Understanding Capitalism: Crises, Legitimacy, and Change Through the Prism of The New Spirit of Capitalism

Morgan, Glenn G.

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199595341.003.0001

Cited by 18 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…On the one hand, most elites and experts support the market economy established in recent decades, but on the other, at least regarding pragmatic political considerations, there is scepticism towards "a pure" market order and reluctance (at least in this contexts) of using the market order normatively (cf. Du Gay & Morgan, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-politicizing financial regulation: a sociological analysis of the debate on loan-to-value regulation in Norway

Løyning

2020

Housing Studies

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While financial regulation became highly contested in the aftermath of the financial crisis, the specifics of such regulation is usually debated among professionals, in specialized fora. This article analyses an exception to this; the debate on the loan-to-value ratio regulation introduced in Norway in 2010. Newspaper articles are analysed, using Boltanski & Thevenot's pragmatic perspective on how actors legitimize their arguments and critique. Unlike other critical approaches (i.e., critical discourse analysis) this perspective focuses on actors own critical capacity and it is argued that the approach is useful in analyzing re-politicizing efforts of social actors. The main finding is that most arguments opposing the regulation are based in the civic "regime of justification", while arguments supporting the regulation are based in the industrial regime of justification. Few arguments enact the market regime as justification. The article discusses reasons why the regulation has not been repelled, despite the widespread criticism.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-politicizing financial regulation: a sociological analysis of the debate on loan-to-value regulation in Norway

Løyning

2020

Housing Studies

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“…It is implicit in Castells's (1996: 198) account of how the dissolution of large corporations into webs of multidirectional networks requires informational entrepreneurs capable of identifying and exploiting opportunities for the advance of their interests. Sennett (2006: 3) also argues that 'only a certain kind of person', adaptable and at ease with change, can prosper in the new capitalism, while Boltanski and Chiapello (2005: 107) identify the 'connexionist' (a personality characterized by innovation, networking and entrepreneurship) as the exemplar of contemporary change (see also du Gay and Morgan, 2013;Cooper, 2008: 34). Against this background, it becomes interesting to ask what characteristics typify the arbitrageur, the individual who perhaps most obviously embodies the singular devotion to the calling of making money in the current era.…”

Section: Arbitrage the 'Worldly Calling Of Money' And Personalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Arbitrage, uncertainty and the new ethos of capitalism

Mellor

Shilling

2016

The Sociological Review

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This paper examines the arbitrageur as a figure who both embodies the new ethos of uncertainty central to 'financialized' capitalism, and exemplifies the issues of ethics and innovation raised by those who now personify what Weber called the 'devotion to the calling of making money'. We begin by providing a brief background to financial 'abstraction' in the economy, and the issues of dissimulation with which this has been associated, before suggesting that engaging creatively with Weber's writings can help us identify uncertainty as key to the character of contemporary financial decision-making. It is against this background that we analyse the arbitrageur as an ideal-type personality who embodies a newly abstract approach to capitalism. This approach is frequently portrayed as unethical, but we suggest it can be associated with an ethics of managing the unknown through an innovative commitment to overcoming limits that has consequences for human life in general.

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“…A key question remains to what extent these re-emerging critiques can amount to an effective critical capacity, in the context of an ever more unbalanced relationship between the rulers and the ruled, and of the complex dynamics of connextionist capitalism (Du Gay and Morgan, 2013). As Boltanski argues, contemporary domination is grounded in a 'complex or managerial mode', in which the dominated are 'stripped of the possibility of formatting [tests] and taking advantage of them -that is to say, kept at a distance from economic power and political action' (Boltanski, 2011: 153).…”

Section: Capitalist Critique and Its Contemporary Relevancementioning

confidence: 99%

The European crisis and a political critique of capitalism

Blokker

2014

European Journal of Social Theory

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The European crisis has provoked widespread critique of capitalist arrangements in most if not all countries in Europe. But to what extent do contemporary social protest and critique indicate a revival of critical capacity? The range of criticisms against the existing capitalist system raised by various social movements is seen as ineffectual and fragmented. Such observations are mirrored in sociological analyses of the critique of capitalism. A distinct type of critique of capitalism has, however, not been explicitly conceptualized. This political critique, denouncing the depoliticization and the erosion of autonomy resulting from capitalist arrangements, indicates the crucial role of the political in formulating common projects. The article will, first, briefly discuss Boltanski and Chiapello’s historical identification of forms of critique of capitalism as well as the contemporary relevance of these. In a second step, it will conceptualize and in a way recuperate a political critique of capitalism. In a third step, it will show that the contours of a critique that explicitly refers to the political is available in the contemporary European context, not least in claims made by movements that pursue a ‘Europe of the Commons’ and an ‘alternative Europe’.

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Understanding Capitalism: Crises, Legitimacy, and Change Through the Prism of The New Spirit of Capitalism

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

Re-politicizing financial regulation: a sociological analysis of the debate on loan-to-value regulation in Norway

Re-politicizing financial regulation: a sociological analysis of the debate on loan-to-value regulation in Norway

Arbitrage, uncertainty and the new ethos of capitalism

The European crisis and a political critique of capitalism

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