Spirited Away

When Political Economy Becomes Culturalized1…

Bibliographic Data

ID23213724
AuthorsHugh Willmott (0000-0002-7945-7796, corresponding author)
Year2013
Pages98-123
Publication date2013-02-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueNEW SPIRITS OF CAPITALISM? CRISES, JUSTIFICATION AND DYNAMICS (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199595341.003.0005
OpenAlexW1729589792
ISBN9780199595341
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited15

The chapter explores a number of shortcomings in The New Spirit of Capitalism including the neglect of studies of management that are often more penetrating than literatures which are cited; the weak articulation, positioning and justification of Boltanski and Chiapello's theoretical stance; the confusing conception of `spirit' in relation to the Weber's very different formulation of the same term; the omission of neo-liberalism and financialization when accounting for the most recent `connexionist' phase of capitalism; and a failure to incorporate consideration of `ecological critique'. The most significant shortcoming of NSC, it is suggested, is the disinclination to situate the significance ascribed to `spirit' in a discussion of political economy. How notions of autonomy, security and fairness, for example, serve to lubricate the reproduction of capitalism can be affirmed without overlooking how a secular devotion with what Weber identifies as the `calling to make money' provides the most potent and enduring source of legitimacy. Boltanski and Chiapello's conception of capitalism is that of a disembedded and `absurd system' governed by impersonal forces and (re)produced independently of the everyday relations and mundane practices that, arguably, make it (more or less) meaningful. Lacking this normative ballast, the `system' is understood to require repeated injections of `spirit' to remedy the deficiency. Contra Boltanski and Chiapello, it is necessary to situate the significance of `the cultural' within the study of political economy in an integrated manner, and not to treat `the cultural' — in the form of `spirit' — as a discrete activity that accounts for the development of different phases of capitalism.

Aesthetics · Articulation (sociology) · Capitalism · Economics · Environmental ethics · Law and economics · Legitimacy · Liberalism · Neoclassical economics · Normative · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sensibility · Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory

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