Multitudes 4 on the New Spirit of Capitalism

* Article: Nouvel Ere du Capitalism. By Boltanski and Chiapello. Special Issue of Multitudes #4.

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The authors wrote a book together, Le Nouvel Esprit du Capitalisme, the 'New Spirit of Capitalism'.

Summary

Michel Bauwens, 2004:

The authors identify a new 'spirit' of capitalism, centered around the 3 axes of enthusiasm, security, and justice, which has incorporated the 'artist criticism' of capitalism, which was expressed in the 1960s, but not the 'social criticism' of capitalism, which it had disabled in the 1990s. This critique is now resurging because the new model only answered the autonomy/creative requirements of the new cognitive classes, but not the demands for security and justice. And capitalism cannot exist without justifications. The lack of such justification shows the transitoryness of the current model.

A note on the events of 1968: 1968 was an exceptional event because it combined both the social and artistic movements and their separate critiques of capitalism. But today, after a 'system without alternatives' was dominant in the 1990s, the social critique has been re-invigorated, with an adaptation to the network. For example, the concept of 'exclusion' is a typical network concept. But where is the exploitation that causes the new social misery ? The differentiation is now between the succesful and the excluded, and is derived from the concept of mobility or adaptability, including at the psychic level.