Dr. Ulrich Beck (born May 15, 1944) is a German sociologist. He is currently a professor at the University of Munich and the London School of Economics.
Beck studies aspects such as modernization, ecological problems, individualization and globalization. In recent times, he has also embarked on an exploration of the changing conditions of work in a world of increasing global capitalism, loss of union power, and flexible work processes - a theory rooted in the concept of cosmopolitanism.
Beck has also contributed new concepts to German sociology, including the so-called 'risk society' and the 'second modernity'.
Beck, born in 1944, director of the Institute of Sociology at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich and professor at the London School of Economics, studied Psychology, Sociology, Political Science and Philosophy, a discipline in which he received his doctorate in 1972 from the University of Munich.
He has devoted the bulk of his intellectual work to investigating the new configurations of contemporary society, and has turned his reflections into numerous books, among which are The Risk Society. Towards a new modernity (1986), What is globalization? Fallacies of globalism, responses to globalization (1997), Democracy and its enemies (1998), A happy new world.
The precariousness of work in the era of globalization (2000), all published in Spanish by Paidós, and The invention of politics. For a theory of reflexive modernization (1996; in Spanish, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1999.
Fragment analysis "Invention of the political"
For Ulrich Beck the invention of the political implies the existence of a politics that not only generates rules, but also modifies them; that belongs not only to politicians but also to society; that is not only of power but also of creation: an art of politics. For the author, there are more and more situations that cannot be understood or resolved with current institutions and ideas, with current conceptions of politics.
The central idea of the section of the book, "invention of the political" lies in exposing and posing from the author's point of view, a questioning that makes government policy and politics in general, considering that "… it has to be available to all, and everyone wants and should participate in it ”(Beck, p.181).
Affirming that with the current "obsolete" institutions, an integrative policy cannot be managed - I would add that they are anarchic and timeless out of context. The author argues that politics must be broadened, rethought and rebuilt and that this points exactly to the "invention of politics." "On the contrary, the invention of the political requires a Machiavellian realism…".
On the other hand, the author differentiates between two types of politics, an official politics and a sub-politics, that is, a politics directed by the rules (creative and non-conformist) and a politics that modifies the rules (politics of politics). Said policies, according to the author, overlap, mix and intersect.
Also, within the open idea of inventing politics, he suggests a metamorphosis of the State, emphasizing that it must be reinvented since "extinction plus invention equals metamorphosis." This is due to the fact that the current nucleus of modern politics "is the capacity for self-organization" as in systems theory, autopioesis.
And this can be seen in elementary questions and as the author affirms "innovations, decisions about the future have stopped coming from the political class…" (p, 186). Self-organization according to Schwengek quoted by the author, “… means a reunification of these free forces in the deepest strata, in economic, community and political activity”.
Traditional institutions empty their contents, become uncoupled or are overtaken by new global realities and their local impact.
Structures and organizations disintegrate. The government of accidents and errors becomes the engine of history. Only the decisions and actions of individuals remain, released and out in the open.
From my perspective, it seems to me that the author's idea is in line with modern theories in science, especially pragmatic ones, where it must try to break with the deterministic method and delve and deepen notions of complexity, where chaos is made present and where "recipes" to the letter do not always work.
I precisely think that the invention of the political amalgamates the idea of modifying the entire doctrinal and normative body of political praxis, depending on the needs and structural conditions within any society.
Textually as stated by the author, the invention of the political alludes to a “creative, self-creative politics, which does not precisely cultivate and renew old hostilities, nor take and intensify the means of its power with them, but rather proposes and forges new content, forms and coalitions ”. With this idea, very assertive analyzing the political context in the country, it should be added that it is proposed to do politics in a future vision, and not retrograde, we do not use policies of the past and of models that coexisted and failed, since human evolution needs to advance and not back.
In fact, the author affirms that the new tasks of the State are characterized by the fact that they are not capable of negotiation and innovation. Because of this, it is the State… it has to practice self-limitation, self-denial, renounce monopolies and conquer others…
Finally, for Beck, "… the objective is the construction of realities, in which the construction of realities of another system has freedom of action…" that is, not to rigidify politics, because to invent imagination and action they cannot have limits.
And as the author puts it in a paragraph “… we look for the political in the wrong place, with the wrong concepts, in the wrong pages of the newspapers”.
However, there is certainly a problem: the political program of this radicalized modernity, Beck points out, is skepticism and doubt, as Hanna Arendt comments (prejudices and judgments); vital tools to enter the path of knowledge and criticism but insufficient for a reform of the institutions commensurate with the magnitude of the proposed task and which at the same time would not be at the level for the invention of new political conceptions.
