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: The authors argue that the porosity between discourses of self-improvement, religion, and capitalist expansion is achieved largely through techniques of "pastoral power" to represent the circulation of productive micro-power among individuals.
Abstract: This paper attempts to collapse the oft-reified demarcation between economistic ideologies and personal programs for self-improvement. In doing so, one can see the symbiotic relationship that exists between what are ostensibly distinct and separate social arenas. I argue that the porosity between discourses of self-improvement, religion, and capitalist expansion is achieved largely through techniques of ‘pastoral power’. Foucault conceptualized pastoral power to represent the circulation of productive micro-power among individuals. Pastoral power is especially effective in a neoliberal era marked by the retrenchment of the state apparatus in securing the good and welfare of the citizenry and the emphasis on the individual to secure her own happiness and wellbeing. By examining one specific case, the popular and influential Purpose-Driven Life program, one can see pastoral techniques at work: the valorization of highly individualistic subjects who are desirous of novelty and fulfillment; the tutelage of th...
20 citations
Cites background from "The New Spirit of Capitalism"
...Second, the worker should be made to feel as though she is a part of an organization and a project that transcends her individual self, thus making her feel like a valuable part of the group who can make her own unique contributions (Boltanski & Chiapello 2005 [1999])....
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...Traits like flexibility, adaptability, and malleability are privileged while. job security and longevity are less valued by workers who tend to see those qualities as incommensurate with the kind of mobility that is engendered by self-autonomy (Boltanski & Chiapello 2005 [1999])....
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...Consumers are far too savvy to believe that seek authenticity in relationships (Boltanski & Chiapello 2005 [1999])....
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...First, every effort must be made to veil abstract, unfeeling principles, processes, entities, and groups in a canopy of friendliness, sincerity, and care (Boltanski & Chiapello 2005 [1999])....
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...After generations of fordist-style work regimes and the mass consumption of mass-produced goods, citizens now desire de-massification both in the arenas of work and consumption (Boltanski & Chiapello 2005 [1999])....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that there has been an innovation in the rights of private property especially in the area of residential property, and that the condominium or sectional-title estate is transforming urban landscapes across the globe, generating novel urban constellations that are frequently imagined and lived as nonsuburbs.
Abstract: This paper unfolds in three parts. The first section argues that there has been an innovation in the rights of private property, especially in the area of residential property. Starting in the 1960s, though only really coming into its own in the 1980s, the rights of private property have been grafted onto a regime of communal ownership. Thus, during the very period of capitalist ascendancy, historically non-capitalist forms of sociability were being elaborated from within the holy ark of capitalism itself, the relation of private property. The second part shows that the condominium or sectional-title estate is transforming urban landscapes across the globe, generating novel urban constellations that are frequently imagined and lived as non-suburbs. Effectively, the growth of townhouses is associated with the decline of the traditional suburb as an urban phenomenon. The third part of this essay focuses on a South African case study, where condominiums (or townhouses under sectional title) have become impor...
20 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the increasing popularity of collaborative work to understand the consequences of these practices for organizational control and apply a Lacanian framework to understand how this affects organizational control.
Abstract: We examine the increasing popularity of collaborative work to understand the consequences of these practices for organizational control Applying a Lacanian framework, we pay attention to how this
19 citations
Cites background from "The New Spirit of Capitalism"
...…like the ones we analysed in our study, lead to a better understanding of how the discourses around collaborative work become appealing to individuals, who subscribe to a ‘connexionist logic’ (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2005) that tempts them to always long for the next challenge, the next project....
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...…a more diverse dataset than previous studies on management trends, which have either examined management literature (e.g. Alvesson & Kärreman, 2016; Boltanski & Chiapello, 2005; Costas & Taheri, 2012) or worked with observations and interviews (e.g. Fyke & Buzzanell, 2013; Picard & Islam, 2020)....
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01 Jan 2018
19 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: In this article, a historical analysis of the development of depression as a concept is carried out, and the controversies behind the apparent consensus about depression's etiology and treatment are illuminated, suggesting that the understanding of the climbing rates of depression in contemporary Western civilization is still up for grabs.
Abstract: The thesis starts with a historical analysis of the development of depression as a concept. Through this inquiry, the controversies behind the apparent consensus about depression’s etiology and treatment are illuminated, suggesting that the understanding of the climbing rates of depression in contemporary Western civilization is still up for grabs. That’s what the thesis sets out to investigate. In order to accomplish this aim, the study builds upon the classical accounts of Georg Simmel, Émile Durkheim and the more contemporary ideas of Dany-Robert Dufour, in dialogue with an array of supplementary theoretical sources. Navigating through this ‘sea’ of extraordinary and different theories, a new avenue of reflections arises, contributing for the sophistication of the questions made about the phenomenon of depression’s rates. The fundamental argument emerging from this theoretical undertaking is that ‘crises of meaninglessness’ that pervade the collective body of Western contemporary societies have, as one of its consequences, the expansion of depression rates. Meaninglessness in contemporary times is the primary object of investigation of the thesis. The concept, in the context of this study, is not understood as merely an effect of the historical decline of shared social norms due to processes of individualization. Rather, it is claimed, it originates from and is reinforced by the ‘political-economic theology of neo-liberalism’ which becomes virtually generalized in the West, erecting money as a God. The study concludes that by undermining culturally established values, ideals, institutions and principles that may block the dissemination of commodities this new transcendence has been challenging the task of signifying life, potentializing – among other subjective difficulties – the diffusion of depression.
19 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