Knowing Capitalism′This is an ambitious, original, and complex treatment of key aspects of contemporary capitalism. It makes a major contribution because it profoundly destabilizes the scholarship on globalization, the so-called new economy, information technology, distinct contemporary business cultures and practices′ - Saskia Sassen, author of Globalization and its Discontents ′Nigel Thrift offers us the sort of cultural analysis of global capitalism that has long been needed - one that emphasizes the innovative energy of global capitalism. The book avoids stale denouncements and offers instead a view of capitalism as a form of practice′ Capitalism is well known for producing a form of existence where `everything solid melts into air′. But what happens when capitalism develops theories about itself? Are we moving into a condition in which capitalism can be said to possess a brain? These questions are pursued in this sparkling and thought-provoking book. Thrift looks at what he calls ′the cultural circuit of capitalism′, the mechanism for generating new theories of capitalism. The book traces the rise of this circuit back to the 1960s when a series of institutions locked together to interrogate capitalism, to the present day, when these institutions are moving out to the Pacific basin and beyond. What have these theories produced? How have they been implicated in the speculative bubbles that characterized the late twentieth century? What part have they played in developing our understanding of human relations? Building on an inter-disciplinary approach which embraces the core social sciences, Thrift outlines an exciting new theory for understanding capitalism. His book is of interest to readers in geography, social theory, anthropology and cultural economics. |
From inside the book
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... able to honour the 'local' as not just an instance of 'global' struggles; forms of critique thatdonot believe that the vanguard is alwaystheplace to be; forms ofcritique that understand their own situatedness and so liveupto Foucault's ...
... able to be prepared for surprise, able to becomeskilled at harnessing the 'powerof now' (Ranadive, 1999). Thus, andthisisa further rule, capitalismis performative: it is always engaged in experiment,as the project is perpetually ...
... able to surf the right side oftheconstant change that results,or riskbeing washedupon the reefs of irrelevance– and thrown into bankruptcy. (It isalways worth remembering just how few capitalist firms surviveoverthe long term; surely ...
... able to takeon flesh as, increasingly, the world is made in thesenotions'likeness throughthe power of consulting solutions –what Miller(1998) and otherscall the rise of 'virtualism'. Then, thereisthe emphasis thatthecultural circuit has ...
... ableto contain somuch (Lury, 1999; Thrift, 2000a). Then there isthe refashioningofthe bounds ofthe commodity.Thus, for example, commoditiesmay increasingly be delivered as timelimited rightsto streams ofcontent (Rifkin, 2000). Again ...
Contents
The Globalization of Reflexive Business | |
Reengineering the SoulofCapitalism | |
Coauthor Kris Olds Part II The New Economy | |
The Automatic Production of Space | |
Closer to the Machine? Intelligent Environments New Forms | |
New ModelsofEveryday | |
Remembering the Technological Unconscious by Foregrounding | |
Index | |