Book•
The New Spirit of Capitalism
01 Jan 2005-
TL;DR: A century after the publication of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism, a major new work examines network-based organization, employee autonomy and post-Fordist horizontal work structures.
Abstract: A century after the publication of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism, a major new work examines network-based organization, employee autonomy and post-Fordist horizontal work structures.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the critique of the very notion of the social, as manifest in neoliberal contributions to the socialist calculation debate from the 1920s onwards, and make the argument that new post-neoliberal forms of "social government" may now be entirely plausible, though focusing on the corporation rather than the state.
Abstract: In recent years, there has been a panoply of new forms of ‘social’ government, as manifest in ‘social enterprise’ and ‘social media’. This follows an era of neoliberalism in which social logics were apparently being eliminated, through the expansion of economic rationalities. To understand this, the article explores the critique of the very notion of the ‘social’, as manifest in neoliberal contributions to the socialist calculation debate from the 1920s onwards. Understood as a zone lying between market and state, the social was accused by Mises and Hayek of being both unaccountable (lacking any units of measurement) and formless (lacking instruments of explication). The article then asks to what extent these critiques still retain their purchase, following recent developments in hedonic measurement and data analytics. The argument is made that new post-neoliberal forms of ‘social government’ may now be entirely plausible, though focusing on the corporation rather than the state.
30 citations
Cites background from "The New Spirit of Capitalism"
...In this article, I pursue this problem in one particular way, influenced by what Luc Boltanski terms the ‘sociology of critique’ (Boltanski and Thévenot, 1999; Boltanski and Chiapello, 2007; Boltanski, 2012)....
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01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that ethical brands may in fact legitimise the un-ethical aspects and elements of capitalist relations and practices, and argue that the human relations underlying the production processes are, in effect, concealed rather than exposed.
Abstract: Ethical brands have risen to prominence in recent years as a market solution to a diverse range of political, social and, in this case most interestingly, ethical problems. By signifying the ethical beliefs of the firm behind them, ethical brands offer an apparently simple solution to ethical consumers: buy into the brands that represent the value systems that they believe in and avoid buying into those with value-systems that they do not believe in. Lehner and Halliday (this issue), for example, argue that brands are a ‘practical and effective way’ (13) to address the market demand for ethicality because ‘they offer a means for firms to internalise positive externalities’ (23) associated with ethical behaviour. The assumption, then, is that if society desires ethical behaviour from firms, firms will not dare to behave otherwise for fear of inflicting costly damage on their carefully crafted brand images. According to economic rules of demand and supply, the market should then ensure that firms respond to the ethical requirements of the society in which they reside. As a consequence, brand management has incorporated as one of its main tasks the translation of the ethical positions on the market into communicable brand messages. However, critical research has acknowledged the fundamental incompatibility of ethics and capitalism, as it is argued that ‘ethics’ tend to be used quite superficially as a legitimising signpost, effectively concealing the (possible) structural lack of ethics built into the capitalist order per se. Consequently, ethical branding may in fact legitimise the un-ethical aspects and elements of capitalist relations and practices. Moreover, when ethics are commodified, e.g. in the form of brand image, the human relations underlying the production processes are, in effect, concealed rather than exposed: ‘instead of seeing these human relations we see only an object’ (Jones, Parker and ten Bos, 2005: 104).
30 citations
Cites background or methods from "The New Spirit of Capitalism"
...Hirschman (1970) describes relations with capitalist institutions in terms of ‘exit’ – quitting a job or changing one’s purchasing habits – and ‘voice’ – communicating one’s critique by complaining or protesting....
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...Yet such critiques are intelligible within capitalism as the expression of a market preference (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2005: 42)....
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...Hirschman, A.O. (1970) Exit, voice and loyalty....
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...This practice of refusal, too, has limits: it drives the consumer out of a relationship of communication with the processes of production – in Hirschman’s terms, it robs them of their ‘voice’....
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...As a method of resistance, it can never be completely recuperated within market capitalism – as might ‘exit’ for Hirschman (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2005: 42)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, a critical analysis of transformations of the idea and practice of women's emancipation in late-modern western society under the influence of globalizing advanced capitalism is presented, based on analyses of feminist critical theory and critical globalization studies and argues that global capitalism initiates processes in which the practice of emancipation is distorted.
Abstract: This article develops a critical analysis of transformations of the idea and practice of women's emancipation in late-modern western society under the influence of globalizing advanced capitalism. It builds on analyses of feminist critical theory and critical globalization studies and argues that global capitalism initiates processes in which the practice of emancipation is distorted. Distorted emancipation refers to the social consequences of the marketization and commodification of areas of social life that were previously excluded from market relationships. Care practices, which have been a fundamental issue in women's emancipatory struggles, are used as a reference point. The article argues that even if commodification creates certain possibilities for financial rewards of care, it institutionalizes a double misrecognition of care as both nonproductive work and paid work that cannot be a source of social recognition. Furthermore, distorted emancipation makes positive moments of changing gender...
30 citations
TL;DR: Kathleen Lynch argues that affective inequality is an acutely gendered problem given the moral imperative on women to care, and an acute problem for all of humanity given that vulnerability and inter/dependency is endemic to the human condition.
Abstract: Human beings are not just economic actors, devoid of relationality; rather, they are interdependent and dependent with a deep capacity for moral feeling and attaching. The presumption that people are mere units of labour, movable from one country to another as production requires, is therefore an institutionalised form of affective injustice. As love, care and solidarity involve work, affective inequalities also occur when the burdens and benefits of these forms of work are unequally distributed. Affective inequality is an acutely gendered problem given the moral imperative on women to care, and an acute problem for all of humanity given that vulnerability and inter/dependency is endemic to the human condition.
30 citations
Cites background from "The New Spirit of Capitalism"
...The narratives of primary carers were characterized by a discourse of nurturing that was distinctly oppositional to the narratives of competition that pervade the public sphere in neo-liberal capitalism (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2007)....
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01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored how they present their stories within the framework of struggle and success, while they try to avoid victimization and emphasize the benefits of being exceptional and different in the competitive context of the corporate business sector, with its emphasis on innovative performance.
Abstract: While researchers have often studied descendants of migrants in terms of their educational and occupational shortcomings, there is a lack of studies on an emerging group of professionals with exceptional achievements. Drawing on data collected through semi-structured, in-depth interviews in Frankfurt am Main, Paris and Stockholm with business professionals whose parents migrated from Turkey, this article explores how they present their stories within the framework of struggle and success, while they try to avoid victimization. Their narratives emphasize the benefits of being exceptional and different in the competitive context of the corporate business sector, with its emphasis on innovative performance. In the face of group disadvantage, they differentiate themselves from other descendants of migrants from Turkey (with less successful careers) by stressing the role of personal characteristics and individual achievements. This is a common feature in the respondents’ narratives in all three sites.
30 citations
References
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TL;DR: In this paper, a translation of the poem "The Pleasures of Philosophy" is presented, with a discussion of concrete rules and abstract machines in the context of art and philosophy.
Abstract: Translator's Foreword: Pleasures of Philosophy Notes on the Translation and Acknowledgements Author's Note 1. Introduction: Rhizome 2. 1914: One or Several Wolves? 3. 10,000 BC: The Geology of Morals (Who Does the Earth Think It Is?) 4. November 20th, 1923: Postulates of Linguistics 5. 587BC-AD70: On Several Regimes of Signs 6. November 28th, 1947: How Do You Make Yourself a Body Without Organs? 7. Year Zero: Faciality 8. 1874: Three Novellas, or "What Happened?" 9. 1933: Micropolitics and Segmentarity 10. 1730: Becoming Intense, Becoming-Animal, Becoming Imperceptible... 11. 1837: Of the Refrain 12. 1227: Treatise on Nomadology - The War Machine 13. 7000BC: Apparatus of Capture 14. 1440: The Smooth and the Striated 15. Conclusion: Concrete Rules and Abstract Machines Notes Bibliography List of Illustrations Index
14,735 citations
5,247 citations
Posted Content•
01 Jan 2012
TL;DR: The 2008 crash has left all the established economic doctrines - equilibrium models, real business cycles, disequilibria models - in disarray as discussed by the authors, and a good viewpoint to take bearings anew lies in comparing the post-Great Depression institutions with those emerging from Thatcher and Reagan's economic policies: deregulation, exogenous vs. endoge- nous money, shadow banking vs. Volcker's Rule.
Abstract: The 2008 crash has left all the established economic doctrines - equilibrium models, real business cycles, disequilibria models - in disarray. Part of the problem is due to Smith’s "veil of ignorance": individuals unknowingly pursue society’s interest and, as a result, have no clue as to the macroeconomic effects of their actions: witness the Keynes and Leontief multipliers, the concept of value added, fiat money, Engel’s law and technical progress, to name but a few of the macrofoundations of microeconomics. A good viewpoint to take bearings anew lies in comparing the post-Great Depression institutions with those emerging from Thatcher and Reagan’s economic policies: deregulation, exogenous vs. endoge- nous money, shadow banking vs. Volcker’s Rule. Very simply, the banks, whose lending determined deposits after Roosevelt, and were a public service became private enterprises whose deposits determine lending. These underlay the great moderation preceding 2006, and the subsequent crash.
3,447 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1967
TL;DR: The Society of the Spectacle as mentioned in this paper is one of the most influential theoretical works for a wide range of political and revolutionary practice in the 1960s, and it has been widely used in the literature since.
Abstract: For the first time, Guy Debord's pivotal work Society of the Spectacle appears in a definitive and authoritative English translation. Originally published in France in 1967, Society of the Spectacle offered a set of radically new propositions about the nature of contemporary capitalism and modern culture. At the same time it was one of the most influential theoretical works for a wide range of political and revolutionary practice in the 1960s. Today, Debord's work continues to be in the forefront of debates about the fate of consumer society and the operation of modern social power. In a sweeping revision of Marxist categories, the notion of the spectacle takes the problem of the commodity from the sphere of economics to a point at which the commodity as an image dominates not only economic exchange but the primary communicative and symbolic activity of all modern societies.Guy Debord was one of the most important participants in the activities associated with the Situationist International in the 1960s. Also an artist and filmmaker, he is the author of Memoires and Commentaires sur la societe du spectacle. A Swerve Edition, distributed for Zone Books.
3,391 citations
Book•
01 Mar 1987
TL;DR: Relevance Lost as mentioned in this paper is an overview of the evolution of management accounting in American business, from textile mills in the 1880s and the giant railroad, steel, and retail corporations, to today's environment of global competition and computer-automated manufacturers.
Abstract: "Relevance Lost" is an overview of the evolution of management accounting in American business, from textile mills in the 1880s and the giant railroad, steel, and retail corporations, to today's environment of global competition and computer-automated manufacturers. The book shows that modern corporations must work toward designing new management accounting systems that will assist managers more fully in their long-term planning. It is the winner of the American Accounting Association's Deloitte Haskins & Sells/Wildman Award Medal. It is also available in paperback: ISBN 0875842542.
3,308 citations