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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... example, in the realmof bioscience). But I am notconvinced that,sofarat least,thisprocess hasbeen more than an incrementalevolution ofpastpractice, impressive though that evolution undoubtedly is (cf. Dezalayand Garth, 2002b) ...
... example, commoditiesmay increasingly be delivered as timelimited rightsto streams ofcontent (Rifkin, 2000). Again, commodities are becoming increasingly animated.This does not mean simply that consumer objects have become ...
... example, brands, which are gaining largerexposure. The fifth chapter (cowritten with Kris Olds) looks atthelatest episode of this saga, theattempt to produce a major hub of business and other knowledge in Singapore which,inturn, would ...
... example by taking in the persons and ideas of management gurus like Michael Porter.18 This economiccum geopolitical story continuestomove ahead: sincethechapter was finished othermajor worldhigher education institutions have continued ...
... example, conventiontheory. 5 Though, as ispointed out in, for example, DiMaggio (2001), the network can take on many forms when itis operationalized. 6 The 'method' that I have used in thisbook consists of threeelements: reading ...
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 | |