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 recent years, all major consumer technology corporations have moved into the domain of health research as discussed by the authors, and this "Googlization of Health Research" (GHR) begs the question of how the common good wi...
Abstract: In recent years, all major consumer technology corporations have moved into the domain of health research. This ‘Googlization of health research’ (‘GHR’) begs the question of how the common good wi...
94 citations
Cites background from "The New Spirit of Capitalism"
...They later expanded this typology to include two more repertoires, the ‘project’ and the ‘ecological’ (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2005 [1999]; Lafaye and Thévenot, 1993)....
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...Some years after publishing On Justification, Boltanski and Chiapello (2005) identified an emerging order of worth in what they call the network or project order....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an argument that leads back from some debates in contemporary social studies of finance to arguments that have not been fully developed in some classic writings of Marcel Mauss (1990 [1954]) and Max Weber (2009 [1920]).
Abstract: This essay lays out an argument that leads back from some debates in contemporary social studies of finance to arguments that have not been fully developed in some classic writings of Marcel Mauss (1990 [1954]) and Max Weber (2009 [1920]). My starting point is Jacques Derrida’s (1994) famous argument about the “impossibility” of the gift, which annuls itself by its implicit expectation (a negative performative) of a return. I focus here on the idea of the “return” as one entry into a new approach to contemporary financial devices. Derrida’s argument about the logical impossibility of the pure gift is in fact anticipated in the very first pages of Mauss’s classic essay “The Gift,” in the perception by Mauss of the inner contradiction between the voluntary and the compulsory as well as the disinterested and the self- serving elements of the gift. Two facts about Mauss’s study have been lost from view. One is that his entire and fundamental interest throughout his essay is in the question of the force behind the obligation to return. The second point is that Mauss’s thorough archaeology of the gift (in both primitive and archaic societies) was wholly motivated by his interest in the moral force behind the modern contract (legal, impersonal, obligatory, etc.). Bearing these two points in mind allows us to understand better what may have been Mauss’s rich and only partial answer to his question, that is, that the obligation to return lay in the spirit of the thing given (the famous hau of Polynesia), which in turn provided a dynamic and forceful connection between giver and receiver, and the first giver and the second giver/returner, and so forth.
93 citations
TL;DR: The work of Richard Florida has proven extremely influential in cultural policy circles in recent years as mentioned in this paper and his arguments concerning the rise of the creative class and the concentration of "technology, talent and tolerance" in successful cities are grounded in certain theoretical assumptions and supported by specific kinds of evidence that should be submitted to critical interrogation in order to test their robustness.
Abstract: The work of Richard Florida has proven extremely influential in cultural policy circles in recent years. His arguments concerning ‘the rise of the creative class’ and the concentration of ‘technology, talent and tolerance’ in successful cities are grounded in certain theoretical assumptions and supported by specific kinds of evidence that should be submitted to critical interrogation in order to test their robustness. This paper addresses the following questions: What are the theoretical assumptions underpinning Florida’s arguments? Is the evidence upon which these arguments are substantiated sound? What are the implications of Florida’s thesis for cultural policy? A critical reading of Florida’s key writings is presented. The paper also comments on the impact of Florida’s work around the world and focuses upon a particularly significant policy document in Britain, the Work Foundation’s Staying Ahead – The Economic Performance of the UK’s Creative Industries. It is necessary to trace the intellectual fram...
93 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a review essay on current work in commodity studies considers, at some length, an important and distinctive text by Peter Gibbon and Stefano Ponte, which draws on a unique set of case studies of African export commodities, using (and developing) the framework of Global Value Chain (GVC) theory, of American provenance, together with elements of the mostly French literature on quality conventions.
Abstract: This first instalment of a two-part review essay on current work in commodity studies considers, at some length, an important and distinctive text by Peter Gibbon and Stefano Ponte. It draws on a unique set of case studies of African export commodities, using (and developing) the framework of Global Value Chain (GVC) theory, of American provenance, together with elements of the mostly French literature on quality conventions. Gibbon and Ponte also seek to incorporate key mechanisms of globalization and international trade, and their forms of regulation, and to evaluate the effects of the book's analysis and argument for prospects of improving the performance of African agricultural exports in particular. Here we provide a detailed exposition, discussion, and assessment of the book. We conclude that, for all its intellectual virtues, there are some central tensions in its argument that reflect the lacunae and limitations of the kind of economic sociology the authors employ – which, contentiously, they designate as ‘historical political economy’.
93 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors comprehensively review the theoretical and empirical work on gender and the knowledge society and introduce the articles of the special issue, and present an original analysis of the gendering of the UK knowledge economy using data from the Labour Force Survey.
Abstract: The article comprehensively reviews the theoretical and empirical work on gender and the knowledge society and introduces the articles of the special issue. Three ways in which the knowledge society and economy are gendered are distinguished: the gendering of human capital; the gendering of networks and the gendering of the definitions of the knowledge society. Using data from the Labour Force Survey, an original analysis of the gendering of the UK knowledge economy is presented. It finds that the choice of definition of the knowledge economy makes a difference to its gender composition: the more centred on technology and fixed capital, the more masculine, the more centred on human capital, the more gender balanced. The knowledge economy provides better work and conditions. Gender gaps are narrower in the knowledge economy than the overall economy: occupational hierarchies are narrowed to women's advantage, while differences in work temporalities are narrowed to men's advantage.
92 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