)italism and how
slnce
the
it
has been
1960s.
examination
Via
an
Lv!
into the nature of contemporary work"
"Extremely well-written and well-argued"
Times Higher Educøtion Suþþlement
rat from the middle of the
s, capitalism abandoned the
ordist work structure and
network-based form of
rt was founded on employee
tonomy in the work-place-a
came at the cost of material
:al security ln a work that is
Jigm-shifting classic, Boltanski
show how the new spirit
hanks to a remarkable
rf the Left's critique of the
t_v\_
\rlllcJtJ\-ll\,/
I
"This massive book is an astonishing combination-an
ideological and cultural
analysis, a socio-historicar narrative, an essay in poriticar
and a bord
".onã.y
piece of engaged advocacy . . . a diz4ingtheoreticar
tour of the past thirty years,
"This book will no doubt come to be
regarded as a contemporary classic of
political economy and polìtical sociology"
New Left Reyiew
Politicol Studies Review
"A powerful and comprehensive account of
modern society that develops an impressive
critique of modern patterns of exclusion"
Sociolagicol Reyiew
The New
"[A] vast and ambitious work, which is
inscribed in a great tradition of theoretical
and critical sociology"
Capitalism
ew
Spirit of
.
¡
S
Le Monde
:ryday life.
ning worl< is as important and
scope as Ernest lYandel's Late
lardt and Negri's Emþire.
rNSKI teaches sociology at
'aris. He is the author of
"This magnifcent book [is] the sociology of
a whole generation which capitalism caught
on the wrong foot. ln more than 600 pages
which one devours like a great novel,
the book furnishes new weapons for
the renewal ofthe Left"
Luc Boltanski a
Eve Chiapello
Libération
Justiflcotion and
CHIAPELLO is an
:ssor at the HEC School of
Paris. She is the author of
3. EVE
Lx
of management
ge of 1968 counterculture to
ew work practices and more
ubtle forms of exploitation.
On
LurtJt\t
Cfioice
crs f nd that employers are
s, including
vvt
"Ambitious and fascinati ng"
Le Nouvel Obseryøteur
4onogers.
.t
{
rsBN 978-1 -B 4467 -165
-6
;IOLOGY
ililililil]ttiltIilililtil
t
L
rt
I
f
Capitali s m
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
ON THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM AND
THE ROLE OF CR|T|QUE
of this book is the ideologzcal changes tbat ltaue accompanied
recent transcapitalism.
suggests
irr,.¡prã,"tion of the dynamic that runs
.rr
".,
from the years folrowing-rheevents
or ri^y 196g, when th.'critiqrreo f . prtalism was expressed loud and clear, to t'.
iqgo. when, with criti{rre s'.n.ed,
the
The subject
þrmations in
orgarizational forms on which the functioning
of capitalism rests were
ptofoundly alteted, dght up to the faltedng search
for new critical foundations in the second half of the 1990s. It is nolmerery
descrþtive, but proposes,
of this historical exampre, a more general theoretical
framework for
understanding the way in which the ideologies
associated with economic
acttviq are altered. ì7e stipulate that the tetm .ideorogy,
is to be construed
here not in the reductionist sense to which
it has often been reduced in the
Marxist r''lgate - that is to s^y, a morahzingdiscourse,
intended to conceal
matenal interests, which is constantry contraãicted
by practice - but as devel_
oped, for example, in the vzork of Louis Dumont:
a set of shared beriefs,
inscdbed in i¡stitutions, bound up uzith actions,
and hence anchored in reaìity.
$Øe shall perhaps be criticized for tackling
a transformâtion of grobal scope
on the basis of arocar exampre: France in tie
rast thirty years. \x/e"certa'rry do
not believe that the French case single-handedly
by way
madons
of
capitalism. Howeve
encapsulates all the transfor-
r, far from
being convinced by the
approximations and broad brushstrokes that
make up de ordinrry run of discourses on globaltzatol, *. have sought to
establish the model of change
ptesented here on the basis of anaryses
which are ptagmanc in chatacter
that is to say, capable of taking account of the
ways in which people engâge
in action, their justifications, and the meaning they give
y.t
to th.i,
the influence of national poritical conjuncturÃ
^.tiorrr.
and traditions on the
orienta_
tion of economic practices, and ihe ideological forms
of .*pì.rrio.,
accompanying them, remains so strong that
such an undertaking r.-^ir* pr".tically unrealizable at a grobal or evenlontinental
revel, .rr..r,i""[y for lack of
time and resources. No doubt this is why genenrapproaches
ate often red to
assþ preponderant imp.ortance to explanatoty fa.tors
nological, macroeconomic or demographic
kind
-
- typicaly of a techwhich are treated as forces
4
uEl\EñllL ll\ I ll\JL.r\Jt- r r\-I\
THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM
exterrial to the human beings and nations that experience them, in the way
one endures a storm. Fot this histotical neo-Darwinism, 'mutations' are
imposed on us in much the same v/ay as they are imposed on species: vre must
adapt or die. But human beings do not only endure history; they make it. A¡d
u¡e v¡anted to see them ât work.
\X/e are not claiming that what has occurred in France is a paradigm for the
rest of the wodd, or that the models we have established on the basis of the
Ftench situation possess a universal validity as such. Nevertheless, we have
good reâson to beLieve that rather similar processes have marked the evolution of the ideologies accompanying the redeployment of capitalism in the
othet developed countries, in accordance with modalities tflat stem in each
instance from the specificities of political and social history, which only
detailed regional analyses can bring out with the requisite precision.
\ü/e have sought to clarify the rektions that were utablished behveen capitalism and
it mtiquer in otder to intetpret certain phenomena in the ideological sphere
over recent decades: the waning of critique aÍ a ttme when capitalism was
undergoing significant restructuring whose social impact could not go unno-
ticed; the nev/ enthusiasm
for
entetprise, otchestrated
by
SociaList
governments, during the 1980s and the depressive repetcussions of the 1990s;
the diffìculties faced by attempts to reconstruct critique today on new bases
and - for now - its fairly limited mobrlizing power, at a tlme when soutces of
indignation are not wanting; the profound transfotmation in managerial discourse and justifications of the development of capitalism since the
mid-1970s; and the emergence of new representations of societ¡ of novel
ways of putting people and things to the test and, therewith, of new vzays of
succeeding or failing.
To carry out this work, the notion of sþirìt of capitalisn tapidly became essential for us, since (as we shalì see) it makes it possible to articulate the two cental
analyses
relation. Below we present the
in a dynamic
consttuction
the springs of the model v¡e have developed to âccount
concepts on which out
is founded, as well as
J
ptofit - that is to sag incteasing the c prt^I, which will in tutn be
is
- the basic matk of capitalism, endowing it v¡ith the dynamic and
úansformative power that have fascinated even the most hostjle of observers.
Capital accumulation does not consist in amassing dches - that is to sa¡
to deriving
a
reinvested
objects desired for their use.-value, theit ostentatious functiofl, or as
sþs of
po$/er. The concrete forms of wealth þropetty, plant, commodities, mofley,
etc.) have no interest in and of themselves and cari even, by dint of their lack
of liquidit¡ represerrt an obstacle to the only objective that really matters: the
coflstaflt transformation of capital, plant and vatious purchases (raw materials, components, services, etc.) into outPut, of output into mone¡ and of
money into new investrnents.l
This detachment of capital from material forms of wealth gives it a genuineìy abstact character, which helps make accumulation an intetminable
process. In so far as enrichment is assessed in accounting terms, the profit
accumulated in a span of time being calculated as the difference between the
balance-sheets of two diffetent periods,2 there exists no lirnit, no possible satiation,3 contfary to when wealth is directed towafds consumef fleeds, including
luxuries.
No doubt there is another reason for the insatiable chatacter of the capital-ist process, undetlined by Heilbronet.a Because capital is constantly
reinvested and can expand only in circulation, the capitalist's ability to fecovef
his outlay with a ptofit is undet constant threat, particulatly as a tesult of the
actions of othet capitalists with whom he competes fol consumers' spending
pov/eÍ. This dynamic cfeates constant anxiety, and offers the capitalist a very
powerfirl self-presewation motive fot continuing the accumulâtion pfocess
interminably.
The rivalry between ftadets seeking to make a profit, hovzevet, does not
necessarily yield a matket in the classical sense, where the conflict between a
multiplicity of agents taking decenttøhzed decisions is resolved by tfânsâctions
disclosing equilibrium pflces. In the minimal definition emþloYed here. caÞifrom matket self-regulation based upon
to be
talism
for ideologicai transformations as regards capitalism over the last thitty years,
but which seem to us to possess a wider significance than the French sinra-
tion studied in isolation.
exchange tate fot ctedit money, and so on. Capitalism is indeed based on trans-
THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM
A minimal definition of capitalism
Of
tlre different chatacterrzafons
of
câpitalism (or, today frequendy, capitalisms) ovet the last century and ahalf, we shall employ the minimal formula
stressirig an imperatiue to anlimited accanalation
The constant rejntroduction
of
of
c@ital
þrrzalþ peaceful meau.
capital into the economic circuit wrth a view
b1
actions and contracts, but these conttacts cân only Sustâin discreet
àrràngements to the advantage of the parties, of contain ad hoc clatses, without
publicity or competition. Follouiing Fernand Braudel, we shall therefore distinguish between capitalism and the market economy' On the one hand, the
market economy wâs constructed 'step by step', and predates the appearance
of capitalismt norm of unlimited accumulation.s On the other hand, c Pit^Iist accumulation cedes to market tegulation only when more direct routes to
profit are closed to it. Accordingly, recognition of the beneficent powets of
ó
I
Ht NEW
SPtKt
I 9F LAt't tALtSm
GhNTKAL IN IRODUC
of the rules and constraints on which its 'harmonious' operation depends (free ttade, prohibition of cartels and monopolies,
etc.), may be regarded as petairring to a form of self-limitation by capitalism.ó
In the framework of the minimal definition of capitalism empioyed here,
the capitalist is, in theor¡ ânyone who possesses a surplus and invests it to
the matket, and acceptance
IION
7
\x/e shall also characterize capitalism
by the wage-earning class. Marx and
!7eber alike place this form of orgarttzins labour at the centre of their defi-
make a profìt that will increase the initial surplus. The archet¡,pal example is
the shateholder who puts money into a frm and expects a return. But invest-
I
I
I
ment does not necessarily take this legal form: think, for example, of
investment in rental property, or the purchase of Treasury bonds. Smail shareholders, savets who do not want their 'money to lie idle' but 'to make a little
bit on it'- as populat p^rl^nce has it - thus belong to the group of capitalists by the same token as the big property-ov¡ners who come more readily to
mind under this descrþtion. In its broadest sense, the capitalist group thus
encompasses all those who possess â property incomeT - a group, howevet,
that constitutes a minority only beyond a certain level of savings. Although it
is diffìcuit to estimate, given existìng statistics, it can be reckoned that it represents only around 20 per cent of French households, in what is one of the
wealthiest countries in the wodd.8 As one can easily imagine, on a wodd scale
the percentage is much lower.
In this essay, \¡/e shall nevertheless reserve the tetm 'capitalists' frst and
foremost for the main actots tesponsible for the accumulation and expansion
of capital, who directly pressurize hrms to make maximum profit. Obviousl¡
theit numbers are much smaller. They comprise not on-ly big shareholders,
private individuals who are able to affect the runnìng of business singlehandedly by virtue of thei-t influence, but also legal entities (represented by a
few influential individuals, ptimadþ the directors of firms), which, via their
shateholdings, own or control the most substantiaì portions of global capital
(holding companies and multinationals - including banks - through the mechanism of subsidiaries andinterests, investment funds, or pension funds). Major
employers, the salatied directors of large fitms, fund managers, or large shateholdets - the influence of such peopìe on the capitalist process, the practices
of firms, and the prof,rt rates extracted is beyond doubt, unlike that of the
small shareholdets mentioned above. Although they constitute a population
that is itseif chancterized by significant asset inequalities, albeit on the basis
ol avery advantageous situation on average, they deserve to be called capitalists inasmuch as they make the requirement of profit maximization their
own, and relay its constraints to the people and legal entities over whom they
exercise controlling power. Leaving to orìe side for the moment the issue of
the systemic constrairìts upon capitalìsts and, in particular, the question of
whether the directors of frms can do anything other than conform to the
rules of câpitalism, we shaü merely note that they do so conform, and that
theit action is guided iargely by the pursuit of substantial profits for their own
capitai and that entrusted to them.e
t
(foa by virtue of property rights, the Iatter can refuse use of these means to
them); and, finall¡ that in the ftamework of the wage reration, and in exchange
for its remuneration, it surrenders all property tights over the fruits of its
The upshot is that, while the relation is unequal in the sense rhat the worker
cannot survive for long without working, it is nevertheless markedly different
ftom forced labour or slavery, and thus always invoives a certain amount of
voluntaty subjection.
In Ftance, âs on a wodd scaie, the wage-earning class has gone on expanding throughout the bistory of capitalism, ro the point where today it involves
an unprecedented percentage of the working population.ll on the one hand,
it gadually teplaces self-employed labout, in the ftont rank of which, historically, was agriculture.r2 on the other hand, the wotking population has itself
gteatiy expanded as a result of the entry into the wage-earning class of women,
who petform wotk outside the home in growing numbets.l3
The Necessity of a Spirit for Capitalism
In many respects, capitalism is an absurd system: in it, wage-earners have lost
ouznership of the ftuits of their labour and the possibility of pursuing a
working life ftee of subordinatíon. As for capitalists, rhey find themselves
i'oked to an interminable, insatiable process, which is uttedy abstract and dissociated from the satisfaction of consumption needs, even of a luxuty kind.
For two such ptotagonists, integration into the capitalist process is singulady
Iacking in justifi.cations.
Now, albeit to an unequal extent depending upon the direction in which
profit is sought (gte te\ for example, in the case of industrial than commercial or fìnancial profìts), capitalist accumulation demands the mobilzation of
a very latge number of people whose prospects of profit ate low (especially
when their initial capital is small ot nonexistent), and eachof whom is assþed
only minute responsibility - or,
tàte, responsibility that is diff,rcult to
^t ^fry
in
the
overall
accumulation
process.
consequently, when they are not
-
assess
8
\lEI\trI\AL II\ I K\JI.JUL I I\JI\
THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM
in activity
downright hostile to capitalist ptactices, they ate not particularþ motivated to
entrepreneurs
eng ge in them.
singular, even trarìsgressive character
Some people can invoke m^teria,I motive fot participating - more obvi^
ousiy in the case of wage-eatnets who need their wages in order to live than
in that oí Iarge property o\rners whose activity, above a certain threshold, is
no longer bound up with satisfying personal needs. On its own, however, this
does not ptove much of a sput. lü(/ork psychologists have regularþ emphâsized that pay is insufficient to induce commitment and stimulate enthusiasm
for the task, the wage constituting at most a motive fot staying in a job, not
for getting involved in it.
Similady, duress is insufficient to overcome actors'hostiJity or indifference,
especially when the commitment demanded of them assumes active engagement, initiative and voluntary sacrifices, as is ever more frequently the case not
simply with calre¡butwith all wage-earners. Thus, the hypothesis of 'enforced
commitment'under the threat of hunger and unemplo)'rnent does not seem
to us to be vety plausible. For if the 'slave' factories that still exist the worid
over are unlikely to disappear in the short term, reJiance on this form of setting
people to work seems ptoblematic, if fot no odrer teason than that most of
the new ways of ptofit-making and new occupations invented in the last thirty
years, which today generate a substantial portion of global ptofits, sttess what
human resources marìâgement calls'workforce part-icipâtion'.
In fact, the quality of the commitment one can expect depends upon the
arguments that can be cited to bring out not only the advantages which participation in capitalist processes might afford on an individuai basis, but also
the collective benefìts, defìned in terms of the common good, wtr-ich it contributes to producing for everyone. We call the ideolog1t tbatjustifu engagement in
caþifalzsm'spirit of capitalism'.
.
This spirit is currently undetgoing a significant crisis, demonstrated by
growing social confusion and scepticism, to the extent that safeguarding the
accumulation process, which is ultimately threatened by any nattowing of its
justification to a minimal argument in terms of compulsory submission to
economic laws, presupposes the fotmation of a new, more inspiring ideological corpus. At all events, this is valid fot the developed countries, which remain
at the core of the accumulation ptocess and teckon on temaining the main
suppJiers of skilled personnel, whose positive involvement is imperative.
Capitalism must be in a position to guarantee these people a minimum of
security in sheltered zones - places to live in, lnave a fartJly, bring up childten,
and so on
-
üke the residentiai quarters
of
the commetcial cities
of
the
notthern hemisphere, shop windows of capitaJist success for new attivals from
the periphery, and hence a crwcral element in the globai ideoiogical moblhzation of the sum total of productive fotces.
For Max rü/eber, the 'spirit of capitalism' refers to the set of ethical motivations which, although their purpose is foteþ to capitalist logic, inspite
conducive
to
of
V
capital accumulation.la Given the
of behaviour demanded by
capitalism when compared with the forms of life exhibited in most human
societies,l5 \(/eber was led to defend the idea that the emergence of capitalism
presupposed the establishment of a new moral relationship between human
berngs and their work. This was defined in the manner of avocation, such
that, regardless of its intrinsic interesr and qualities, people could devote themselves to it frmly and steadily. According to \)7eber, itwas with the Reformation
that the belief became established thât people performed ¡þsi¡ rsligious dury
in the fitst instance by practising an occupation in the wodd, in temporal activities, in contrâst to the extra-mundane religious life favoured by the Catholic
ethos. This new conception made it possible to circumvent the question of
the purpose of effort in work þoundless enrichment) at the dawn of capitalism, and thereby overcome the problem of commitment posed by the new
economic practices. The conception of wotk as Beraf a religious vocation
demanding fulfiLment - furnished a normative support for the merchants and
entrepreneurs of nascent capitalism, and g:rve them good reâsons a .psy_
choiogical motivation', as rü7eber puts it16 for devoting themselves tirelessly
and conscientiousiy to their task; for undertaking the pitiless rattonahzatton
of their
affarrs, inextricably bound up
the kinds
with the putsuit of maximum profit;
and for putsuing materiø) garn, a sþ of success rn fulfìJling their vocation.iT
It also setved them in so far as workets imbued with the same idear proved
obedient, tireless in their work, and - convinced as they weie that mân must
petfotm his duty where Providence has placed him - did rìot seek to question
the situation in which they found rhemselves.
lVe sball kaae lo one side tlte inportantpost-lVeþerian
debate, essenttally
tevolving
around the actual influence of Protestantism on the development of capitalism and, more generaliy, of religious beLiefs on economic practices, and draw
above ail from rüØebett approach the idea that people need powerful moral
reasons for rallying to capitalism.ls
Älbert lrirschman reformulates the \ü/eberian question ('[h]o* then does it
come about drat activity which, in the most favourable case, is barely morally
toietable, becomes a"calling" in the manner practiced by Beniamin Ftanklin?)
as follows: 'þow did commercial, banking, and similar money-making pursuits
become honorable at some point in the modern age after having stood condemned ot despised as greed, love of lucte, and avarice for centuries past?'re
Rathet than appealing to psltchological moîiue¡ and the search by new elites for a
means of gtztanteetng thett persona/ sa/uation, however, Hirschman evokes
grounds that touched on the political sphere before impinging upon the
ecorìomy. Ptofitable activities had been higbly esteemed by elites in the eighteenth centuty on account of the sodopolitical beneftuthey anticipated from them.
In Hirschman's interpretation, the seculat thinking of the Enlightenment justi{ies profit-making activities in terms of society's common good. Hirschman
IO
IHI NIW
SPIRI
I OF CAPI IALISM
thus shows how the emergence of practices in tune with the development of
capitalism was interpreted as conducive to a meliowing of manners and a per.fectirg of modes of government. Given the inability of religious moraLity to
quell human passions, the poweriessness of reasorì to govern human beings,
and the diffrculty of subjugatìng the passions by means of sheer reptession,
there remained the solution of using one passion to counter the others. In this
wa¡ lucte, kritheto fust-placed in the order of disorders, was awarded the privi,lege of being selected as the innocuous passion which the task of subjugating
aggres sive pas sions henceforth rested upon.2o
Weber's works stressed capitalismt need to furnish individual reasons,
v¡hereas Hirschman's emphasize justifications in terms of the common good.
For our part, vr'e sha1l employ both dimensions, construing the term 'justification' in a sense that makes it possibie to encompass both individual
justifìcations (wherein a person fìnds grounds for engaging in capitalist enterpdse) and general justifications (whereby engagement in capitalist enterprise
seÍves the common good).
The question of the moral justifications of capitalism is not only relevant
historically, fot shedding light on its origins or, in our day, for a:r'iving at a
bettet understanding of the ways in which the peoples of the periphery (developing countries and former socialist counüies) are convetted to capitalism. It
is also of the utmost importance in -Jrestern countries like France, whose
population is nevertheless integtated into the capitalist cosmos to an unprecedented extent. In fact, systemic constraints on actors are insufficient on their
own to elicit their engagement.2l Duress must be internalized and justified;
and this is the role sociology has traditionally assþed to socialization and ideologies. Contributing to the reproduction of the social order, they have in
pârticulâr the effect of enabling people not to fìnd their everyday universe
uninhabitable - one of the conditions of a durable u¡orld. If, contrary to prognoses reguiady heralding its collapse, capitalism has not only survived, but
ceaselessly extended its empire, it is because it could rely on a number of
shared reptesentations - capable of guiding action - and fustifi.cations, which
present it
and even desirable order of things: the only possible
^s ^n ^cceptable
otdet, or the best of all possible orders. These justifications must be based on
arguments thatare sufficiently strong to be accepted as self-evident by enough
people to check, or overcomq the despair or nihlism which the capitalist order
likewise constantly induces - not only in those whom it opptesses but aiso,
on occasion, in those who have responsibility for maintaining it and, via education, transmitting its values.
The spirit of capitalism is precisely the set of beliefs associated v¡ith the
capitaList ordet that helps to justift this order and, by legitimating them, to
sustain the forms of action and predispositions compatible with it. These justifìcations, whethet generai or practtcal, iocal ot global, expressed in terms of
virtue or justice, suppoft the performance of more or less unpieasant tasks
(JEI\trKAL II\ IK(JUUL IIUI\
I
I
and, more generally, adhesion to a lifestyle conducive to the capitalist order.
In this instance, we may indeed speak of a dontinant ideokgy, so long âs we stop
regarding it as a mere subterfuge by the dominant to ensure the consent of
the dominated, and acknow-ledge that a majoitty of those involved the strong
as well as the weak - rely on these schemas in order to represent to themselves the operation, benefits and constraints of the otder in which they find
themselves immersed.22
NØhile, following the Weberian üadition, we
put the ideologies on wtrichcapitalism rests at the centre of our analyses, we shall employ the notion of
the spirit of capitalism in a way that depârts from canonical usages. In fact,
in \7eber the notion of spirit takes its place in an analysis of the 'gpes of
pracical rattonal behaviour', the 'practical incentives to actton',23 which, constitutive of a new ethos, made possible a t:reak u'ith traditional pracrices,
genetahzatton of the tendency to calculation, the lifting of moral condemnations of proht, and the switch to dee process of unlirnited accumulation. Our
perspective - intent not upon explaining the genesis of capitalism but on
understandi¡g the conditions in which it can once again secure for itself the
actots required for profit creation - will be different. ì7e shall set aside the
ptedispositions toviards the wodd required to participate in capitalism as a
cosmos - means--end compatibiJity, practical rationalit¡ aptitude for calculation, autonomization of economic activities, an instrumental relation to nature,
and so orl - âs well as the more general iusti{ications of capitalism produced
in the main by economic science, which we shall touch on latet. Tqday, atleast
among economic actors in the \ü/estetn wodd, they pertain to the common
skills which, in accordance with institutional constraints imposed as it were
ftom without, âre constandy reproduced through processes of familial and
educational sociaLization. They constitute the ideological piatform from
which historical variations can be observed, even if \¡/e cânnot exclude the
possibility that changes in the spirit of capitalism sometimes involve the metamotphosis of certain of its most enduring aspects. Oar intention is to staþ
obserued uariations, nlt t0 ffir an exhau¡tiae ducription of a// the constitaents of the spirit
of capitalisn, This will lead us to detach the categoty of spirit of capitalism
from the substantial content, in terms of ethos, which it is bound up with in
\ü7ebet, in order to treat it as a fotm that can contain different things at different points in the development of the modes of otgantzing frms and
processes of extracting capitalist ptofit. \Øe shall thus seek to integrate some
vety diverse histodcal expressions of the spirit of capitalism into a single
framewotk, and pose the question of their úansformation. ìØe shall highìight
the way in which an existence attuned to the requirements of accumulation
must be marked out for alarge number of actors to deem it worth the effort
of being lived.
\)Øe shall, however, remun faidrful throughout this histotical foutney to the
methodology of SØeberian ideal types in systematizing and undetlining what
12 IHE NbW 5flKt I 9r LArr
seems
rAl-rsr.l
to us to be specifìc about one epoch by comparison with those that
it, and in attaching more importance to variations than constants,
but without þoring the more stable features of capitalism.
Thus, the persistence of capitalism, as a mode of co-ordinating action and
a Iived wodd, cannot be understood without considering the ideologies which,
in justifting and confering a meaning on it, help to elicit the good will of
those on whom it is based, and ensure their engagement - including in situations where, as is the case with the developed countries, the order they are
integrated into appears to rest virtually in its entirety on mechanisms congrupreceded
ent'.vith capitalism.
What the spirit of capitalism is composed of
\ü/hen it comes to lining up reasons for being in favour of capitaLism, ofle candidate immediately presents itself: none other than economic science. Ftom
the first half of the nineteenth century down to the present, have not those
in charge of capitalist institutions initially looked to economic science, and
paraculaÃy its dominant currents - classical and neo-classical - for iustifications? The strength of the arguments they found there stemmed precisely
ftom the factthat they were presented as non-ideological, not directly dictated
by moral motives, even if they involved teference to end tesults genetaily confotmable to an ideal of justice for the best and of well-being fot the greatest
number. Äs Louis Dumont has shown, the development of economic science,
whether classical economics or Marxism, contdbuted to constructing a tePresentation of the wodd that is radically novel compated with traditional
thinking, marking'the radical separation of the economic aspects of the social
fabric and their constitution as an âutonomous domain'.24 This made it
possible to impart substance to the belief that the economy is ân autonomous
sphere, independent of ideology and motality, which obeys positive laws,
þoring the fact that such a conviction was itself the ptoduct of an ideological endeavour, and that it could have been formed only by incorporating and then parttally masking by scientifìc discourse - iustifications wheteby the
positive laws of economics are in the service of the common good.2s
In particulat, the view that the pursuit of individual ìnterests serves the
general interest has been the object of an enormous, incessant labour, which
has been taken up and extended throughout the histoty of classical economics. This separation between motality and economics, and the incorporation
into economics in the same gesture of a consequentialist etltics,2ó based upon
of utilities, made it possible to supply a mor:-l sanction fot
economic activities solely by dint of the fact that deey ate profitable.z1 If we
may be allowed a rapid summary, fot the purposes of explaining the development of the history of ecqnomic theory which interests us here more cleatly,
it can be said that the incorporation of utilitarianism into economics made it
the calculation
possible to regard it as self-evident that'whatever setved the individual served
society. By logical analogy, whatever created a ptofit (and thereby served the
individual capitalist) also served sociery.'28 In this perspective, regardless of the
beneficiary, increased wealth is the sole cdtedon of the common good.2e In its
everyday usage, and the pubJic pronouncements of the agents mainly responsible fot explaining economic activities - heads of fums, politicians, joutnalisrs,
and so on - this r,rrlgate makes it possible to combine individual (or local) profit
and overall benefit, 'rn a way that is at once suffìciently tight and sufficiently
vague to circumvent demands for justification of the activities that contdbute
to accumulation. It regards it as seif-evident that the specifìc - but not rcadùy
calculable - moral cost (devotion to dre passion for matenalgain) of establishing an acquisitive society (a cost rhat stül preoccupied Adam Smith) is amply
offset by the quantifiable benefits of accumulation (material goods, health, etc.).
It also allows it to be argued that the overall increase in wealth, regardless of
the beneficiary, is a criterion of the cornmon good, as is attested on a daily
basis by the presentation of the health of a countryt frms, measuted by their
proîtt rate, theìr level of activity and grovuth, as a criterion fot measuring sociai
well-being.3o This enormous social labour, perforrned in order to establish individual matetial advancement ¿s a - if not the - criterion of social well-being,
has allowed capitalism to wrest unprecedented legitimacy, for its designs and
marnspdng were thus legitimated simultaneously.
\7otks of economic science likewise make it possible to argue that, as
between two different economic otganizatons gearcd to mateital weil-being,
capitalist orgarizationis the most efficient. Free enterpdse and private property
in the means of production in fact introduce competition, or a risk of competition, into the system from the outset. And from d:re moment it exists,
competition, v¡ithout even having to be pure and perfect, is the surest means
for customers to benefit from the best service at the lowest cost. Likewise,
although they are orientated towards capital accumulation, capitalists fìnd themselves obliged to satisfu corìsumers in order to achieve their ovm ends. Thus it
is thag by extension, competitive private enterpdse is always deemed more
effective and effìcient than non-profit-making otgantzzions þut this at the
undisclosed price of tansforming the art lover, tlrie citzen,the student, chìldren
with respect to their teachers, from recipients of social services into ... consumers); and that rhe piløtÞation and maximum commodification of all
setvices
r to be the socially optimal solution, since they reduce the waste
^ppe
of tesources
and requfue anticþation of customers' expectations.3l
To the themes of utilit¡ genetal well-being and progress, which have been
available for mobi-Iization in virtually unchanged fashion for two centuries, and
to the justihcation in terms of incompatable efficiency when it comes to
suppþing goods and services, u¡e must obviously add the refetence to the
emancipatory pov/er of capitalism and poìitical freedom as the collateral of
economic freedom. The kinds of arguments advanced here refer to the
)4
THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPI IALISIT
liberation represented by wage-eatning by comparison with serfdom, the room
for freedom pefmitted by private Pfopefty, or the fact that in the modern age
political libetties have only ever existed sporadicaliy in any country which was
openiy and fundamentally anti-capitalist, even if they are not possessed by
evef y capitalist coufl tf y.32
Obviousl¡ it would be unrealistic tlot to include these three centfal suppofring pillars of capitâlism - m te:ir;rl PÍogfess, effectiveness and efficiency
in the satisfaction of needs, and a mode of social orgarizaiol conducive to
the exercise of economic fteedom compatible with libetal poìitical regimes -
in the spirit of capitalism.
But, precisely by virtue of their very general and stable c}rrrractet ovef time,
these teasons33 do not seem to us to be sufficient to engâge ofdinary PeoPIe
in the conctete circumstances of ljfe, especially working life, or to equiP them
with the fesources in terms of atguments that allow them to face the condemnation or criticism wtuch might be personally addressed to them ofl the
spot. It is not obviously the case that individualwage-eatners genuinely reioice
because their labour sefves to increase the nation's GDP, makes it possible to
improve the well-being of consumefs, of because they are Paft of a system
rhat creares room fof free enterPfise, fof buying and selling. And this, to put
it no higher, is because they fìnd it difficult to make the connection between
these general benehts and tlae living and working conditions the¡ and those
close to them, experience. Unless peoPle become dfuectly wealthy by making
the most of the possibilties of free enterPfìse - something that is resetved
for a small minority - ot, thanks to a iob they willingly chose, achieve sufficient financial comfoft to take full advantage of the consumet opportunities
offered by capitalism, too mâny mediations afe wantiftg for the suggestion of
engagement to flre their imagination,3a and become embodied in the deeds
btsI\EKAL IN
undermine the capitalist otder by cri
risk that the offspring of the boug
breeding ground for the recruitrrìent
I
KODUCTION I5
There is also the
the quasi-natural
use Hi¡schman,s
term,3s heading for occupations that are less integrated
into the capitalist mech_
anism (the liberal professions, arts and sciences, pubric
service), or even
par.dd)y withdraw from the labour matket
especially
since they possess
vaflous resources (educational, patrimonial and social).
insta
t
ltfe, a majonty of
In the first
refore petfect its legitimati ngappl._
râtus v¡ith respect
f, in the ordirrrry.o-otse
of working
subscdbe to the capitalist system
or fr'.ncial constrainrs (notably fear of unemplo¡.irnent, especiany if
they are in debt and responsible for a family), or the classical
mechanisms of
sanctions and rewards (money, various benefits, career ambitions,
etc.), it is
plausible to reckon that the exigencies of justification
are particulatþ deveroped in periods like the present. such periods are characterizeð,
by strong
numerical grovth in the category, with the arnvarinfrms
of numeÍous young
cadres ftom the education system, whose motivation
is weak and who are in
search of normative incentives;36 and, on the other hand,
by ptofound developments compelling experienced cadres to rgoaín- something
that is easier if
they can give meaning to the changes of direction imposed
ipon them, and
experience them as freely undertaken.
Being simultaneously v/âge-earners and spokesmen for capitarism,
particularþ with respect to the other members oi fir-r, ,odru
or, ,..trrrrt
because
of
^tL,
their position' privileged targets of criticism especiaily from
their subordinates - and arc themselves often inclined to lend it an attentive
ear. They
cannot make do with the material benefits granted them, and
must also have
aîgumeflts to justifi their position and, more generaily, the
selection pfocedutes from which they emerged, or which they themselves
employ. one of
the consúaints on their justification is the preservation of .uàriy
tolera^
ble distance betv¡een their own condition and that of the workers
whom they
have to m^n^ge. (rhis was demonstrated, for exampre, at the
turn of the 1970s
of a number of young engine ers fromthegrondes dcoles,trained
to supervise unskiiled
and semi-skilled workers who were assþed highly tepetitive ìasks
and subject
to harsh f^ctoty discipline.)
by the reluctance
to whom they are addressed. In othet woÏds, they
þørchase, to'sensitiq,e'those
mofal exPefience of daily life and suggest
people's
with
must both coincide
models of action they can grasp. \7e shall see how management discoufse'
which aims to be formal and historical, general and local, which mixes genetal
pfecepts with paradigmatic examples, today constitutes ù:Ie forrn par excellence
in which the spirit of capitalism is incorporated and received'
This discourse is first and fofemost addressed to cadres,whose supPott fof
ln
a more permissive fashion rhan eadter generadons,
The justifications of capitalism that interest us here âre thus not so much
those refetred to above, which capitalists or academic economists
might elab_
orate for external consumpdon, particulady in the political wodd,
but"fìrst and
foremost those address ed to cadre¡ and engineers. Now, if they arcto
be effec-
tive, the justifications in terms of the common good that they require
must
be based on Iocahzed cnteiø. Their judgements tefer to the fum th.y
*ork
for and the extent to which the decisions taken in irs name are defe.rsible
,s
tegards their consequences in the first instance, for the common
-
good
of
Ió
THE NEW SPIRI
I
()I- LAPI IALI>I'I
uErrE^AL
the wage-earners it employs, and then for the cofnmon good
of the geograph-
it forms patt of. Unlike libetal dogmas, these
to altetation, because they must coniugate
ate
subiect
Iocahzeð, iustifications
justice
with practices bound up with historof
concefns formulated in terms
ical states of capitalism, and the specific ways of making profìt in any particular
period. They must at one and the same time stimulate an inclination to act
ic¡I
and political community
ãnd pronide assuÍance that the actions thus perfotmed are motaily acceptabie.
Atany moment in time, the spirit of capitalism is thus exPfessed in a certainty
imparted to cadrc¡ about the 'dght' actions to be performed to make a ptofi.t,
and the legitimacy of these actions.
over and above the iustifications in terms of the common good they need
in order to tespond to criticism and explain themselves to othets, as \Teberian
entfepreneufs cadres, and especially young cadres, require personal reasons for
commitment. To make commitrnent to it wotthwhjle, to be ^ttr^cíve, capitalism must be capable of being presented to them in the form of activities which,
, can be chatactenzeð as 'stimulatdiffetentways in diffetent periods,
and room for freedom of action.
this expectation of aøtononjt
latet,
cleatly
mofe
Howevet, as we shall see
to positions that allow them to Preserve the same privileges'
In terms that vary greatly historicall¡i, the spirit of capitalism peculiat to
each age must thus supply fesoufces to assuage the anxiety ptovoked by the
following three questions:
.
How is committed engagement in the processes
.
of enthusiasm, even for those vrho will not necessarily be the main benemade?
fìciaties of the profìts tha;t
^re
in the capitalist universe be assured of
involved
those
can
To what extent
.
â
minimum
of
of accumulatto¡ a soufce
security fot themselves and their chìIdren?
How czn pzrttcipation in capitalist firms be fustified in terms of the
common good, and how, confronted with accusations of ìniustice, can the
way that it is conducted and manageà be defended?
The different historical states of the spirit of capitalism
curtently emerging, to v¡trich
The changes in the spirit of capitalism thzLt
^re
this book is devoted, âfe certâinly not the first. over and above the kind of
archaeolog1cal teconstruction to be found in Webet's v¡ork of t}re ethos rhat
I l\Jl\
II
inspfued the original câpitalism, we possess at least two stylized or qpologrcal
descriptions of the spirit of capitalism. F,ach of them defines the different
components identified above and indicates, for its time, whar an inspiring
advenhrre capitalism could represent: how
it seemed to be the bearer of solid
foundations for building the future, and of responses to expectations of a just
society. It is these different combinations of autonom¡ security and the
common good that we shall now evoke very schematically.
on a broader scale, for more numerous social categories the capitalist
adventure is embodied in the pdmarily spatial or geographical liberation made
tion.
of the means of communication and wagelabour, v¡hich allow the young to emancipate themselves from locai
communities, from being enslaved to the land and rooted in the familp to
escape the village, the ghetto, and traditional forms of personal dependence.
In teturn, the fìgure of the bourgeois and bourgeois morality afford elements
possible by the development
of
;ä
access
il\ I t\\JLlU\,
ombining no
;:,î3;tï:
prediction) with traditional domestic predispositions: rhe imporrance attached
to the famil¡ lineage, inheritance, the chastity of daughters in order to avoid
misalliances and the squandering of capital; the familiai or patiatchai narwe
of teiations with employees3e - what will subsequentiy be denounced as paternalism - whose forms of subordination remained rargery personal in firms
that were generally small in size; the role accorded charrt:¡ in relieving the sufferings of the poor.a. As for justifications aspiring to greater general,ity and
referting to constructions of the common good, they owed less to economic
liberaüsm, the market,al or scientific economics, whose diffusion temained
fairly Jimited, than to a belief in ptogress, the future, science, technorogy, and
the benefits of industry. A vulgar utilitarianism was employed to justify the
sacrifices required by the market in pursuit of progress. precisely this amalgam
of very different, even incompatible propensities and varues thirst for profit
andmotalism,avariceandchaÅqr,scientism andfamtltalttaditionalism-which
is at the root of the bourgeois self-division François Furet refers to,a2 vnd,eliay
whatwas to be most unanimously and endutingly denounced in the bourgeois
spirit its hypoctisy.
A second characteizatton of the spirit of capitalism v¡âs most fully developed between the 1930s and the 1960s. Here, the emphasis is less on the
individual entrepreneur than on the orgarization. cented on the development at the beginning of the trventieth century of the Iatge, cenuahzed and
I8
uEt\ENAL
THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM
bureaucratized industial fìtm, mesmerized by its gigantic size, its heroic figute
is the manager.a3 Unlike the shareholdet seeking to increase tr-is petsonal
,üieaith, he is preoccupied by the desire endlessly to exPând the size of the
firm he is responsible for, in ofdef to develop mass ptoduction, based on
economies of scale, product standarðizatton, the talorrøJ' otgø;rriza;lúorr of
wofk, ând new techniques fof expanding markets (marketìng). Particularþ
'exciting' for young graduates wefe the opportunities offered by organizations
for attaining positions of Po'ù/er ftom wh-ich one couid change the wodd and,
fot alatge møjoriq,liberation ftom need, the fulfilment of desires thanks to
mâss production and its cotollary: mâss collsumptlon.
In this version, the secutity dimension wâs suppüed by a fairh in rationaliry and long-tefm planning - the priority task for managefs - and, above all,
by the very gigantism of the organiz t)ons,which constituted protective envifonments not only offering câfeef Pîospects, but also taking c fe of eveÎydây
life (subsidized accommodation, holiday camps, training bodies), modelled on
the army (^ qp. of orgatizaton of which IBM represented the paradigm in
the 1950s and 1960s).
As for the refefence to â common good, it was provided in coming to terms
not only with an ideal of industrial order embodied by engineers - belief in
progress, hope invested in science and technologY, Ploductivity and efficiency
with an
- that was even mofe fesonant than in the eatlier version; but also
instion
fell
ideal which might be described âs civic in the sense that the stress
tutional solidariry the socialization of pfoduction, distribution and
consumption, and collabotation between lârge fìrms and the state in pursuit
of social justice. The existence of salaried managefs and the development of
categories of technicians, 'ofganizers'; the constfuction in France of the
.^,.gory of
cadres;aa
the increase in the numbef
of ownefs constituted
by legal
entities rather than âctual Pefsons; of the limits introduced into o¡¡inelshiP of
frms with, in particular, the development of tights fot wage-earners ând the
existence of buteaucratic tules restdctìng employers' pfefogatives as fegafds
wofkfofce manâgemeflt these developments wefe intetpreted as so many
-
indices
of a profound
stfuggle,
r.p^r^tion between the ownership
"
firm, which
^ppe
hurr.
change in capitalism, mafked by an attenuation
of
of
capital and control
class
of
the
tl:re 'technostructute"as and as signs of the
\ü/e shall
t^nceof a new câpitalism, propelled by â sPirit of social justice.
.was tfaflsferted
to
fr.qrr.rt occasion to fetufn to the specificities of this 'second' spifit of
capitalism.
Changes in the spirit of capitalism thus proceed in tandem with ptofound
alteratioãs in the living and working conditions, and the expectations - whether
for themselves or fot their chjldren - of wofkers, who play a role in the Pfocess
of capitalist accumulation in firms, without being its privileged beneficiaries'
Today, the security supplied by academic qualifications has diminished, retire-
ment pensions are under threat, and careers afe no longer guaranteed. The
ill I NVUUL
I
tVt\
mobi-Iizing power of the 'second spirit' is in question, whiie the forms
mulation have once again been profoundly úansformed.
of
t'
accu-
If our analysis is accepted, one ptobable ideological trend in the current
situation can be identified, since it is based upon the system's capaciq, for
survival and restricted to adjustments within the framework of the capitaüst
tegime - from which, following the end of the communist illusion, no feasible
exits exist for now - not even in theory. It is the formation in the developed
counfties of a spirit of capitalism that is more capable of attracting support
(and hence also more directed towards justice and social well-being), with a
view to seeking to regalvanize workers and, at a minimum, the middie class.
The 'frst' spirit of capitalism - associated, as vre have seen, with the fìgute
of
the bourgeois
of
-
was in tune with the essentially fumtltal fotms
of
capital-
when gigantic size was very mely sought after. Owners and
^î ^ge
employers were personâlly known to their employees; the fate and life of the
firm were closely associated with those of a family. As for the 'second' spirit,
which was orgatized around the central figure of the di¡ector (or salaried
manager) and cadres, it was bound up with a capitaìism of large frms, aìready
sufficiently imposing for bureaucraizaaon and the use of an abundant,
increasingly academically qualihed managenal staff to be a cenftal element.
But only some of them (a minodry) may be charactetized as multinationals.
Shareholding became more impersonal, with numerous firms finding themselves detached f¡om the name and destiny of a particulat famlly. The 'third'
spirit, in its turn, will have to be isomorphic with a 'giobalized' capitalism
ism
employing new technoÌogies, to cite only the two aspects most frequendy mentioned as characteristic of capitalism today.
The way out of the ideological crisis that set in during the second half of
the 1930s, u¡ith the loss of momenftrm of the frst spirit, could not have been
ptedicted. The same is true of the crisis we are currentþ experiencing. The
need to restore meaning to the accumulaúon ptocess, and combine it with the
requirements of social justice, comes up in particular against the tension
between the collective interest of capitalists as a class and their particular interests as atomized operators competing in a market.a6 No market operâtor ¡¡/ants
to be the fust to offer a 'good life'to those he hkes, since bjs production costs
would thereby be incteased, and he would be at a disadvantage in the competition pitting him against his peers. On the other hand, the capitalist class as
a whole has an interest - especially whete cadres are concerfled - in overall
measures that make it possible to retain the commitrnent of those on whom
profit cteation depends. 'S7e may thus reckon that the formation of a third
spitit of capitalism, and its embodiment in various mechanisms, will depend
largeiy upon the interest multinationals, which are currently dominant, have
in the preservation of apeacefulzone ât the centre of the wodd system, maintained as a breeding ground for cadres, whete the latter can develop, raise
chììdren, and live in security.
70
IHE NtvV sl',lKl I (Jr Ll\rl lALl)l-l
\JErrtrf\AL
The origin of the justifications incorporated into the spirit of capitalism
have mentioned how important it is for capitalism to be able to rely on a
justificatory
âttuned to the concrete forms taken by c pit^l accumu^pp^t^tos
that the spitit of capitalism
'\Xl'e
lation in a given period, which indicates
incorporates schemas other than those inherited ftom economic theory. These
schemâs, vrhìle they
pefmit defence of the principle
of
accumulation in
absttaction from all histodcal specificity,aT lack sufficient mobilizing powet.
But capitalism canflot find any fesoufces within itself wrth which to iustify
grounds for commitment and, in particular, to formulate arguments directed
towafds a demand for justice. In fact, capitalism is doubtless the sole - of ^t
Ieast the main-historical fotmorgarizingcollective ptactices to be completely
detached from the mofal sphefe, in the sense that it identifies its purpose in
itself (capital accumulation as an end in itselfl and not by feference, not simply
to â common good, but even to the intefests of a collective entity such as a
people, a state, or â social class. Justification of câPitalism thus assumes refetence to coltstfuctions of a different order, whence derive fequifements that
are quite distinct from those imposed by the pursuit of profìt.
To maintain its powets of atttactton, caPitâlism thetefore has to dtaw upon
resorúces external to it, beliefs which, at a $ven moment in time, Possess considetable powefs of persuasion, striking ideologies, even when they âfe hostile
to it, inscribed in the cultural context in which it is developing. The spitit sustaining the accumulâtion pfocess at a given point in history is thus imbued with
culturai pfoducts that are contemPofâneous v¡ith it and which, for the most
p^ft,h^vebeen generated to quite different ends than iustifying capitalism.4s
Faced with a demand for justification, caPitalism mobilizes 'already-existìng'
things whose legitimacy is guafanteed, to which it is going to glve a new twist
by combining them with the exigency of capital accumulation. Accordingly,
it is pointless to search for a clear sepafation between impure ideological
coflstfucts, intended to sefve capitalist âccumulation, and pufe, uttefly uncompromised ideas, which v/ould make it possibie to ctäctze it. Ftequently, the
same parâdigms find themselves engaged in condemnation and iustifìcatio:l
of what is condemned.
We can compafe the ptocess whereby ideas that were initiaily alien - even
hostile - to capitalism wefe incofPorated into it with the process of accultutation descdbed by Dumont, when he shows how the domina¡t modern ideology
of individualism was diffused by fotging comPromises with pre-eisting
cultures. Ftom the encoufitef and clash between two Sets of ideas-values' fie\¡/
fepfesentâtions are born ThzLt àfe a'a sort of synthesis, which may be more
radtcalof less so, a soft of alloy of the ¡¡¡o kinds of ideas and values, the ones
and autochthofious, the othets being botrowed
ftom the predominant individualistic configuration'. One remafkâble effect of
this acculturaúon is that 'the individualistic representations do not by any means
being
of holistic inspiration,
lt\ I ñ\Ju\J\-
I
t\Jt\
Lt
get diluted or become less pungent as they enter into those combinations. Quite
to the contrâry, they become mote adaptable and even stronger t}rough these
associations v¡ith their contrâries.'4e If \¡ie transpose this analysis to the study
of capitalism (whose princþle of accumulation goes hand in glove with rndividualistic modernity), we shall see how the spirit that drives it possesses r$io
aspects, one 'turned inside', as Dumont puts it that is to say, in this context,
tutned to\¡iards dre accumulation process, which is legitimated and the othet
turned towatds the ideologies with which it is imbued, which furnish it with
precisely what capitalism lacks: reasons for participating in the accumulation
process that ate rooted in quotidian reahq, and attuned to the values and
concerûs of those who need to be actively involved.so
In Dumont's analysis, the members of a holistic culture confronted with an
individualistic culture find themselves under challenge, and feel the need to
defend themselves, justify themselves, in dre face of what seems to them like
a critique and a challenge to their identity. In other Íespects, however, they can
be attracted by the new values, and the prospects of individual liberation
and equaìity afforded by these values. Out of this process of atrracriontesistance-search fot self-justificatiofì, new compromise representations are
generated.
The same obsetvations may be made ¿bout the spirit of capitalism. It is
ttansfotmed to respond to the need fot justification by people who ate engaged
in the capitalist accumulation process at a given momerìt, but whose values
and tepresentations, inherited as a culturùlegacy,are still associated with eadier
fotms of accumulation rÃrith traditional society in the case of the birth of
-
the 'first spirit', or u.ith a previous spirit in the case of the transition to subsequent spirits of capitalism. What ìs at stake is making the new forms of
accumulation attractive to them (the exciting dimension of any spirit), whìle
taking account of their need to fustify themselves (by teþing on refetence to
a common good), and erecting defences against those features of the new capitalist mechanisms that they perceive as threatening the survival of theit social
identity (the security dimension).
In many respects, the 'second spirit' of capitalism, constructed at the same
time as the supremacy of the large industrial îttm became established, has
charactedstics that would have been disowned by neither communism nor
fascism, which were nevettheless the most powerful movements critical of
capitalism ât the time when this 'second spirit' began to be instituted.sl
Economic dirigisme, a common aspiration, wâs to be implemented by the
welfare state and its planmng bodies. Mechanisms for consistent contol of
the allocation of value added benveen capital and labour were put in place
with national accounting,s2 which is consistent with Marxist analyses. As
for the hierarchical modøs operaødi in force in Large, planned flrms, ir would
long tetain the stamp of a compromise with traditional domestic values something that could only serve to reassure taditionalist reaction. Respect and
22 THE NEVV sl',lKl I (Jr LArl lALl)l-l
deference in retutn for welfare and assistânce formed part of the hieratchicai
contfact in its traditionai forms - much mofe so than wages in exchange for
work, which encapsulates the libetal, ,\ng1o-American mannef of conceiving
the employment reiation. In this $/ay, the principle of boundless accumulation found some poiftts of convergence with its enemies, and the resulting
compfomise guaranteed câpitalism its survival by offering hesitant popuiations
the oppottunity to participate in
it mote enthusiastically.
Cities as normative supports for constructing iustifications
to an impeÍative of iustification, social affângetend to incofpofate teference to a kind of very genetâi convention
Inasmuch as they are subject
ments
directed towafds a common good, and ctaiming universal validity, v¡h-ich has
modelled on the concept of the ciry.s3 Capitalism is no exception to this
rule. What v¡e have called the spirit of capitaüsm necessafily cofìtains feference
to such conventions, at least in those of its dimensions that âfe directed towatds
justice. In other words, consideted from a ptagrnaic point of view, the spirit
of capitalism assumes fefelence to nvo different logical levels. The frst contains
an ageût capable of actions conducive to ptofit cfeation, whereas the second
witJ:r gte ter degree of reflexivity, who judges the
contains
^
^fl ^gerÍequipped
actions of the first in the name of universal principles. These two agents obviously denote the same actof, descfibed as capable of engaging in opetations of
been
increasing generality.
l7ithout this competence, it would in fact be rmpossible
fol actors to undefstând the critiques directed ât capitâlism in so far as it is
profit-odentated, or to construct iustifications to foil such critiques.
In view of the central ch^r^ctet of the concept of the city here, we afe no\I/
going to go back ovef the r¡/ofk v/hefe the model of cities v/as pfesented. The
concept of the city is ofientâted towâfds the question of iustice. It is intended
to be modelled on the kind of operations that actofs eng ge in during disputes
with one anothef, when they are faced with a demand for justification. This
demand for justification is inextticably linked to the possibility of critique. The
to answef it \Á/hen it
iustifìcation is necessary to back up the critique, or
cofldemns the unjust characteî of some specifìc situation.
To characterize what is meant by iustice here, and in order to give ourselves
the opportunity to compâfe seemingly very diffetent disputes with one and
the same notion, we shall say that disputes ovef iustice always have as theif
object the ranking of statøs in a situation.
To explain v/hat we understand by status, iet us take a tdvial examPle - fof
instance, the problem of distributing the food between those who ate pfesent
at a meal. The issue of the order in which the dish is offered to guests is unavoidable, and has to be settled publicþ Unless the significance of this sequence is
neutfaLized by the introduction of a tule adiustìng the tempofal ofdef to a spatial
order (everyone serves themselves in turn, 'without any fuss'), the temporaL
\JEI\EI\AL
ll\ I lf.\JLJtJ\- I l\,rl\
ZJ
sequence lends itself to being interpreted as an order of precedence according to the comparative status of the persons, as in serving the eldedy Frst and
chjldren last. But observance of this order can present tricky problems, and
give dse to disputes when several different princþles of ranking order are in
If the sequence is to run smoothbr) the guests must thetefore be
in agreement about the comparative status of people as disclosed by the otder
they are served in.5a Yet this agreement on staflrs presupposes a more fundaopposition.
mental agreement on aPrinnple of eqaiualenæ, by recourse to which the starus of
those present can be established. Even if the princþle of equivalence is not
explicitly mentioned, it must be sufficiendy clear and present in everyone's mind
for the episode to unfold nâturally. These princþies of equivalence ate designated by rhe tetrn principes supénears clmmt/ns, borrowed from Rousseau.
These princþles of status cânnot emerge from a iocal, conting ent
^rr^flgement. Their legitimacy depends upon their robustness that is to say,
their
capacity for validity
i¡ ar a priori unlimited
number
of particular situations,
bringrng together beings with the most varied qualities. That is why the pnnciples of equivalence that have z clatm to validity in a society ât a given point
in time
otientated, in some sense by their very structure, to.wards univer^re
sai validity.
If, at a given point in time, a multiplicity of legitimate forms of status exists,
theit number is nevertheless not unlirnited. Six logics of justihcation, six
'cities', have been identified in contemporary society. To define them, the wotk
'we are basrng outselves on here shutded between two qapes of sources. On
the one hand, there were empirical data collected by fieldwork on conflicrs
and disputes; supplying a corpus of arguments and situational mechanisms,
this gurded intuition towârds the kind of fustifications often used in evetyday
[fe. On the other hand, there were constructions, systematically developed in
political phlosophy, which possess a high level of logical coherence; this allows
them to be put to profitable use in the task of modelling shated competence.s5
In the intþirational cì\t, high status pettains to the saint who achieves a state
of grace, or the artist who receives inspiration. It reveals itself in the clean
body prepared by ascesis, whose inspired manifestations (hoìiness, creativiry
artistic sense, authenticity, etc.) constitute the privileged form of expression.
In the domesîic ciry, fugh status depends upon people's seniority in a chain of
personal dependencies. In a system of subordination established on a domestic
model, the political bond bet'øeen beings is conceived
genera)ization of
^s ^
the generational link, combining ttadition and proximity. The 'great man' is
the elder, the ancestot, the father, to whom respect and fidelity are due, and
who vouchsafes protection and support. In the reputatiorcal ciu, high sta;t:us
depends exclusively on the opinion of others - that is to sây, on the number
of people who confer theit trust and esteem. The'great man' 'ln the ciuìc ølt
is the representative of a collective whose general will he expresses. In the
commercial cifl, the'gre t m^n' is he who enriches himseif by suppþing highly
24
THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPÍ-IALI5M
\JEI\Ef\ÄL
in a competitive market, by
successfully passing the
market test. Ir-the indøstrial cifl,lttgh status is based upon efficiency, and defines
a scale of professional abilities.
\Vhen it refets to the common good, the second spirit of capitalism invokes
]ustitcations that test upon â comptomise between the industial city and the
civic city (and, secondarily, the domestic city), whereas the frst spirit was
desfuabie commodities
tooted in a compromise between domest-ic and commercial justifications'
Along sirnilar lines, we shall have to identify the conventions with a universal vocation and the modes of tefetence to the common good assumed by
third spirit of capita-lism, which is in the ptocess of being formed. As we
shall see, however, capitalism's new justificatory discoutses are only impetfectly conveyed by the six cities that have been identifred. In otder to describe
the 'tesidue', which cannot be interpteted in the language of the six existing
cities, we have been led to model a seventh cit¡i, making it possible to cfeate
equivalences and iustilt positions of comparative status in a network wodd.
the
In contrast to the work mentioned above, howevet, to systemâtize the arguments used we have relied not on a maior text of political plulosophy,s6 but
on a corpus of management texts from the 1990s - the fact that they are
intended fot cadres makes them an especiaüy obvious recePtacle for the new
concfete proposais being
- and on an analysis of various rü/e
are i¡ fact contemPoin
Ftance.
sociai
advanced today to improve
iustice
spirit
of capitalism
with an intense effort, in which the social sciences ate actively
patticipating, to feconstfuct a model of society. Whjle it wânts to be realistic
- that is to sây, âttuned to people's expetience of the social wofld they ate
thrust into, and compatible with a certain number of commonplaces rightly
or wrongly regarded as self-evident (firms require flexibiJit¡ the system of
faneous
conüibutofy pension schemes canflot sutvive for much longer, the unempioyment of the unskilled is here to stay, etc.) - this model possesses a nofmative
character in the sense that it is directed towards gte ter iustice.
\)7e shall therefore have to demonstrate how the new spirit of capitalism
\ü/e shal also have to
arises on hithetto unused pdncþles of equivalence.
indicate the process of cultutal assimilation of themes and consttucts already
pfesent in the ideologicai environment, deriving in parucular ftom the critical
discourses addressed to capitalism, through v¡hich this spirit was stfuctufed
and progressively became more firmly entrenched, to the point of forming a
novel ideological configuration.
The spirit of capitalism legitimates and constrains
the accumulation Process
V/e have seen how capitalism is obliged, if
people who are indispensable to the pursuit
it is to succeed in engaging the
of accumulation, to incorpotate
a spirit that can ptovide atttactive, exciting life ptospects, whiie supplying
III
I AVUUL
I IVI\
L¿
of security and moral reâsons for people to do what they do. And
this composite amaþam of grounds and reasons turns out to be vatiable over
time, depending upon the expectations of those who must be mobilized and
guarantees
the hopes they have grown up with, as well as the forms taken by accumulation in different petiods. The spirit of capitalism must meet a demand for
self-justification, particulady in ordet to resist anti-capitalist critique; and this
involves reference to conventions of genetal validity as to what is iust or uniust.
This is an appropitate moment in out analysis to make it cleat that the spirit
of capitalism, fat from simply occupying the position of a 'dash of spirit', a
spiritualist'point of honour', ot a'superstructute'-
as is assumed
by a Marxist
approach to ideology - plays a key role in the capitalist process, which it serves
by restraining that process. In fact, the justifications that make it possible to
mobilize the relevant parties fettet accumulation. If the justifications proffeted are taken seriousl¡ not all profit is legitimate, not all entichment is just,
not all accumulation, even substantial and rapid accumulation, is licit. Max
I7eber aheady endeavouted to show how capitalism, thus fettered, was cleatþ
distinguished from a passion for gold indulged in untesttainedl¡ and that one
of its specific characteristics was precisely the rational moderation of this
impulse.sT
The internaüzation of a certain spirit of capitalism by actors thus places
constrâints on accumulation processes that are not pureìy fotmal, conferring
a specific framewotk on them. In this way, the spirit of capitalism simultaneousiy furnishes a justification of capitalism (in opposition to challenges that
are intended to be tadical) ar'd a crittcal fulcrum making it possible to condemn
the disctepancy between the conctete forms of accumulation and normative
conceptions of the social otder,
If it is to be taken seriously in the light of the numerous critiques directed
at capitalism, justification of the forms in which capitalism has operated historically must equally be subject to reality tests. To v¡ithstand such tests, the
justifìcation of capitalism must be able to lean upon various mechanisms coilections of objects, tules and conventions - of which law might be an
expression at the national level, and which, ûot being limtted to framing the
pursuit of profit, âre orientated towards justice. Thus, the second spirit of capitalism was insepatabiy bound up with mechanisms of career manìagement in
large fums, the establishment of contributoty pension schemes, and the extension to
eveÍ gteàter number of situations of the legal fotm of the
^n
wageJabout contt ct, so that workers enioyed the benefits accruing to this
condition.s8 In the absence of these mechanisms, no one could genuinely have
believed in the promises of tire second spirit.
The constraints placed on capitalism by the spitit of capitalism thus operate
in two ways. On the one hand, the internalization of iustificat-ions by capitaüst
actors inttoduces the possibility of self-criticism, and favours the self-censure
and self-elimination of incompatible ptactices within the accumulation
LV
r r rL t\Lrv
process itself.
constraining,
Jt il\t I vt
on
9^t
I t^LtJt
I
the other hand, the establishment
\JEI\trKl\L II\ IK(JUUL IIUI\
of mechanisms thar
but are the only things that cønj¡¡rpan credibility to the spiïir
are
of
capìtalism, makes it possible to establish various reality tests, and thereby to
provide tangible evidence in response to condemnations.
We shall give two examples, especially apt for our purposes, of the way rhat
tefetence to demands expressed in terms of the common good (to a ciry
according to the model we employ) is able ro constrain the accumulation
process. rn a commercial ci4t, frst of all, profit is va1id, and the order dedved
from the conftontation between different persons pursuing ptofit is
fust, onl1,
if the market test meets strict conditions of equality of opportuniry such that
attributed to merit - that is to say, in this instance, the ability
the opportunities offered by the market and the attractions of the
goods and services offered
- and not to a sheer balance of power. Foremost
among these constraints we may cite everything that ensures competition
for example, the absence of a dominant position, of prior arrângements ând
success can be
to
seize
cattels, or transparency
of infotmation, and the availability of capital priot to
the test that is not grossiy unequal (which would, for example, justify inheritance tax). It is thetefore only under very strict conditions that the mârket test
may be deemed legitimate. Yet not only does observance of these conditions
not make any specifìc conüibution to profit creation; it can put a brake on it.
ìle
could say the same about the way refetence to an indastrial ciry rnakes it
possible to justify capitalist forms of production by placing on them con-
straints which
do not derive from the immediate requirements of
for example, like planning of a more or less long-
accumulation; constraints,
tetm character, putting resources by for the future, and measures aimed at
reducing risks or avoiding waste.
In taking the effects of the justification of capitalism by reference to a
common good seriousl¡ we distance ourselves both from critical approaches
for which only capitalism's tendency to unlimited accumulation at any price is
teal, and the sole function of ideologres is to conceal the reality of all-powerful
economic relations of force; and from apologetic approaches which, confusing notmative supports and reùtq, þore the imperatives of profit and
accumulation, and place the demands for
iustice faced by capítalism at its heart.
These two positions are not un¡elated to the ambiguity of the term .legit-
with its two derivatives: Iegitimation and legitimacy. In the first case,
legitimation is turned into a mere operation of retrospective concealment,
v¡hich must be unmasked in order to artive at the redtry. In the second, the
knaTe',
communicative relevance of atguments and the legal rþour of ptocedures are
latched on to, but without questioning the conditions of performance of the
reality tests to which great men - that is, in a capitalist wodd, primariþ the
rich - owe their status, when such status is deemed legitimate. As we define
it, the notion of the spirit of capitalism makes it possible to surmount an
opposition that h¿s dominated a considerable amount of the sociology and
I'
philosophy of the last thirty years, at least when it comes to works ât the intersection of the social and the poJitical the opposition berw-een theories, often
Nietzscheo-Marxist in inspiration, which see in society only vioience, relations
of force, expioitation,
domination and conflicts of interest;se and theoties,
inspired instead by contractualist poìitical philosophies, which have emphasized fotms of democratic debate and the conditions of sociai justice.60 In
works deriving from the fìrst current, the descrþtion of the wodd seems too
grim to be true: such a wodd would not be habitable fot very long.'But in
works telated to the second, the social worid is, it must be confessed, a üttle
too ïosy to be credible. The frst theoretical orientation ftequently deals with
capitarism, but without acknowledging
notma;tive dimension to it. The
^îy
second takes account of the moral tequirements that stem from a legitimate
otdet, yet, underestimating the importance of interesrs and relations of force,
tends to ignore the specificity of capitalism, whose contours are blurred by
virtue of the fact that they are gtounded in the intricate conventions on which
social order always rests.
cAPtTALtSM AND tTS CR|T|QUES
The notion of the spirit of capitalism equally allows us to combine in one and
the same dynamic the deveiopment of capitalism and the critiques that have
been made of it. In fact, in our construction we are going to assþ cdtique
the role of a motor in changes in the spirit of capitalism.
If capitalism cannot do without an orientation tovøards the common good,
whence it derives reasofl.s for commited engagement, its lack of concern fot
nofms means that the spirit of capitalism cannot be generated exciusively out
of its own tesources. As a result, ìt needs its enemies, people whom it outrages
and who are opposed to it, to find the moral supports it lacks and to incorporate mechanisms of justice whose relevance it would otherw-ise have no
feason to acknowledge. The capitalist system has proved infinitely mote robust
than its detractors - Marx at their head - thought. But this is also because it
has discovered routes to its survival in ctitiques of it. For example, did not
the new capitalist otder derived ftom the Second V/odd \Vat shate with fascism
and communism the features of assigning great importance to the state, and
a certain economic dirigisne? It is probably this surprisingcapacity for survival
by absorbing patt ol the critique that has helped to disarm anti-capitalist
forces. The paradoxical consequence is that in periods when capitalism seems
triumphant - as is the case today - it displays a fraglhty thât emerges precisely
when reai competitors have disappeared.
Moreover, the very concept of critique escapes theoretical polarzatton
between intetpretations in terms of relations of force and of legitimate relations. In effect, the idea of critique is meaningful oniy when there is a
difference between a desirable and an actual state of affars. To grve critique
¿ö
rñÈ t\Evv )rtKt I 9r LArt tl\LtJt'l
uEl\E^AL
the piace that falls to it in the social wodd, we must stop reducing jusúce to
force, or allowing ourselves to be blinded by the existence of justice to the
point whete we þore relations of force. To be valid, critique musr be capable
of justifyingitself - that is to say, clarify'tngrhe normarive supports that ground
it - especially when it is confronted with the justifications that those who are
subject to critique supply fot their action. Hence it continues to refer to justice,
fot if justice is a delusion, what is the point of cnttcizing?ó1 On the other hand,
however, critique ptesents a wodd in which the requirement of justice is incessantly contravened. It unmasks the hypoctisy of motal pretensions tJrat
conceal the reality of relations of force, exploitation and domination.
The effects of critique on the spirit of capitalism
The potential impact
least three sorts.
First
of al)., it
of cdtique on the spirit of capitalism
seems to be
can delegitinate preuioas spirits and strip theru of tbeir
of
at
efectiueness.
Thus, Daniel BelI argues that American capitalism encountered mafor difficulties at the end of the 1960s, as a result of a growing tension between ways
of telating to work derived from the Protestant asceticism it continued to rely
on, and the blossoming of a mode of existence, based on immediate consumer
pleasute stimulated by credit and mass production, which wage-eatners in capitalist firms v/ere encouraged to adopt in their private lives.62 According to this
analysis, the materialistic hedonism of the consumer society clashed head-on
with - that is, cnttcized - the values of toil and saving that wete supposed, at
leastimplicitl¡ to supportJife atwork, and thus undermined modes of engage-
ment associated with the then dominant spirit of capitalism, which
consequently found itself panally delegitimated. There ensued a significant
demobilization of wage-eârners as a result of altered expectations and
aspirations,
A second effect of critique is that, in opposing the capitalist process, it
compels its spokesmen to justifir that process in terms of the common good.
And the mote vioient and convincing the critique for a large number of people,
the mote the justifications advanced in response will have to be combined
with teliable mechanisms tha;t goar^rltee a positiue inprouement in terms of jøstiæ.
If those who speak for the social movements make do, in response to their
demands, with superficial declarattons that are not followed by concrete
actions (empty words, as they say); if the expression of fi¡er feelings suffices
to calm indignation, then there is no reason for imptoving the mechanisms
that are supposed to render capitalist accumulation mote in keeping with the
common good. And when capitalism is obliged to respond positively to the
points raised by critique, to try to placate it and maintain the suppott of its
troops, who are in danger of listening to the denunciations, b1 the same gesture
it incorþorates sorze of the ualaes in who¡e name it was criticiTed. The dynamic impact
il\ I ñVUUU
r
tvtì
L'
of critique on the spirit of capitalism here takes the form of a strengthening
of the justifications and associated mechanisms which, whjle it does not challenge the principle of accumulation itself, or the need for profìts, partially
satisfies the critique and integrates into capitalism consúaints that correspond
to the points of most concerrl to its detractors. The price paid by critique for
being listened to, at least in part, is to see some of the values it had mobìlized
to oppose the form taken by the accumulation process being placed at the
setvice of accumulation, in accoràance with the process of cultural assimj-lation referred to above.
A final potential impact of cdtique rests upon a much less optimistic analysis
of the reactions of capitalism. N7e may suppose that, in certain conditions, it
can elude the reqøirement of strengthening the mechanisms of jastiæ by making itseìf
more difficult to decipher, by 'clouding the issue'. According to th-is scenario,
the tesponse to critique leads not to the establishment of more iust mechanisms but to a change in the modes of profit creation, such that the wodd is
momentarily disrupted with respect to previous referents, and in a state that is
exttemely difficult to decipher. Faced with neu/ arrangements vr'hose emergence
v/âs not anticþated, and of which it is difficult to say whether they are more
or less favourable to wage-earrìers than the earlier social mechanisms, critique
finds itself disarmed fot a time. The old v¡odd it condemned has disappeated,
but people do not know what to make of the new one. Flere critique acts âs a
spur hastening the ftansformation of modes of production, which then enter
into tension with the expectations of wage-earners shaped on the basis of
ptevious processes. This calls for an ideological reconstuction to demonstrate
that the world of vrork does indeed still possess a'rneating'.
\Jüe shall have occasion to invoke these three types of effects to account
for the ttansformations in the spirit of capitalism over the last thirty years.
The model of change we shall employ rests upon the interpiay between
three terms. The first represents critique, anð. can be parametrized according
to what it denounces (the objects of denunciation being, as we shall see, pretty
vatious in the case of capitalism) and its vigour. The second cotresponds to
capitalism inasmuch as it is characteitzed by the mechanisms for organtzing
v/ork, and ways of making a ptofit associated with it, at a given period. The
third likewise denotes capitalism, but this time in so far as it integrates mechanisms intended to maintain a tolerable space benveen the means employed
to generate profits (second term) and demands for justice reþing on conventions u¡hose legitimacy is acknowledged. Each of the poles of this three-term
opposition can develop: critique can change its object, decrease or increase in
virulence; capitalism can maintain or change its mechanisms of accumulation;
it can also improve them in the rlirection of greater iustice, ot dismantle the
guarantees that have hitherto been offeted.
A cdtique that is exhausted or defeated, or loses its vigout, allows capitalism to relax its mechanisms of justice and alter its production processes with
JU
ll-lE l\Evv JrtKt r \Jr \-¡\rr r¡\LrJr-l
total impunity. A ctitique that incteases in vigour and credibiÏty corrrpels capitalism to strengthen its mechanisms of justice, unless - assuming the pohtical
and technological environment permits it - this instead constitutes an incen-
tive to blur the tules of the game by capitalism transfotming itself.
Change in the mechanisms of capitalist accumulation has the effect of temporauly disarming critique. But there is also a good chance that it will lead, in
the rnedium term, to the reformulation of a new spitit of capital-ism to restore
involvement of wage-eatners, who, with these developments, have lost the
tefetence-points they ciung on to in ordet to have a hold over their work.
Equall¡r, it is not impossible fot a tra¡sformation in the rules of the capitalist
gâme to alter the expectations of wage-earnets, and theteby undermine the
mechanisms of accumulation - as in the case analysed by Bell.63
On the other hand, the establishment of mechanisms ensuring gteâter
justice placates critique when it comes to the contents of the demands
advanced hitherto. By the same token, howevet, this can also prompt it to
switch to other problems - a move that is invariably accompanied by teduced
vigilance about old points of protest, thereby opening up new opportunities
for capitalism to change the rules of the game, and entailing an erosion of the
benefits that have been obtained, leading, in the medium term, to a revival of
the
crlíque.
-A.t the heatt
of this three-sided
game, functioning as a tecording chambet,
tesonance-box, and crucible where new comptomises are fotmed, we find the
spirit of capitaLism. It is renegotiated, challenged, or even destroyed prior to
emerging anew, through ttansformation of the mechanisms geared tov/ârds
profit and justice aüke, and continuous metamorPhosis in the need for justification under fire from cdtique. Study of the spirit of capitâlism and its
evoluiion is thus an especially âpPropriate entty point into analysis of the
conjoint dynamic of capitalism and its critiques, which we have placed at the
heart of this work.
There is one notìon that will help us to articuiate the three terms of capitalism, spirit of capitaìism and critique: that of the test, w-hich, in addition,
represents an excellent vehicie fot integrating exigencies of justice and rcIations of force into the same framework without reductionism.
Tests of strength and legitimate tests
The notion
of the test
breaks with a nattowly detetminist conception of the
of structures or, in a cultutalist per-
social, whethet based on the omnipotence
spective, the domination of internalized notms. Ftom the viewpoint of action,
it puts the emphasis on the various degtees of uncertainty haunting situations
in social life.6a
For our project, the notion of the test has the advantage of allowing us
to circulate between telations of fotce and legrtlmate otders with the same
theoretical ìnstruments. The test is always a test of strength. That is to say, it
is an event during which beings, in pitting themsel.ves against one another
(think of an arm-wrestling match between two peopie, or the confrontarion
between a fishetman and the ttout that seeks to elude him), reveal what they
are capab).e of and, more profoundl¡ what they are made of. But when the
situation is subject to justificatoty constraints, and when the ptotagonists judge
that these constraints are being genuinely respected, the test of strength will
be tegaldecl as legiúmate.
ì7e shall say in the fitst instance (the test of strength) the't
conclusion
the disclosure of powet is conveyed by the determination of ^tits
a cettarn degree
of strmgilt; and in the second (the legitimate tesr), by a judgement as to the
tespective sfatu¿s of peopie. \üThereas the attribution of strength defìnes a state
of affatrs wìthout any motar implications, the attribution of a status assumes
a judgement that beats not only on the respective strength of the opposing
patties, but also on the just charactet of the otder disclosed by the test.
The ffansition from tests of strength to tests of legitimate status presupposes a social labour identifying andcharactenzing different kinds of strengrh,
which must be amenable to being distinguished and sepatared from one
ânother. In fzct, to be open to assessment from the standpoint of justice, a
test must fìrst of ali be specified, be a test of sometbing- of this or that, â competition on the running ffack or in Latjn - and not índeterrninate, open to a
confrontation between beings in any tespect whatsoever, and using aoy kind
of fotce the¡r çþ6es. (which is atguably one possible characterjzatton of
violence). If what is put to the test is not specified in advance, the test is
adjudged unsound, unreìiabie, and its outcome is open to chaüenge. Thus,
whereas in the logic of tests of strength the opposing fotces meet, are
deployed and displaced, consrrained only by the resistance of other forces,
tests of stâtus are vahd (ust) only if they involve fotces of the same kind. \le
may no Ìonger examine the strength of money by means of art, or the strength
of teputation or intelligence by money, and so on. To be not only strong but
also enjol' high status, it is necessary to commit the kind of sttengh that is
apptoptiate in the test one is submitting to. To ensure the justice of a test is
thus to arr^fige it and control its performance in such a \áây âs to prevent
interfetence by external forces.
In a society wh ete alarge number of tests are subject to conditions de{ìning
what is a legitimate test, the strength of the stong is diminished. For the strictness of the tests tends to hamper the possibilìties of those who, possessing
various unspecified strengths, can trânsfer them, confuse them, exchange them
and extend them, depending simply on the strâregic necessities of the situation. For example, one cânnot pay literary critics and be recognized as an
inspited, gleat writer, or become principal private secretaÍy just because one
is the minister's cousin. The idea of winning by any and all means has to be
abandoned.
It is nevertheless the case that tests of strength and iegitimate tests are not
to be conceived as disctete oppositions. There is a continøuru between them,
such that tests mây be deemed more or less just, and it is always possible to
unmask the action of underþing forces that contaminate a test claiming legitimacy. (we see this, for example, with the disclosure of the sociai handicaps
ot advantages that influence the results of educational tests, without examiners explicitly taking account
of
them.)
The notion of test places us at the heart of the sociological perspecrive,
one of whose most persistent quesrions - which no theory has dodged
concerns the selection process governing the differentiai distribution of
Persons between positions of unequal value, and the more or iess just character of this distribution. (This is where sociology tejoins questions of poJitical
philosophy.) It also has the advantage of aliowing for changes of scale, depending on whether the object of anaiysis is test situations in their singuladty,
intetactions tteated as unique events (some parttcwlar exchange between a candidate and a recruiting agent) - handling which calls upon the procedures of
micro-sociology; or attempts to describe relatively stabie classes of test in a
mânner which, from the viewpoint of a sociology of action, takes up the traditional questions of macro-socioiogy. The notion of test thus makes it
possible to shift between the micto and the macro, in the sense that it is
inflected towatds both sectoral mechanisms ot unique situations and societai
aÍrarÌgements. For the rrrajor ttends in social selection rest, in the last anfsis,
on the character of the tests that a society recognìzes at a given moment in
time. It is thus no exaggeration to think that a society (or the stâte of a society)
may be defined by the charactet of the tesrs ir sets itself, through which the
sociai seiection of people is conducted, and by conflicts over the more or less
iust nature of those tests.
Critiqøe and te¡ts are inlimateþ related. Crittq.ue leads to tests in so far as it chalìenges the existing order and câsts suspicion upon the status of the opposing
beings. But tests - especially when the1, claim legitim^cy - ate r,rrlnerable to
ctitique, which teveals the injustices created by the action of iridden forces.
of
critique on capitaÌism operares by means of the effects it
of capitalism. This is rhe case with the tests on which
the division between wages and prohts depends, in cett^ln state of the labout
^
and company law that they are supposed to respect; or, to take another
example, with recruitment tests, which provide access to positions regarded
âs more ot less advantageous.
The impact
has on the central tests
The role of critique in the dynamic of tests
\ü/e may say
that there are two wâys
of
ctit-icizing tests.
i.n intent: cririque reveals those features of the tests
under challenge that infringe justice and, in parttcular, the forces mobilized by
The irrst is
correctiue
of the protagonists without the othets being aware of it, thereby
securing an undesetved adv^ntage.In this instance, the objective of the critique
is to improve the justice of the test - ta make it ¡tricter- to increase the degree
certain
to which it is conventionahzed, to develop its regulatory ot legal supervision.
E,stablished tests - for example, political elections, educational exams, sporting
contests and joint negotiations between social partners - afe the fruit of such
effott, tefìning their justice in order to admit oniy those forces deemed compatible with the definition of the test. But by the same token, these tests always
temain open to improvement, and hence to critique. The work of refìnement
is in effect interminable, because the number of respects in which people can
be apptehended is ontologically limitless.6s
,\ second manner of cnttcizingtests may be dubbed radical.In this instance,
what is at stake is no ionget cotrecting the conditions of the test with a viev¡
to making it mote just, but supptessing it and ultimately replacing it with a
different test. In the first case, ctitique takes the cùteri^ the test is supposed
to satisS' seriousl¡ in order to demonstrate that its conduct deviates in various
respects ftom its definition - or, if you like, its concept - and to help bring it
more into line urith the claims it is supposed to meet. In the second case, it is
the validity of the test itseif - strictly speaking, what conclitions its existence
- that is subject to challenge. From this second cdtical position, the critique
that aims to tectify the test will itself often be criticized as reþrmìst, in conttast
to a raðical cdtique that has historically proclaimed itself reuolationarl.
\7ith respect to the model of economies of status on which we base our
discussion hete,66 cortective critique is one that takes the city with refetence
to which the test is constructed seriously. \X4:rat is invoLved is, as it were, â
critique internal to the city. Contradwise, rad)caI critique is critique performed
in the name of different principles, pertaining to another ciry ftom those on
which the test in its curtently accepted definition ciaims to base its judgements.
First of all we shall discuss the possible fate of a cottective ctitique that is
teformist in intent. In so far as the tests under criticism claim legitimacy (so
that they are justified by the same notmative positions as those invoked by the
critique), it ìs not possible for those responsible fot controlling their practtcal
conduct endìessly to þore the observations made about them. If they ate to
temain legitimate, these tests must incorporate â response to the critique. This
repì.y can consist either in demonstrating that the critique is mistaken (it is
then necessary to adduce convincing evidence of this); or in making the test
stricter and refìning it to make it more consoflant with the model of justice
that suppotts judgements claiming legitimacy. This is the case, for example,
when an exâm that was rìot anonymous is made so, or when disclosures of
information prior to stock-market transactions (insider tradrng) are ptohibited.
But there exists another potent-iâl reaction when one is faced with cortective critique of a test, and this consists not in satisfying it, but in seeking to
cfucumvent it. This is a possibie move by cettain benefìciaries of the test whose
gLt
ctitique has revealed that they succeeded illegitimatei¡ and who see their
rt may also be made by the organizets of the
of its organization mainly fails,67 who believe
prospects diminish accordingly.
test) or those on whom the cost
lLt\^L
After a multiplicity of micro-displacements, locally circumventing the most
costly tests or those most subject to critique, capitalist accumulation finds itself
paraally released from the fetters placed on it by the constrâint of the common
good. But by the same token it finds itself stripped of the iustifications that
made it desirable for alarge numbet of actors - unless this redeployment of
tests chimes with themes dedving from a radical critique intent upon abolishing the old tests, likev¡ise in the name of the common good, but invoking
different values. A displacement of this sort loses legitimacy in tetms of the
old principles, but can tely on princþles of legitimacy employed by another
side of the critique. Short of steedng clear of the capitalist regime entirel¡
the only possible fate of radtczl cdtique þteserving a stubbotn and intetminable oppositionai stânce, easily chatactetized as 'unrealistic' by its
dettactots) is to be used as a source of ideas and legitimacy fot escaping the
unduly normative and, for some actors, costly framework inhedted îrom a
pdor state of capitalism.
v¡ish to improve the division bet\¡/een wages and profits in the way d.emanded
by the critique. (rhe same could be said of new environmental requirements.)
It
may also be a question of altedng the criteria of success in the frm, so as
to evade the procedures associated with career management, ot of abolishing
formal recruitment tests (making decisions on the basis of a written examination, or psycho-technical tests), which are reckoned to be too costly. These
displacements, which alter a coutse of tests,68 have the effect of reducing the
costs âssociated with the maintenance of strict tests and increasing the advantages of those who arc in a position to commit miscellaneous resources, and
find themselves liberated from the fetters that
they could make of their srengths. In a capit
and foremost the owners of capital, and histo
the absence
of
legislative and reguiatory obstacles they tend
to use their
economlc power to v/rest a dominant position in all spheres, ieaving wage_
earners wtth only rhe meanest share of the value added that has been cteated.
Hence under capitalism it is obviously the party of
emerges victorious from these micro-displacements.
ptofìt that invatiably
This manner of reacting to critique, by creating displacements, arso has the
effect of temporarily disarming it by presenting it with a wodd it no longer
knows how to interpret. The critique and critical apparatuses associated with
an earlter state of the spirit of capitaJism jn fact have little purchase on the
new tests, which have not been subject to a labour of recognition, institutionahzatton and codifìcation. For one of the frst tasks of critique is precisely to
identify the most important tests in a given sociery to clarify or press the
pfotagonists to clarifii- the principles undedying these rests, and then ptoceed
to a critique that is corective or taðicar, reformist or revolutionary, dependìng on the options and strategies of those conducting it.
\)7e can thus envisage situation¡ where critique in
iß entireQfnù trnlf di¡arned
in a single move: one form, characterized as cortective here (which does not
mean it necessatìly conceives itself as reformist), because the tests to which
it was adapted disappeat or fall into disuse; the othe4 cailed radical here (which
does not mean it is exclusive to those who call themselves 'tevolutionaries),
because the development of the dominant ideas takes a direction that it
demanded, and it fìnds itself partially satisfied. As we shall see later, in our
view this is what occurred in France in the 1980s.
Even so, such a situation does not seem set to last, for the tedeployment
of capitalism creates new problems, rìew inequalities, new injustices: not
because it is inhetently uniust, but because the question of fustice is not pertinent in the framework u¡ithin which it develops - the norm of capital
accumuiation is amoral - unless critique compels it to iustify and control itself.
Interpretative schemas arc grzdually teconstructed, making it possibie to
give meaning to these transformations and favouting aretlval of critique by
faciJitating identification of the problematic new modalities of accumulation.
The tesumption of ctiúque leads to dre consttuction of new normative fulcra
that capitalism must come to terms with. This comptomise is asserted in the
exptession of a new form of the spitit of capitalism, which, like its predecessors, corìtâins exigencies of iustice.
The birth of a new spirit of capitalism thus comes about in two stages,
although this is a metely anùyttcal distinction, since they btoaðly ovedap. In
the ftst, we witness the sketching of a gerwal intetpretative schema of the
new mechanisms and the estabLishment of a new cosmology, allowing people
to get their bearings and deduce some elementaty rules of behaviour. In the
second, this schema is going to be refned in the direction of greater.Justiæ; with its
organtzingprinciples established, the tefotmist critique wiÌl strive to make the
new tests that have been identified strictet.
I
I
t
1
:
t
i
Ju
I nE t\EYV JrtNt l
UArt t¡\Lt)t-l
The historical forms of the critique of capitalism
If
we are to understand the historicai conjuncture our .work focuses on, .we
must nov/ define more precisely the content of the critiques addressed to cap-
italism. For the orientation of a pattc".rar dynamic of capitarism, and the
meaning of the transformations that affect its spirit, can be thoroughly understood only if we consider the kind of critiques it is vul¡rerable to. The necessity
of furnishing capitalism with justifications, and casting it in an attractive light,
would not in fact impose themselves with such urgency if capitalìsm had not
from the outset been confronted with large-scale cdticai forces. Anti-capitalism is i¡ fact as old as capitaìism: 'Throughout the course of its development,
it accompanies it like its shadow: rwithout coutting the slightest purrdo*, it
may be argued that anti-capitalism is the most signifìcant expression
talism in the eyes of history'.6e
of
capi-
\Tithout resuming in detail the history of the critiques to which capitaüsm
has been subject
- a task that would far exceed the framework of this book
we
must,
in
order to understand the formation of the new spirit of capital-
ism, recali the main themes around which the principal forms of
anti-capitalism âre constructed (these themes have been fairly constant since
the frst half of the nineteenth century).
on of a critique presupposes a bad experience prompting
it is petsonally endured by cdtics ot they are roused by the
fate of others.7o This is v¡har we call the source of indigaation rJTithout this prior
emotional - aimost sentimental reaction, no critique can take off. on the
othet hand, it is a longway ftom the spectacle of suffering to articulated critique;
critique requkes a theotetical fulcrum anð an argumentative rhetoric to give
The formuiati
protest, whether
voice to individual suffering and translate it into tetms that tefer to the common
good'71 This is why there are actually two ievels in the expression of any critique:
- the domain of the emotions - which carì never be silenced,
which is always ready to become inflamed whenever new situations provoking
indignation emerge; and a secondary level reflexive, theoretical and argumentative - that makes it possible to sustain ideological struggle, but assumes a
a pnman levei
of concepts and schemas making it possible to connect the historical
\7hìle capitalism has changed since its fotmation, its 'nature'72 has not been
radtcally transformed. As a result, the sources of indignation that have continually fuelled cdticism of it have temained pretty much the same over the
Iast two centuries. They ate essentially of fout sorts:
capitalism as a source of disenchantrzent and. inaøthentidfl of objects, persons,
emotions and, more generally, the kind of existence associated with it;
þ) capitalism as a source oí oppression, inasmuch as it is opposed to the
freedom, autonomy and creativity of the human beings who are subject,
under its s\¡/ay, on the one hand to the domination of the market as an
impetsonal force fìxing prices and desþating desirable human beings and
products/services, while teiecting othets; and on the othet hand to the
fotms of subotdination involved in the condition of wage-labout (enterprise discipline, close monitodng by bosses, and supetvision by means of
regulations and ptocedutes);
(c) capitalism as a source of poue@ âmong workers and of ineqøalities on an
unprecedented scale;
(d) capitalism as a source of opportanism anð. egoiwwLich, by exclusively encoutaging pdvate interests, proves destructive of social bonds and collective
solidadt¡ especially of minimal solidatity between dch and poot.
(a)
One of the difficulties faced by cdtical work is that it is vittually impossible to combine these different grounds for indignation ¿nd integrate them
into a coherent framework. Consequendy, most ctitical theories privilege one
line over the othets and deploy their atguments accordingiy. Thus, the
emphasis is sometimes placed on the industrial dimensions of capitalism
(critique of product standardizatton, technology, the destruction of natute
and authentic v/âys of living, factory discipÌine, buteaucracy, etc.), such that
the same cdticisms can be extended to a denunciation of 'real socialism'; and
sometimes on its commercial dimensions (ctitique of impetsonal domination
by the matket, of the omnipotence of mone;r, which renders everything
situations people intend to criticize with values that can be universalized. w4ren
we allude to critique being disarmed, it is to this second level that we are refer-
equivalent and tutns the most sacted entities - artworks, and especially human
beings - into commodities; which subfects politics to the process of commodification, making it an object of matketing and advenising like any other
ring. Given that the work
of critique consists in ranslating indignation into the
framework of critical theories, and then voicing it (something that assumes
other conditions which we shail not examine here), we can understand why,
product). Similady, the normative references mobilized to account fot indignation ate different, everì difficult to reconcile. $Thereas the critique of
egoism and disenchantment is often accompanied by a nostaþia for ttadt-
to be in a state of complete collapse, the
capaitq for indignation can remain intact. It is parucularþ prevalent among
young people, who have not yet experienced the closure of the horizon of possibilities that goes with growing oldet, and who may constirute the ground on
which a revival of criticism becomes possible once again. Thrs is where the
glataîtee of a constant renewal of critical work is to be found.
tional
supply
even when the cdtica-l forces seem
ot otdedy
societies, particulatly their communitatian
âsPects,
indignation at oppression and poverty in a wealthy society is based on the
values of freedom and equality which, while they ate foreign to the principle
of unbounded accumulation chatacteristic of capitalism, have histotically
been associated with the tise of the boutgeoisie and the development of
capitalism.T3
'i
I
'¡
:
38 ÏHE NËW SPIRIT OF CAPI IALI5IY
Consequentl¡ the bearers of these various grounds for indignation and
normative fulcrahave been diffetent groups of actors, although they can often
be found associated in a parttcular histotical con,uncture. Thus, we may distinguish between an arlistic critiqøe and a social critique.Ta
The fotmer, which is rooted in the invention of a bohemian lifestyle,Ts
draws above all upon the fitst two sources of indþation that v/e mentioned
bdefly above: on the one hand the clisenchantment and inauthenticity, and cn
the othet the oppression, which chancrerize the bourgeois wotld associated
with the rise of capitalism. This critique fotegtounds the loss of meaning and,
in particular, the loss of the sense of what is beautifui and valuable, wlrich
detives from standardtzanon and genetahzed commodification, affecting not
only everyday objects but also artworks (the cultural mercantilism of the bourgeoisie) and human beings. It stresses the objective impulse of capitalì.sm and
bourgeois society to tegiment and dominate human beings, and subject them
to wotk that it prescribes fot the purpose of ptofit, whìle hypocirttczlly
rnvoking morality. To this it countetposes the freedom of artists, their rejection of any contamination of aesthetics by ethics, their refusai of any fo:m
of subjection in time and space and, in its extreme forms, of any kind of work.
The atistic critique is based upon â contrâst between attachment and
detachment, stabìlity and mobilit¡ whose patadigmatic formulation is found
in Baudelaite. On the one hand, we have the boutgeoisie, owning land, factories and women, tooted in possessions, obsessed with pteserving their goods,
endlessly concerned âbout reptoducing, exploi.ting and incteasing them, and
thereby condemned to meticulous forethough t, nttonal management of space
and time, and a quasi-obsessive putsuit of production fot production's sake.
On the othet hand, we have intellectuals and artists free of all attachments,
whose model - the dandlt, a product of the mid-nineteenth century - made
the absence of production (unless it was self-production) and a culture of
uncertâinty into untranscendable ideals.76
The second critique, inspited by socialists anð., Iater, by Marxists, draws
instead on the second two sources of indignation that we have identified: the
egoism of private interests in bourgeois society and the growing poverty of
the populat classes in a society of unptecedented wealth - â mystery that.¡¡í11
fìnd its expianation in theories of exploitation.TT Basing itself on moraLity and,
often, on themes inspfued by Christianiry the social cdtique reiects - sometimes violently - the immotality or moral neutrality, the individualism, and
even the egoism ot egotisrn of artists.Ts
Drawing as they do upon different ideological and emotional sources, the
four thematics whose majot featrres we have just mentioned ate not dfuectly
compatible. Depending on the historical con]unctute, they may fìnd themselves associated, but often at the cost of a misunderstanding that cân eâsily
be denounced as incoherence; alternatively, they mây enter into tension lrith
one another.
btsNhKAL IN I K9IJUL
I
ION
39
one example of amargamation is intellectual critique in postwar France as
atticulated in a journal like L¿s Temþs modernes, which was eageï to remain at
the forefront of all struggles, ancl reconcile communist paty workerism and
motalism with the aristocratic libertinism of the artistic avant-garde. In this
instance, an essentially economic critique condemning bourgeois exploitation
of the ráorking class went hand in hand with a critique of motes, denouncing the oppressive and hlpoctitical narure
in matters
of
of
bourgeois motality (especialy
of
sexualiry), and an aesthetic crit-ique discrediting the sybatitism
a bourgeoisie with academic tastes. An insistence on transgressìoz (for which
of Sade was the mandatory symbol fot ararge number of writers
on the non-communist left, from the beginning of the 1940s down to the
mid-60s)7e served as intermediary between these different themes, which
nevertheless gave tise to misunderstandings or conflicts when the sexual or
aesthetic transgression to which intellectuals and artists wete particulady
attached collìcled with the moralism and aesthetic ttaditionalism of workingclass elites. \üTorkets sequesteting their employer, homosexuals kissing in
pubüc, or artists displayrng trivial objects transferred from their usual context
into a gallety or museum when it came down to it, were not all these forms
the figure
of one and the same transgression of the bourgeois order?
In other political conjunctures, however, the diffetent traditions cr-it-ical of
capitalism can easily diverge and come into tension, even violent conflict. Thus,
while the cdtique of individualism and its communitarian corollary can easily
dtift towatds fascism (many examples of this can be found among ìntellectuals in the 1930s), the critique of oppression cangerdylead those forwhom
it represents the preponderant point of attack towards âcceptance at least
tacitly - of liberalism, âs was the case with a number of intellectuals from the
ulta-left in the 1980s. Having correctly recognized in Soviet communism
anotfier form of alienation, and having made the struggle against totalttartanism their pdncipal battle, they did not anticipate, or were not able to tecognize,
the reassertion of libetal. conttol. over the $Testern wodd.
Each of these critiques mây be regarded as more radical in its attitude
towards the Enlightenment modernity in which capitalism by the same token
as democracy, but in different respects
- claims to be rooted.
s7hiie it shates its individualism with modernity, the artistic critique
presents itself as a radical chalienge to the basic values and options of capitaLism.S. As a rejectìon of the disenchantment generated by the processes of
talonaTizaion and commodification of the wodd inherent in capitalism, it
presupposes their interruption or abolition, ancl hence invoives a totaT abandonment of the capitalist regime. The social critique, for its part, seeks above
all to solve the probiem of inequaJities and poverty by brealiing up the operation of irdividual interests. If various solutions to this ptoblem might seem
:*dical, they clo not presuppose halting industríal production, the invenrion
of new artefacts, or the enr-ichment of the nation and mater-ial progress, and
40
thus tepresent a less comprehensive rejection
of
\rtrl\EK¡\L ll\ I K\JUUL I lut\
THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM
of the ftamewotks
and optiots
capitaìism.
Howeveq notwithstanding the dominant tendency of each of these critiques - towards refotm of, or abandonment of, the capitaüst regime - it vdl
be observed tltat each of them Possesses a modernist and an ant.i.-modernist
aspect. For this reâson, the tension between a radtcal critique of moderniry
which leads to 'protesting against the age without participating in it', anà z
modetnist critique that dsks leading to 'participating in the age without challengrng it', is a constant feature of critical movements.sl The artistic ctitique
is anti-modetnist when it sttesses disenchantment, ând modernist when it is
concerned with liberation. Rooting itself in the liberal values dedved from the
spirit of Enlightenment, it denounces the falsity of an order that Pretends to
accomplish the modetn ptoject of Liberation only the better to bettay it. Fat
from libetating the human potentialities of autonomy, self-organization and
creativity, câpitalism excludes people from running their own affzirs, subiects
human berngs to the domination of insttumental rattonahry, and keeps them
impdsoned in an 'iron czge';82 demanding the active participation of the producers, it consistently denies and destroys it.83 The social critique is rathet
modernist when it underscores inequalities and anti-modernist when, hxing
on the lack of solidarity, it is constructed as a critique of individualism.
an
as
italism of its time.
constantþ shift
i¡
ql
lly resume its anal),sis
orcler to stây
chancïerizethe cap_
d form of the labour
depends on the way it has been rolled up.86 Moreover, even
if we went so far
the dynamic of capitalism and its
ctitiques, whereb¡ in the fìnal analysis, 'in so far as capitalism is a source of
indignation, it always pulls thtough it', we would fìnd some consolation in this
obsetvation taken from the work of I{atl polanvi:
as to âccept a pessimistic intetpretation
of
r7hy should the ultimate victory of
a trend be taken as proof of the ineffective'ess of the efforts to slow down its progress?,A.nd why shourd the purpose
of these measures not be seen precìsely in that which they achieved, i.e. in the
slowing down of the rate of change? That which is ineffectual in stopping a
Lne of development aitogether is not, on that âccounq altogether ineffectual.
The tate of change is often of no less importance than the direction of the
change itseif; but while the latter frequently does not depend upon our voJirion,
The incompleteness of critique
cdtical of capitaLism, and the imposThese features of the traditions thal
^re
sibilty of constructing a perfectly articulated, ovetarching cdtique impattially
based on the four sources of indignation we have identified, explain the
inherent ambþity of critique: even in the case of the most râdicâl mo-rements, it shares 'something'with what it seeks to ctitìcize. This stems from
the simple fact rhat the normative teferences on which it is based are themselves in patt i.nsctibed in the wofld.84 But the same teâsons âccount fot -he
fallibiJity of cdtique. It can, fot exampì.e, watch the woflcl move towards a situation that will prove disastrous without intervening. Or it may regard the
changes undet way at â given moment favourabl¡ because they bting about
improvement in some signifìcant fesPect that had been a sorlfce of indignation, without noticing that the situation is simultaneously deteriotating in
another respect. In particulat, in the context of the pedod that concetns us
hete, they may not notice that capitâlism has indeecl developed in the direction of reducing the oldest forms of oppression, but at the ptice - belatedly
detected
- of intensifting
inequaLities.
Accordingl¡ the dialectic of capitaìism and its critiques necessarily Proves
interminabie as long as we remain in the capitalist tegime, which seems the
most pfobable eventuality in the medium tetm. Partially attended to ancl integrated on certitn points, circumvented or countered on othefs, critique must
it is the rate at which we allow
upon
change to take place which may well depend
us.87
\7hile we acknowledge that critique possesses a certairteffectiveness, in this
book we shall not directly rackle a quesrion deait with by poJitical science and
social history: the
of critique
in detetminate hi
not ignore
the set of factors
ritique, we
have focused ptedomhantly on its specifically ideological dimension that is
to say, on the way in which the formulation of indignation and the condem-
nation of cofitraventions of the common good operates. This choice brings
with it the risk of finding ourselves accused of being intetested exclusively in
'discourse', to the exclusion of what is supposedly 'real'. But it nevertheless
highlights an essential part of the work of critique: the codihcation of 'what
is not going weli' ancl the search for the causes of this situation, with the aim
of ptoceeding to solutions. Besides, this is the televant ievel of analysis in a
study devoted to the spirit of capita]ism. Thus, when we refer to ctitique being
disatmed, what is involved is ideological neuttaltzatton (critique no longer
knows what to say), not physical neuTtaltzatton (it knows what to sa¡ but
cannot say it ot does not succeed in making itself heatd).
4t
I
ñts t\Èvv )rtKt
I ur LArt rl\Lt)t"l
uLlìL¡\^L
Alterations in the spirit of capitalism independent of critique
It remains for us to dispei a final ambigurty âs to the dynamic of the spirit of
capitalism. We have made cdtique one of its most powerful motors. In obliging
capitalism to jusuSr itself, critique compels it to sttengthen the mechanisms
of justice it contains, and to refer to certâifl kincls of common good in whose
service it claims to be placed. But we have equaþ seen that the impact of
critique could be indirect, spurring capitalism to 'dispiace itself' more rapidly
- that is to sa,v, alter the nature of the key tests in order to evade the critique
to which it is sr-rbject. Here the spirit of capitalism is affected only by the repercussion of changes that initially focused on capitaüsm.
But if changes in capitalism are likewise a sþifìcant source of alteration
in its spirit, we have to acknowledge that not ail its displacements can be telated
to critique. The dynamic of capitalism itself is only partially bound up with
critique - or, at least, critique in the sense in which we have construed it up
to now, which supposes thât one gives voice ('voice' in Hirschman's concep-
of capitalism, it is important to add
'exit'
the impact of cdtique of the
vatiety in Hitschman - that is, competition. The 'exit' critique, which is a refusal to buy on the pat of the consumet
tualization).8e To account for the dynamic
or customer in the broad sense, a tefusal of employment by the potential v/agelabouret, ot a tefusal to serve by the independent service providet, is one to
which capitalism more readily submits. In this instance too, howevet, it seeks
to evade the obstacles critique creates - fot example, by constituting monopoLies or cartels so as to ignore the clesire to defect, which can then no longer
fìnd an outlet. The nvaky that competit-ion keeps up between capitalists
compels them endlessly to seek advantage over their competitors - by technological innovations, the search fol new products or services, improvements
in existing ones, ancl afl
in ways of organizins.vr'ork. Thus we finc
^Itera:cofl
here a cause of constant change in capitalism that confotms to the process
of
'creative desúuction' described by Schumpeter.
The effectiveness of the 'voice' cdtique - which, all things being equal, is
expressed in harder and more costiy tests, and by a fall.'tn profìts - is thus not
the only reason for capitalism's displacements, even if it may play a ctucizl
role in certain epochs. The impact of the 'voice' ctitique on ptofits is real. Bu:
with all the opportunities that emerge
for increasing gains, and the most advantageous solution at a given poìnt rn
câpitaLism's displacements are bound up
time is not necessarìly to renege on previously conceded benefìts. On the other
hand, the constant pressure of competition, and anguished observation of the
strategic moves made in their markets, are â pov/etful spur to those in charge
of fitms in their endless seatch for neu/ ways of doing things. Consequentiy,
competition w-ill be advanced as mirrimal justification fot the ttansformation
of capitalism, for reasons that are valid and yet scârceiy accePtable to those
engaged in the capitalist process, since it makes them mete playthings.
il\
I |\VUUL
I tvt\
rJ
of our research, we may now embark upon
in the spirit of capitatsm over rhe last thirty years,
Having defined the main tools
't
Irl
I
descrþtion of the changes
in its relations with the cdtiques directed at the accumulation process in this
ii
period.
il
a
'i
I
l
Notes
1
1
See
Rol¡ert Heilbronet,
The
Nature
and l-ngic
of Capita/isn,Norton, New York and London
985.
2 The balance-sheet is the accounting instTument which, at a given point il time, inventoties all the wealth invested in a concetn. The importance of the âccourìtancy tool fot the
functìoning of capitalism - to the point that some have made its sophistication one of the origns
of capital-ism - is a feature very generally emphasized by analysts. See, fot example, Max rü/eber,
Tba Protestant Ethic and the Spìit of Capitalrn, ttans. Stephen I{alberg, Fitztoy Deatbotn, Chicago
and London 2001, pp. 25-6; ot General Economic History, ttans. Ftank H. Knight, George A1len
& Unwin, London 1,927, p. 276.
3 As Georg Simmel obsetves, in effect money alone never holds any disappointment in
store, on condition that it is intendecl not fot expenditwe but fot accumulation as an end in
itself: 'as a thing absolutely devoid of qualiry þoney] cannot hide either sutptise or disapporntment as does any object, howevet miserable' (quoted in A.O. Hfuschman,The Passìon¡ atd lhe
Inlerest.r,Ptttceton University Ptess, Ptinceton 1,977,p.56).If satiaúon accompanies ¡fie tezhzation of desite in an intimate knowledge of the thing desired, thìs psychological effect cannot be
cteated by a calculable figue that remains abstract.
4
5
Yotk
See Hei-lbtone4 Tbe Nature and l-.ogic
Fernand Btaudel, The ll/heel¡
of
af Capita/ìsn, pp. 53 ff.
trms. Sian Reynolds, Harpet and Row, New
Comnerce,
1,982, p. 228.
6
Examples of the way in which capitalist agents inftinge matket rules in order to make
profits, whìch is beyond any possible comparison with otdinaty commetcial activities, abound
in Btaudel, for whom '[t]he capitalist game only concerned dre unusual, the very special, or the
vety long distance connection - sometimes lasting months ot even years': the use oi protection
'to break into a resistant circuit' and 'ward off dvals'; privileged information and ci-tcuits of confrdentiai information, as well as 'the acquiescence of the state', making it possible 'regulady, quite
râturâlly and without any qualms, to bend the rules of the matket economy'; md so on (Tåe
IYbuls of Comnnrce, pp. 456,384, 400).
Sirnilarly, the granrh l:oargeoi:ie of the nineteenth centuqr, despite its
adherence to
^pp^rent
dre 'liberal ctedo', as l{atl Polanyi pttts it (Oigins af OarTime: Tùe GreatTransþrnation,Yictor
Goliancz, London 1945), is only teally in favout of laissez¿faire in the labour market. A.s for the
test, in their struggle \¡¡ith one anothet capitalists use all the meâns at dreit disposal ancl, in prticuiat, poJitical control of the stâte, in ordet to restrict competition, to curb free uade when it
is unfavoutable to them, to occupy monopoly positions and retain them, and to l¡enefìt from
geographical and political imbalances in such a wâv as to drain maximum ptofit towatds the
centre. See Pier¡e Rosanvallo¡, I-¿ Ijbáralìsne riconomiqze. Hi¡toire de I'idée de narclté, Seuil, Patis
1979,pp 208-12; Imanuel !7allerstein, Histoncal Capitali.rm,Yerso, London 1983.
7 Accotding to the INSEE's definition, this notion covers 'the totaliry of physical and
fìnancial investments made by ptivate individuals when they put buildings, money, land ar
someone else's disposition in exchange fot a monetary payment', and excludes propetty for use
(main tesidence, liquid cash and cheques) and the professional property of self-employeci persons
(fatrners, liberal professionals, attìsans, shopkeepers).
B
In January 1 996, 80 pet cent of households possessed
a savings
account, but the amounts
in them tapidly reached a ceìIng and were intended for popular savìngs first and foremost;
44
THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPI IALIsI1
38 per cent had a housing pian or savìngs âccourlt (most with a view to purchasing their marn
tesidence). On the othet hand, typical capitalist investments involved atound only 20 pet cent
22 pet cent possessed stocks and shates þonds, govefnment loans, SICAV
(Société d'Investissement à CapitzlVariable) ot FCP (Fonds Communs de Placement), shates
of
households:
ourside SIC.AÐ, and 19 pet cent ptopetty other than thei-t main tesidence. See IÀI.|EE Première,
no.454,Mzy 1996.That said, the households able to draw from their rental propefty afi incÔme
equal to the average Ftench income, assimilating them
to fairly comfottable rentiets (or better),
households, and ate doubtless closet to 1 than
to 5 per cent (see Alain Biht and Roland Pfeffetkorn, 'Peut-on définir un seuil de dchesse?',
Ahernatiuu honomQms, special issue no. 25, 'Les riches', autumn 1995).
9 Since the wotk of Betle and Means, it has been recogrrized that if dre behaviout of
represent less than 5 per cent
of the totality of
not necessatily to mâximize shareholdet interests, at the very least they behave ir
such a way as to provide them with a satisfactoty retun, if not the maximum:
10 Moteover, according to Heilbroner (Tlte Nature and L,oþc of capitalisn, pp. 65-7'f, this
managerc is
of capitalist exploitation, since the whole temaining matgin
made on the product, whatevef the amount, fevetts to the capitatst by virtue of the ptoperty
des pettaining to the labout contract.
11 According to the figutes cited by Gé¡ard Vindt ('Le saladat âvânt guerre: instabilité et
prêcantê' , Alternatiues écotomiqøu, ¡o. 141, October 1996, pp. 58-61), the wage-earning class tepiesent.d 30 per cent of the active poPulztion irr 1881, 40 Pef cent in 1906, 50 Pef cent in 1931,
1x/ebe/,
in Gétatd Raulet,
ed.., L'éthiqøe protestante de
Max
lYeber et l'esprit de la ntotlernité,
Édtiorrs
de la MSH, Pans 1,997,pp.95-120.
15 'fo]nly a human Lifetime in
laboter in Silesia who mowed a cer
to increase his exertions. He would
this haif he would have been able
Histor1,p.355. See also Polanyi, oigin: of oarTine,on the ftansfotmation
into commodities.
of land and labour
16
\Øeber, The Prate¡tant Etltic and the Spirit oJ Caþìtalism
'[A]sceticism ... defined the pusuit of riches, if viewed a.s a.n en¿Ì j¡itself, as the peak
teprehensibiìity. At the same time, it also viewed the acquisition of wealth, when it
was the
17
of
ftzit of work in
a
vocati
for this investiga_
tion, the religious value
u¡as defìned as absolute
vocational calling
stify to their elect
last aspect is tjre best conceaied form
and stands ât more than B0 pet cent today. The INSEE (Annaaire staîistiqøe de la France, Patîs
1998 ICD-ROM vetsion]) gives a figute of 76.9 per cent of wage-earners in the population for
1.993, to which must be added the 11.6 unemployed (table C,01-1)'
12 Thévenot has offered a vety fine-grained analysis by socio-ptofessional categoty of the
development of the wage-eatning class in the 1970s. In L97 S,wage-earnets reptesented 82'7 per
cent of total employment, as against 76.5 per cent ifi 1968. The only câtegofy of non-wageeâfnefs to expand was that of libem.l ptofessions - even though it grew slowly on account of
v'hjle all the othet categodes (employers in indusuy
the barriers to entry into these ptofessions
-
and commerce, artisans and small shopkeepets
-
i.e. employing fewer than thtee wage-earnets
MacKinnon, 'The Longevity
of
the Thesis:
A cdtique of the critìcs', in H. Lehmann and G.
Roth, eds, Il/eberr Protestant Etbic: oigins, Euidence, contexîs, cambtidge univetsity press,
cambtidge, 1'993, pp. 27744; Annete Disselkamp, L'Éthiqte protestanîe cle Mu Iveber, presses
unjvetsitaites de France, Patis 1994; in the inttoduction byJean-Claude passeton and the ptesentation byJ.-P Grossein of a volume of works by ïTeber devoted to the sociology of religions
(Sociologies des teligions, Gallimard, Paris 1996); and in the col.lective wotk of the Research
Gtoup on Weimat Cultule published under the direction of GêtzrdRaulet, L'Éthiqøe pr1tertante
Max
\Yeber et l'esprit de la nodernité,
which also supplies an abundance of information on the
this controvers¡
doubdess one of the most prolìfic in the entire history of the social sciences, is not over: it has
focused above all on the walidity of the link between motives of religious inspiration and
de
intellectual climate
in which The
Protestanî Etþìc was composed. Moteover,
economic ptactices. To critical arguments that challenge the cortelation between Protestantism
that capiwhere tÏe
to mention the Marxist critique,
tantism), defence of ì7eber has teplied with ârguments
zLrLd afinitiu flWebet is argued not to ha¡'e sought to
-".n -"nlit!ÏiÏl,l
ticularþ teaching). See Lau¡ent Thévenot,'Les categories sociaJes en 1975: l'extension du salatiat',
Écoønie eî statistiqøe, no. 91, July/August 1977 , pp. 3-31"
13 Women today reptesent 45 pet cent of the wotking population, as against 35 per cent
in 1968. Their rate oF activity þetcentage of those ovet fifteen years of age belonging to the
active population) has continua-lly increased over the last thirty years (François Jeger-Madiot,
.L.-pìoi
et 1e chômage des familles professionnelles" Données statisiqøes /99(
INSEE'
Paris
1996, pp. 1'1'7-23).
iwetner
appeats that the exptession 'spitit of capita-lism' was used fot the first time by
i: is
fot
whom
in
Somba¡t,
But
pttintessexce
of
Capitalìsru.
Tlte
of
his
ed.ition
Sombarq in tlre first
generated 'f¡om the conjunction of the "Faustian spitit' and the "bougeois spkid", it âssumes
focused on
a very different sense from that given it by s7eber. The spirit of capitalism is more
14 It
in Sombat, wheteas rffeber
þs gleatef stress
the demiutgic charactet of
on the wotk ethic' See Hinnetk Btuhns' 'Économie q¡ ¡¿lìgion chez \X/ernet Sombart et Max
the big businessman
ly to have demonstrated the affìnir_ies between the
Reformaúon and capitalism - for example, in Reìnhatd Bendix and Raymond Aron), as well as
dre diffetence between capitalism and tbe spirit of npitali:n (ITebet's subject was not tlie causes of
capitalism, but the motal and cognitive changes that favoured the emetgence
exploited by capitalism - for example, in Gordon Marshall).
of
a me¡tality
19 webet,
The Prot¿stanl Etltic and the spirit 0f capitãli:ril, p. 34; Hirschman, The passions and
p. 9.
20 This teversal was possible thanks to t}re úansformation of tlis passioo into ân ¿interest',
an amaþam of egoism and mtionalìry with the virtues of coûstancy and predictabiJity. Ttade
tbe Interests,
was deemed liable to induce a certâirr moderâtion of behaviour, the metchant desiting peace for
the ptosperity of his business and maintaining benevolent relations during his ttansactions with
the custome¡s whom it ìs in his interest to satis$2. The passion for money thus emerges as a
good deal less destructive than the search for gloty or great deeds. It is also the câse thât trâditionally only the nobility was deemed capable of the latter: 'anyone who did not belong to the
40
I
ñts I\EVY )rlKl I \Jr \-¡\rt t^\Lt)t'l
UEI\EÑÁ\L II\
¡
K\JTJUL I I(JI\
4I
ìrl
iil
I
Aftet all, such a petson
:ì
had only interests and not gioty to pursue, and evetybody lenew that this putsuit was bound to
be doux in comparison with the passionate pastimes and savage exploits of the atistoctacy'
(Hitschman, Tbe Pas¡ions and tbe Interest¡, p. 63). The idea of a moderû etosion of the violent,
;Ìl
nobilir,\¡ could no t, þt defnition, share in hetoic virtues or violent passions.
teeflth century, if they seem old-fashioned to us todây, it is because it became obvious in dre
course of the nineteenth cefrtufy, particutatþ given the poverty of the wotking-class housing
estates ând colonizatíon, that bourgeois passion had nothing gentle about it, but on the contrâry
prodrrced unprecedented devastation.
21, Here we distance outselves from the riØebedan position accordiflg to which when capitalism is fumly in the saddle, it has less need of moral justification (The Prate:îant Ethic and the
Spirit af C@itatiml, pp. 1B-19), which his contempotaty \Øetnet Sombatt also subsctibed to (T/a
of Caþitalisn, trans. M. Epstein and T Fishet Unwin, London 1915), while remaining
faithful to al inteçtetative sociology that stresses the meaning which social otganization pos-
Quintesence
sesses for âctors ând, consequently, the impottance of justifications and ideological constructs.
22 The issue of u'hethet the beliefs associated with the spirit of capitalism âre true or fâ1se,
which is key in many theoties of ideology, especially when dealing with an object âs conflictuâl
as câpitalism, is not central to out reflection, which seeks to describe the formaúon and transformation of the justifìcations of capitalism, rÌot to âssess their intrinsic tuth. To tempet this
relativism, let us add that a dominant ideology in a capitalist socíeq' temains rooted in the teality
of things, irasmuch as it helps to irflect people's action, anrì thus fashion the world they act in,
but where it is uansfo¡med depending on their expetience, positive ot negative, of thei¡ action.
As Louis Dumont obsetves, a dominant ideology can thetefore just as easil1' be declared 'fa-lse'
in view of its incomplete charactet, because it is bettet suited to the interests
of
some social groups
divetse origins and antiquity without
articulating them in a coherent fashion, as it can be declated'ttue'in the sense that each of the
elements composing it has been (and stiÌi can be) pettinent in a gìven time ot place, urìder ceïtâin
conditions. Hetewe adopt Hirschmant solution: conftontedwíth seemingly itteconcilable theodes
than othets, ot its tendency to âmalgâmâte constructs
of
can be rnade to coexist in the same
the v¿odd once it is acknowledged that capitaLism is â contrâdictoty phenomenon, with the ability simultaneously to limit and strengthen itselfl He suggests that, howevet
incompatible, each of the theodes can possess its 'moment of tfuth' ot its 'comtry of ttuth' and
about the impact
reprcsentation
;
of
an exclusive interest in money wâs râther widesptead, and also sufficiently valìd, it seems, to ptovoke ât the end of the eighteenth centuty and the beginning of
the nineteenth the Romantic critique of the bougeois ordet âs empty, cold, mean, 'matedalist',
ancl precisely strìpped of all passionate charâctet, of all features hitherto judged positively on
account of their poütical advantages. As fo¡ theses al:otî Ìe doøx commerce, developeàin the eigh-
noble passions in favour
rl
of capitalisrn on society, he shows that they
of
counüies, fot a cetlaj¡ períod (see A. O. Hirschman.
L'économie comme sciutce morall 0tþ\titiqile, Hautes Etudes-Gallimatd-Seuil,Pans L984,p.37).
23 Sflebet, quored in Pierre Boutetz, Les Promesses dø monde. Philosophie de Max lheber
be pettinent in a country, o1 gfoup
culation
of
the utiliq' ptoduced bJ, the action.
27 Thts extremely solid
assernblage was the outcome of the alliance, which was i¡itially
matginal and unnecessary but then vety widel¡, accepred, of classical economics
and utilítarian_
ism, supported by an 'evolutionist matelialism', teferting someLimes to
Darrvin and
sometir¡es
to condorcet ot comre floseph Schumpeter,A Hìsfory of EconomicAnaþsìt,Alen
& unwin,
London 1986, pp. 436-8). According to Schumpeter, trris rnixtute oÉ liberar ctedence
rn dre
vìttues
of
kisrc71faire, Social
of profir.
28 Heilbroner, The Nature
actions in pur-suit
utility at
d1e rurn
the utilties
of
and l-ogic
af
Capitalisnz,
p. 115.
the nineteenth ancl twentieth centuries
of two diffetent
.is that it is now impossible to conpâre
individuals, and hence to reply to the question of uhether increase
at a given point is more beneFrcial for society than it would be at anothet.
Sìmilar\,, pareto,s
theory of eqrriliþfi¡¡¡ allows it to be arEged that it is impossible to âssess in relms
w-ell-berng the effect
of a transfet in wealth from
one point to another, for the loss
of overall
of utility of
some rlernbers cannot be compensâted by a gain in urility by other members.
It is cleat that
thete are rwo possible uses of Paretian equilibrium theory: eithet one sdcks to
whât ìt asserrs,
acknowledging that no disttibution of wealth which is good ìn itself exists
that could be scien-
dby
nce
that
of
Gallimatd, Paris 1996, pp.205-6.
24 Louis Dumont, Homo aeqøalis, Gallimatd, Pús 1'977 ' p. 15.
25 \n fact,pztzdoxically, it was ìn being constituted as a 'science' on the model of the naturasciences in the nìneteenth centuf)¡ thât classìcal economics was orchestrated to validate actions,
at the cosr of fotgetting the poJìtical philosophy which had served as its matix and transfotming the convenúons underþing matket fotms of agteement into positive laws sepatated frorr,
people's volition. See Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot, De la jastifcatian. L¿s économies de la
grandeør, Gallimatd, Patis 1991, pp 43-6.
2ó ,{.ccording ro consequefltialist moral theories, âcts must be judged motall¡' according to
their consequences (an act ís good if it produces mole good than evil, and if the balance is
superiot to an aLtetnative act that has not l¡een able to be realizeð,as a tesult of the fitst act).
These are genetally contrasted with theoúes that can be called deontological, and which make
Danvinism and r.ulgar utilitadanism constituted the rnould that the
world vision of the enuepteneurial boutgeoisie rested in. Thus, utrlitarianism,
combinecl *,ith
economic liberahsm and Soci¿i Darwinism, could io rulgarized fo¡m
become dre nain resource
fot simultaneously Jìberatrng oneself frorn common rnorality and impatting a motal
ciesign to
disrribution
transfers
it
ding to, sup
stât
comes down to tegatding the countty in general as an 'enterprise,, a highly reductionist but ltequent metaphot O¡io Giatini demonstrates how far temovecl the notion
of GNp
is ftom that of sociai rvell-bei'g, even accepting teduction of the later exclusive\,
to âfl increase
in livrng standatds: see Dia/ogte nrr la riches¡e et Le bieil-êl.re,Íeporrto the club of Rome,
Economica,
30 This
1rìent and those
that clean it up cannot, in any câse, claim to convel, â real improvement for
it increments the GNP indicator twice over. 'There is insteac{ a transfer of
citizens, although
expenses' which have had the effect
of
a teal net increase in wealth ancl well-being
... to other
48 THE NtW
sPf KI
I UT LATI IALI)I-I
I
expenses, which âfe essentiâl for keepilg the system tunning' ('La notion de valeut économique
dans la société post-industfielle', P. 308). Othet value added that is now counted in is simpLy
bound up with the commodi{ìcation of activities that had fotmerþ been kept outside the
monetaty sphere (Iike the development of te dy-t'n ðe me ls thât in paft feplace famil¡' ca6kl¡g,
that certainly cfeates monetâly Pfofits but does not necessar\ imptove living standard$. Giatini goes so fâf âs to affilm: 'Thete is veÍy often a zelo gÍowth of negaúve gfou/th
in real wealth and well-being ever when the economic indicators of gross nationâl product are
â mârket
positive' (ibid., p. 310).
31 This position, according to which mâfket otganization is always the most efflcient,
been developed tecently by the theoteticians of the economics of buteauctacy
(see
has
Xavier Gteffe,
'La gestion du non-marchanà', Rtwe frattçaise de gestion, Septembet/October 1979, pp' 53-63;
.Élé-..rts d'une théotie de la bureaucraie" vie et sciences écononiqaes, no. 87, 1980,
Guy Terny,
for an introduction).
32 Milton Friedman, in his celebtated
pp. 14'7-97,
(Univetsity of Chicago
Ptess, Chicago 1.962),is one of the fervent defenders of the thesis that poliúcal freedoms ate
possible only in the framework of capitalist telations: 'Economic arrâogements play a dual role
h the promotion of a ftee society. On the one hand, fteedorn in economic attangements is itself
â component of fteedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself. In the
second place, economic fteedom is also an indispensable means towards the achievement of
8). But he also acknowledges that câpitâlism in itself does not definitely
polincal fteedom'
esszy Capitalism and Frcedan
þ.
'Histoty suggests only that câpitalism is a necessaty condition fot poJìticafreedom. Cleatly it is not a sufficient condition. Fascist Italy and Fascist Spain, Getmany at
guarântee freed.om:
in the last seventy years, Jâpan befote \X/otld Slars I and II, tsatist Russia i¡ the
before
Wotld War I - are al-f societies that cannot conceivably be desctibed as polìticall¡'
decades
free. Yet, in each, pfivâte efltefpfise was the dominant form of economic otganization. It is
vârious times
therefote clearly possible to have economic arrangements that ate fundamentally capitalist and
political attangements thât are not free' (p. 10).
33 It is likely that this justificatory âpparârus is enough to engâge capitalìsts and is also
deployed whenevet conflict has reached a vety high level of generalìty (involving the tationale
of the system, aûd not of some Pâfticulâf action or decision), as well as whenevet no mofe
immediate justifìcation of dispute can be found - which is the case, ùr out view, when the spirit
of capitalism is weak.
the necessiry, if ideologies ate to be able to serve action, of integrating them into
containing mediations that ate many and varied enough to nurture the imaÉçifotms
discutsive
34 On
naúon in the face of the concrete situations of existence, see Luc Boltanski, Distant S{fering
Moraliry, Metlìa andPolitics,r¡ans. Graham Butchell, Cambridge University Ptess, Cambridge 1999t,
pp.73-6.
35
See
,\.O. Hirschman, Exit, voice and l-o1aÌry,HawardlJniversig' Press, Cambtidge (I\4À)
1.970.
between the 1982 and 1990 censuses. The
36 The number of
,ad.minisrative ancl commercial cadræ' gatned.189,000 people, that of 'engineets and
categofy of
comtechnica-l enterplise carJre¡' nore than 220,000, and that of intermediâte administtative and
fot
accomting
numben
the
of
A
petcentage
423,000.
metcial enterprise pfofessions' mofe than
ftom
the go.r,th ln these subcategories delives f¡om social st¡ata that ate taditionally more distant
the lâttel ale
- even hostiLe to - capitalism, as in the case of teachets' children. As is well known,
and tLte
education
to
highet
doots
the
that
open
tests
especiaþ well prepared fot the educational
fot
bougeoisie
the
business
of
the
chlilren
tha¡
notmatively
well
prepated
less
éco/.es,but
gmntÌes
cadres ttcreaseà signifrcantly
of hi e:râcfiicaTanàf ol economic powet. .A.S numefous studies have shown, the incre ase
in the nurnbet of those with miversity degrees does not have puteþ numerical consequences It
the exercise
those who hold them as a tesult, in patticular, of a change ìn their social
the impact of the democta¡¡zation of âccess to higher education. Consequently, the
also zltets the chatacter
origin mder
o[
'sþalling' effect of degtees (r\4ichel Spence, Job Matket SþalLing
,The Qøaierþ Jotrnalof Ecanomic.r,
vol. 87, no. 3, pp. 355-74) is disrupted. rn fact, a degree provides not only information about the
kind of knowledge that has supposedly been acquired, but also about a qpe of culture in the anthropological sense of the tetm, and fina-lly a qpe of human being. Mere knowlecìge of the possession
of a degtee no longet ptovides the tacit a¡d lateral infotmation about its holdet that pteviously
made it possible to 'get ân ideâ' intuitively i.e. based on ordirìary social experience
- of the kind
of petson 'one is dealing with', because those with the same degtee can differ vety matkedly ftom
one anothet, md above all from elders with the same qualification, in most other respects.
37 See Sombatt, Tbe paintessenæ of Caphalistt, pp. 51-6.
38 See, for example, charles Motazé's l¡oak I-¿s Bourgeoi.r conqaáranß (Atmancl colin, patis
1957), especialiy the foteword and the section devored to the tailways (pp. 205_1ó).
39
40
Braudel, The Wheels af Conmeræ, p. 438.
SeeGiovannaProcacci, Gazuernerlatzi¡ère. I¿q*estionsocialeenFrance, 1789-1848,}eut,
Pztis 1993.
41 With refetence to economic libetalism as expounded in the English polìtical economy
of the nineteenth centut¡ especially i¡ Adam Smith, Rosanvallon writes: 'Nìneteenth-cenmy
incìusttial society fashioned a wo¡ld wholly opposed to this representatton' (L.e Libát"alisne
honaniqrc, p. 222).
42
See Þ-rancois
Fvet,
The Passìng
of
an llhsion, trans.
Deborah Furet, University of Chicago
Press, Chicago 1999.
43 See Adolf Berle and Gatdinet Means, Tbe Modern Corporation and Priuate Proþerty
(Macmillan, London1932);James Burnham, T/teManageialReaahtion
1941)
fot an initial desctiption; and Alfted D. Chandler, The Visibte Hand:
Atneican Basiness (Hatvatd university Press, cambridge
wotk on the advent of salaried mânagement.
M,\]
QohnDay,Newyork
Tbe Managerial Rno¿Íion in
1977) fot a more receflt hisroricâl
44 See Luc Boltanski, Tbe Making of a clax: cadre¡ ì, Frenc/t sociery, rrans. Arthur
Goldhammer, cambridge university Ptess/Éditions de la M¿ison des Sciences de l'Hornme,
Cambridge 1987.
45 See J.I( Galbrarth, American caþitali:n: The conæþl of coønîeruailing pouer, Horghton
Mifflin, Boston 1.952 'fhc Nøu ltdustrial xtate, Hamish Hamìlton, London 1967.
46 \Ty'alletstei¡, Hisørical Capitalisn, pp 17-18.
47 Microeconomics is in fact tematkable in that its dorni¡ant currenr does not concern itself
with histoty and social ttansformaúons at all. It wâs, moreover, precise\ in oppositìon to carl
Menger and the Austrim Schooi that, at the insúgation of Gustav Schmoller, the German
Historical School was constituted, to which Sombârt and !7eber were attached. These economistsociologists wete concerned to found an interpretative position between sheer historical
empäcism and marginalist abstraction, and 'to be able to deal with economic facts from the perspectìve
of a theot¡'
-
that is to say, to seek, with the help
on the basis of historical
n
tetil^I,
of concepts
and ideaì tlpes constfucred
to discovet the vety principles of economic
systems and
processes' (see Bruhns, 'Economie et téligion chez l7erner Sombatt et Max $7eber', pp. i.95-21,0).
Traces of this inteilectual project, seeking to reconcile theotetical and histodcal apptoaches, can
be found in Regulation economics a¡d conrcnúons economics, which explails, moreovet, rvhy
these cwtents find themselves marginalized by the dominant forms of microeconomics.
48 Here we follow the approach adopted by !Øebet: 'we must ... be prepared to note thâr
tlre cultnral influences of the Refotmation were to gte t extent (ând perhaps even predomí-
^
nantly from our particulat vantage point) the unforeseen and even unwanted results of the
[theological] labor of the Reformation fìgrres. Indeed, the cultural i¡fluences stood often quite
distant ftom, or ptecisely in opposition to, all that ¡þs lsligious reformets had in mincl, (Tár
Prote.¡tant Ethic and the
Spiit of Capitali:n, p.
49 I-ouis Dumont,
Ptess, Chicago and
4B).
Getnan Ideology: From France to Germargr
London 1994,pp.1,4-15.
arud
Back, University
of
Chicago
il
,l
I
50
'These new teptesentations have two aspects: one particulatþ dûected within, and selfjustificatory; the otl-rer turned towatds dre dominant culture, and unive¡salisr': ibicl., p. 29.
51 See Polanyi, OÈgin: of OzrTime.
52 See Alajn DesroSières, Ia Politiqae des grand.r nonbres,La Découverte, Par-is 1993.
53 See Boltanski and Thévenot, De lajastifcation.
54 The tequitement for iustice can be teduced to a requirement for equality. Since Aristotle,
we have known that equaliry
in the polity does not necessaù signifu an absolutely identical distribution between all the members of the city of that which possesses vaLue, whether matedal
ot imrnatedai goods. \X4rat it involves, as Michel Viliey puts it so well, is a 'just ploportion betwcen
dre quantity of the drings disuibuted and the vadous qualities of the persons'
Droit et le.r
(It
d1'0itî ¿c /'bzfitme, Presses
Univetsitaires de France, Patis 1983, p. 51; see also Michael \üalzer,
Sphu'e: of Jastice, Martin Roi¡ettson, Oxfotd 1983). Defìning a telationship as mjust or just
rvhich is wl-rat cÍitique ând justification do thus presupposes a definition of what the value of
-
-
things and persons consists
in, a scale of values that requites cladfication ìn the event of
a
clispute.
55 Bringing together data collected on the gtound frorn ordinaq' people and scl-rolarl)' texts
belonging to the tradiúon
of intellectual cuitr:te
labour that does not frighten anthtopologists
of exotíc societies) was supported by some reflection on the place of tradiuon in our society
and, more specihcally, in out political universe. It can in fact be shown th¿t the consftucúons
of poJitical philosophy âre today insctibed in institutions and mechanìsms (fot example, polLing
(a
statìons, wotkshops, the media or concerrs, family gathedngs, etc , which are constantly
)
infotmin ordet to behave normally. The inspiraúonal cìq' h¿5 5s..
consüucted on the basis of Saint Augustine's Cit 0f Gld and the treatises l-re devoted to the
problem of grace. The domestic city was established thtough â comÍrefltarJ¡ on Bossuet's Iz
ing actots as to what they must do
collsrructed starting fiom
Hobbes's l-¿uiatban, particulârLy the chaptet devoted to honout. The civic or collective city is
ânâl)'sed in Rousseau's Social Contract. The commercial city is exuacted ftorn.Adam Smitht T/¿
Pol:ilìqae liróe
du proþres þarole.r de l'écrifare sainte.The teputational citj' was
Nation:.Theindustlialcitywasestablishedonthebasis of Sai¡t-Simon'soeatre.
56 Thete are possibly one or more texts that would have done the job. But it must be
l[/eahha;f
highly contempotaty chalactet of the consttuct that we have sought to outline,
in elabotating this new sphere of legitimacy, would have made the choice of a paracligmatic author and text particular'þ sensiúve.
Futthetmote, in this instance, in contrast to the classical texts, we could not rely on a ttadition
of exegesis, and justify the choice by an established teputation and the consequences it has fot
the inscription of themes from poJìtical philosophy in the reality of the social wodd.
57 See\lebet,TbeProîe¡tantEthicandtheSpiritof Caþiîal;silx;GeøeralEconomicHistory;Saciologìe
âdmiltecl thât the
and also the tole played by the social sciences dremselves
des
rcliþons.
58 See Ftançois Gaudu, 'Ttavail et activité', Droit socìal, no. 2, Februaty 1997, pp. 1.1926.
59 This fìast cutrent, constituted in its present form in the 1950s, which inherìts the legacy
of Marxism in the iûterpretâtion of the Frankfurt School and the apocaþtic post-Nietz scheznism
of the fitst third of deis century, tends to reduce a.ll normative eúgencies to the level of conflicts
of interest þetween gtoups, classes, peoples, individuals, etc.). It is in this sense that the current
interprets itself as being a radical clitique. In this petspecuve, which in latge measute is that
of âutonomy, are simply the disof telations of fotces: they add 'dreir fotce to por.vet telations', which âssuÍles
actions in â permanent state of illusion, split personaLig¡, o¡ bad faith (the first aúom of
'Foundations of a Theory of SJ,nnbolic Violence' reads: 'Every powet to exett symbolic violence,
adopted by Piette Bourdieu today, notmative exigencies, devoid
guised exptession
i.e. evety powet which manages to impose meanings and to impose them as legitimate by con-
which are the basis of its force, adds its own specifically symbolìc
to those powet telations': Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, Tkprtdactian in
cealing the power telations
force
Eduation,
Sociery and Cøhnre, trans.
Richard Nice, Sage, London 1,977, p. 4).
60 This second cuttent, which has developed over the last fìfteen years, in latge measure in
reaction to the fitst and statting out from the aporias ptoduced by the hermeneutics of suspicion (see Paul Ricceut, The Conflict of Interpretations, Northv/estern Univetsity Ptess, Evanston
ÍLl
1974), has signìficantly extencied tl-re analysis
bases
of
iudgement. But
it must be said that it
of
the ptinciples
of justice and rhe normative
has often done so at the expense
of a deficit in
the examination of teal social telations and the conditions of realizarion of the exigencies of
justice (fot which these theories were scarcely equipped) and an underestimatio¡
of r.i"tion. of
force.
61 on
this point, we can adoptJacques Bouveresse's posiúon: 'In the sense i¡ u¡hich there
of "EnLightenment", one might equally speak of a clialectic of democratic discourse,
by vittue of which it ends up itself denouncing its own ideals as i-llusoty and false. \I4ren intellectuals who are tegarded as convinced democtats openly proclaim that the only observable
reality, witl-r which one must come to
rion
is a dialecúc
can be made
to those who decide
libety, equality and justice only
defi
end
s
of
ent,
hedged atound with all sorts of sceptical resetvations, ironic insinuations, self-c¡iticisms, selfsuspicions and self-demystifications, potential dictârors have only to plây to public opinion the
catd, which is far more effective, of candour and coutage in clearly revealing what they know
of their opPonents has already largely conceded and implicitly confessed,
('La vengeance de Spenglet', in Bouvetesse, Lz Tenþs de la reftexion,vor. 4, Garümatd, pads 19g3,
PP.371,-402).
62 See Daniel BeIl., Tlte cøltøraÌ contradictions of cqpitalisn, Heinemann, London 1976.
tlre bad conscience
63
See
ibid.
64 This uncettainty tevolves around the condition of
entities, whether objects or people,
and in patticular theit respective poweq on which their place in the mechanisms that ftame action
depends. In a wotld whete all powers were fixed once md for all, where objects wete immutable
(whete, for example, they wete not subject to usury), and whete people acted in accotdance with
ptogtamme that rvas universally known, tests would alwâys be avoided, since tlieir certaj¡
outcome would tender them useless. It is because the potential of objects (as u-hen one speaks
a stable
of testing the potential of a vehicle) and the capacities of people are, by their very nature, uncertain (one never knows fot sute what people ate capal)e ofl that beings enter into relaúons of
comparison wherein their potential is revealed.
65 Given that it is orgøtized not in some abst¡act univetse but in a real wotld shot thtough
widr multiple fotces, the most carefully organized test cânnot guârantee that it does not admit
fotces that do not fo¡m patt of its definition. Moreovet, an absolutely irreptoachable test is a
logical impossibility, fot it would pïesuppose establìshing a specific ptocedure for each unique
situation (and for each petson) - which would no longet allow for judgement in terms of equivalence and the constitution of a jusrifiable order. A completely
iust world presupposes a kind
of priot coding of each situation and a ptocedute fot negotiation so that the actors could reach
art agteement ofl the definition of the situation, which is materiâlly impossibie (the time devoted
to negotiation prevaüing over the time gìven to action) and logically impossibie (for it wouid
also l¡e necessaty to define the negotiating situations by means of negotarions, in an infìnite
speculatity). In addition, thete would be nothing to guârânree thât the ad hoc codtngthus obtained
would be genuinely adequate to the situation, for the petsons, in the absence of ptecedents and
apptenticeship by ttial and ettot, would find it impossible to pinpoint parasitic fotces and cotrect
the calibration of the test.
66 See Boltanski and Thévenot, De la jrctir1cation.
67 In the case of tectuitment tests, it is the firm that bears the dfect cost, wheteas the main
beneficiaries ate, for example, those with degrees from cerrairÌ schools. In the case of the test
for sharing value added, the beneficiaties are v/âge-earners and capitalists in proportions that ate
ptecisely the subject of the clispute, and the cost rests with frms, but also with the state inasmuch
l
,l
as
it
hâs resPonsib.ility
for seeing that the tegulations are tespected and operating controls to
protect the relative rights
of
the parties.
68 \üe can speak of tounds of tests v/hen, as is usually the case fot the most established
to â test is closed - i.e. conditional upon success 'tn r¡ eather test and in such a
w¿y as to standardize the properties of the competito* facing one anothet This is
one of the
conditíons fot the creation of equivalence that the test is based on being deemed valid.
69 Jean Baechleq b CaþitaÌime,vol. 2, Ga.Iimatd, paris 1995, p. 26g.
70 See Ève Chiapello, Artistes uersus managers. I-z management cøltørel
face à la critiqøe artiste,
tests, access
Métailié, Paris 1998.
71
see Luc Boltanski,
L'anoar
et
kjt:tice
comøe compétence4
Métairé, paris 1990;
and,
Distanr
S*fering.
72 See Heilbronet, The Natare and l_.ogic of Capitatisn.
73 As Futet has shown (The Passing of an Illøsion, pp. aa,\, bourgeois varues have ptovided
a
powerfi:l lever for the ctitique
74
of
the bourgeoisie.
See Cesat Grana, Bobemian uersus Boørgeois: Frenclt Sociegt and the French
Man of Letters in tbe
New Yoik 1,964; Pierre Bourdieu, Tbe Rtks of Art, ttrns. srsan
Cambddge 7996; and Chiapello, Àrtistes aeßuj managerr.
Nircteenth cetary,Basic Books,
Emøruel, Poliq' Press,
75
See
Jerrold siegel, Bobenian Pøis: calture, Politic¡ and the Boundarie¡
l8J0-19J0, Penguin, New
of
Boørgnis Life,
York 1986.
It Danþstte, obtigation d'inærtitude, Presses Univetsitaires de
Ftom an absence of ties rhere flows an ideaìization of a panicular use of
space and time. As the multiple glosses on the theme of thepa:ser-b1
paris, etc.)
$heþø:sagu of
in Baudelaite endlessly repeat, the artist is pdmarily one who is only passing through: one whose
freedom is exptessed by passing ftom one place to the next, one situation to anothet,
one day
a btothel and the next motning with the marquise, without Lingering ot becoming attached,
76
See Ftançoise Coblence,
France, Paris 1986.
without privileging one place over anorhet and, above all, excluding any value judgement where
some motal intention could peep thtough, in favou¡ of a purely aesthetic judgement whose soie
ptinciple is the
anistt
uision. See
Gerald Froidevaux, Bardekire.
Rrprésentation et modernité,
Corn,
Patis 1989.
77 In Marx,
in most theorists of modemþ one finds both critiques
- the attistic md
still very ptevalent ifl rhe young Man, it is clearþ in tetreât - bur not
wholly absent - in capital compated with the sociai cdtique. The concepts of alienatìon and
exploitation tefet to two different sensibilities. What is denounced in alienation is, in the fust
instance, opptession, but also the way in v¡hich capitalist sociery ptevents human beings from
livíng an'authentic' existence, a tuly human existence, and renders them alien to themselves in
a sense - that is to sây, to theit deepest humanity. The critique of alienatíon is thetefore also a
ctitíque of the new wotldt lack of authenticity. For its part, exploitation makes the connection
between the poverty of the poor and the wealth of the wealth¡ since the rich ate such only
because they have impoverished the poot. Exploitation thus links the issue of poverty and
tnequality, and dre issue of the egoism of the dch and theit lack of solidatity.
78 see, for example, the way in Proudhon in patícular condemns the motes of anists and
denounces'the minstels of the ugly and squalid', combioing'moral ignominies', 'physical corruptions', and'[s]candalously petverse indulgence but also scandalously cynical indiffetence to
infamy and scandal' @ourdi en, The Rzle: of Art, p. 1.1.0).
79 on the litetaliy mlthical figute of sade in the Bastille as a victim of opptession who
openlyconfesses the cdmes he is chatged with, and hence as a symbol of üansgression, in the
left-wing Iiteratute of 1940-60 (especially in or around Bataille), see Boftanski, Distant sffiirg.
the socia-l.
If
as
the formet is
80 See Chiapello,Artistes uer!,/s lzanagers,
81 To take a recent example - Situationism studied by Julien Coupat, from whom we
borrow this coûtrast, such â tension ied to the self-dissolution of the movement following the
lupture between Debord (anti-modernist critique) and Vaneigem (modernist crítique): see
Coupat,
Persþecliue et critiqae de la peøsée sitaationniste,
DEA dissettation, École
des hautes études
en sciences socia-les 1997.
82 on the use, patticularly in social philosophy, of the metaphor of the 'iron cage,, see
Petet \x/agner,,4 sociology of Modenij: I)befl1 and Diriþline,Rouùeàge, London and New york
1.994,pp.64-5.
83 'In contast [to the social forms that pteceded it], capitalism
is built upon an inhe¡enr
conttadiction in the literal sense of the term. The capitalist orguization of society is contadictory in the rigotous sense that a neurotic individual is: it can attempt
to tealize its i¡tentions only through acts that constantly thwat them. To locate ourselves at the
fundamenta.l level - that of ptoduction
- the capitalist system can live only by continually r1.rng
to teduce wage-earners to mete execiltantJ
it can only function to the extent that this teduc^nd
tion does not occut Capitalism is compelled
constântly to sohcit theparticipation of wage-eztters
in the ptocess of ptoduction - a patticipation that it itself tends ro make impossible': Cornelius
castodadis, capiralime moderne et rélnløtion, vol. 2, unìon gênéroJe d'édition, pat's 1979, p, 106
cont¡adiction
-
a genuine
(see aiso Castonaðts, Lbxp,4rience dø mouuement outrier, vol. 2,rJnton gên&ale d,édition, pans 1,97 4,
pp. 15 ff.)' The concept of spitit of capitalism is grounded in this cont¡adiction, in the sense
that itinvolves mobilizing initiative for a process that cannot mobi-lize by itself. And capitalism
is petmanendy tempted to desttoy the spirit thât serves
.Walzer's
it, since it can serve it only by curbing it.
wotks (especially Tlte Conpary of Crìtics,Hzlbzn, London 1989) precisely challenge the teptesentation of a critique based on absolute exteriority and, conversely,
makes critics'tootedness in their society the condition of possibility for critical activity ancl its
84 Michael
effectiveness.
85 See Hirschm an, Ecoøomie comme science nora/e et þolitique.
86 In his Pages on the 1795 Speenhamland law, Polanyi akeady
stressed, in connection with
much eatliet events than those we are concetned with in this book, the gtandeuq the snares and
the impossibiJity of tetminating cdtical labour and tefotmist measures. This 1aw, which aimed
to guârantee a mìnimum subsistence income for everyone, combined with a certain state of
society and iegislation (in patticuiar, the Anti-Combination laws), 'led to the [onical result that
the financially implemented "tight to live" eventually ruined the people whom it was ostensibly
desþed to succour' (ori¿in: of oarTine,p. 86). The abrogation of the law in 1834 was accompanied by significant suffering, with the abandonment of i¡door relief, and made possible the
cteation of the labou¡ market, which had become inevitable. The disasttous effects of the opetation of the labout matket would subsequendy become appârent, and lead to new measures of
protection, notably the authotization of tade unions in 1870, intended to limit its violence
without seeking to abrogare it (ibid., pp. 82 ff).
87 lbid., pp.4+=5.
BB Let us nevettheless stress thât it goes without saying that democratic societies which
guâtantee fteedom of exptession, access to the media, and the chmce for critical social movements to exist are those most likely to develop in accotdance with the dynamic we have outlined.
89 See Hirschmn, Exit, Voice and þtalry.