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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... in which this tradition has been reshaped by a new generation of theorists. It also publishes theoretically informed analyses of everyday life,popular culture, and newintellectual movements. EDITOR: Mike Featherstone, Nottingham Trent ...
... in which risk and excesscan potentially disrupt the unproblematic bridges betweenevents that isour anticipation of howthe world is (Butler, 1991). The second is through the interventionsof objects, from delivery schedules to barcodes ...
... inwhich the kind of dividesthat kept capitalistsand anticapitalists apartarenot easily separated linguistically and, insome cases, even practically. Part ofthe reason forthis isbecause the language of economicshas become common ...
... in which various essentially virtual notions (network, the knowledge economy, the new economy,community ofpractice) are able to takeon flesh as, increasingly, the world is made in thesenotions'likeness throughthe power of consulting ...
... inwhich the basic phenomenological correlates of theworld (includingaffect)are founded on the universalrules and laws ofnature; throughthemedium of artefacts like software, the world is being naturalized and anactive and selfcausing ...
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 | |