaus

The Danish brothers Jørgen Nash and Asger Jorn formed the Situationist Bauhaus in 1960,
purchasing a farm in southern Sweden, where they continued with various artistic and political
activities.

[edit] Second Situationist International

Main article: Second Situationist International

The SI experienced splits and expulsions from its beginning. The most prominent split in the
group, in 1962, resulted in the Paris section retaining the name Situationist International while
excluding the German section, which as Gruppe SPUR had merged into the SI in 1959. The
excluded group declared themselves The Second Situationist International and based themselves
at the Bauhaus in Sweden.

While the entire history of the Situationists was marked by their impetus to revolutionize life, the
split was characterised by Vaneigem (of the French section), and by many subsequent critics, as
marking a transition in the French group from the Situationist view of revolution possibly taking
an "artistic" form to an involvement in "political" agitation. Asger Jorn continued to fund both
groups with the proceeds of his works of art.

One way or another, the currents which the SI took as predecessors saw their purpose as
involving a radical redefinition of the role of art in the twentieth century. The Situationists
themselves took a dialectical viewpoint, seeing their task as superseding art, abolishing the
notion of art as a separate, specialized activity and transforming it so it became part of the fabric
of everyday life. From the Situationist's viewpoint, art is revolutionary or it is nothing. In this
way, the Situationists saw their efforts as completing the work of both Dada and surrealism while
abolishing both.

The Situationist Antinational was published in New York City for a short while in the 1970s,
after the dissolution of the SI in 1972. Those responsible were members of the American section
of the SI, as well as members of the Situationist Bauhaus and the Second Situationist
International.

[edit] Influence and legacy

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Situationist ideas have continued to echo profoundly through many aspects of culture and
politics in Europe and the USA. Even in their own time, with limited translations of their dense
theoretical texts, combined with their very successful self-mythologisation, the term 'situationist'
was often used to refer to any rebel or outsider, rather than to a body of surrealist-inspired
Marxist critical theory. As such, the term 'Situationist' and those of 'spectacle' and 'detournement'
have often been decontextualised and recuperated.

In political terms, in the 1960s and 1970s elements of Situationist critique influenced anarchists,
Communists and other leftists, with various emphases and interpretations which combine
Situationist concepts more or less successfully with a variety of other perspectives. Examples of
these groups include: in Amsterdam, the Provos; in the UK, King Mob, the producers of
Heatwave magazine (who later briefly joined the SI), and the Angry Brigade. In the US, groups
like Black Mask (later Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers), The Weathermen, and the Rebel
Worker group also explicitly employed their ideas.

Starting in the 1970s, Situationist ideas were taken up by a number of anarchist theorists, such as
Fredy Perlman, Bob Black, Hakim Bey, and John Zerzan, who developed the SI's ideas in
various directions away from Marxism. These theorists were predominantly associated with the
magazines Fifth Estate, Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, and Green Anarchy. Later
anarchist theorists such as the CrimethInc. collective also claim Situationist influence.[71] During
the early 1980s English anarchist Larry Law produced a series of 'pocket-books' under the name
of Spectacular Times which aimed to make Situationist ideas more easily assimilated into the
anarchist movement.

Situationist urban theory, defined initially by the members of the Lettrist International as
'Unitary Urbanism', was extensively developed through the behavioural and performance
structures of The Workshop for Non-Linear Architecture during the 1990s. The re-emergence of
the London Psychogeographical Association also inspired many new pscyhogeographical groups
including Manchester Area Psychogeographic. The LPA and the Neoist Alliance along with the
Luther Blissett Project came together to form a New Lettrist International with a specifically
Communist perspective. Around this time, Unpopular Books and the LPA released some key
texts including new translations of Asger Jorn's work.

Around this time also, groups such as Reclaim the Streets and Adbusters have, respectively, seen
themselves as 'creating situations' or practicing detournement on advertisements.

In cultural terms, the SI's influence has been even greater, if more diffuse. The list of cultural
practices which claim a debt to the SI is almost limitless, but there are some prominent
examples:

 Situationist ideas exerted a strong influence on the design language of the punk rock
phenomenon of the 1970s. To a significant extent this came about due to the adoption of
the style and aesthetics and sometimes slogans employed by the Situationists (though
these latter were often second hand, via English pro-Situs such as King Mob and Jamie
Reid). In the late 1970s, Factory Records owner Tony Wilson was known to have been
influenced by these ideas. One Factory Records band influenced by the SI was The
Durutti Column, which took its name from Andre Bertrand's collage Le Retour de la
Colonne Durutti.[72] Bertrand, in turn, took his title from the anarchist group of the same
name of the Spanish Civil War. In 1978, the U.S. group the Feederz was formed and
exhibited a more direct and conscious influence. They became known for their extensive
use of the Situationist tactic of 'detournement' and for their lack of hesitation to provoke
their audience in expounding Situationist themes.[73] Other musical artists have included
buzzwords from the SI's critical theory in their lyrics, such as the Manic Street Preachers,
the Nation of Ulysses, and Joan of Arc. Situationist theory experienced a vogue in the
late '90s hardcore punk scene, being referenced by Orchid, His Hero Is Gone, and
CrimethInc..
 Situationist practices allegedly continue to influence underground street artists such as
Banksy, gHOSTbOY, Borf, NeverWork, and Mudwig, whose artistic interventions and
subversive practice can be seen on advertising hoardings, street signs, and walls
throughout Europe and the United States.
 One can also trace situationist ideas within the development of other avant-garde threads
such as Neoism, Seahorse Liberation Army, Nation of Ulysses, Libre Society, and Mark
Divo.
 Some hacker related e-zines, which like samizdat were distributed via email and FTP
over early internet links and BBS quoted and developed ideas coming from SI. A few of
them were N0 Way, N0 Route, UHF, in France; and early Phrack, CDC in the US. More
recently, writers such as Thomas de Zengotita in "Mediated" wrote something which
holds the spirit of the Situationists, describing the society of the "roaring zeroes" (i.e.
2000-).

[edit] Works
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[edit] SI writings

Twelve issues of the journal Internationale Situationniste were published, each issue edited by a
different individual or group, including: Guy Debord, Mohamed Dahoiu, Giuseppe Pinot-
Gallizio, Maurice Wyckaert, Constant Nieuwenhuys, Asger Jorn, Hlemout Sturm, Attila
Kotanyi, Jørgen Nash, Uwe Lausen, Raoul Vaneigem, Michèle Bernstein, Jeppesen Victor
Martin, Jan Stijbosch, Alexander Trocchi, Théo Frey, Mustapha Khayati, Donald Nicholson-
Smith, René Riesel, and René Viénet.

 Translations of all twelve issues can be found here.

 Situationist International Online Archive

Classic Situationist texts include: On the Poverty of Student Life, Society of the Spectacle by Guy
Debord, and The Revolution of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem.

The first English-language collection of SI writings, although poorly and freely translated, was
Leaving The 20th century edited by Christopher Gray. The Situationist International Anthology
edited and translated