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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... creativity andinnovation, and one way oflooking at the knowledge revolutioninspiredbythe cultural circuit ofcapital is as the routinization of innovation,or even the bureaucratization of innovation, as whathad been exceptional ...
... creativity,how the world is being commodified in new ways, and the increasingly fine macerations ofspaceand time thatboth allow these developments to take place andspurthemon. In finding new waysof forging responsible ...
... creative powers– experiments thathave nowbeen converted into a fullblown technology of the body moving. Thesewere the days when the potential ofnew forms ofcomputer writing thatcame to becalled 'software' first began to be understood ...
... creative energies for its own sake. Long ago now, Marx depicted capitalismasdead labourhaunting the living,butIam notsure that this is an adequate description, forit givescredence to the notion of capitalism as a deadening force when ...
... creativity' (cf. Holmberg etal., 2002). SeeOsborne (2003) for a wonderful critiqueof this tendency. 16 The traffic is not alloneway, ofcourse. Ideaslike the tippingpoint (Gladwell,2000) have circulated back into academe. 17 Onthis issue ...
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 | |