Abstract
The current economic crisis sheds light on some serious shortcomings in the socio-anthropological view at the foundation of the capitalist modern project as it pursues its ideal of autonomy and material prosperity for the great majority of people. Moving from Arendt’s and Simmel’s critical notes on individualism and consumption, the authors show that the process of economic expansion through individual liberation on the one side and the systemic exploitation of desires through consumption on the other ended up in a condition of personal discontent and collective inequality that threatens the very possibility of prosperity and autonomy for many. Finally, they expose a different vision of individual freedom, one that can constitute a more reliable socio-anthropological ground upon which a much-needed new model of growth may be built.
While the chapter is the outcome of collective research and discussion among the authors, sections may be attributed as follow:
First section after Introduction, “Capitalism and the Modern Project”: Cesare Silla
Second section “Beyond the Dualism of Individual/Social Life: Simmel’s Critical Views of Modern Economy”: Monica Martinelli
“Introduction”, “Conclusion: towards a generative freedom” and third section “Hannah Arendt: Consumer Society is Not a Free Society”: Chiara Giaccardi
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
There is a remarkable common reference in public discourse on the growing importance of the global cities at the expense of shrinking nation-states as the main actors in the world economic arena. See for example S. Coughlan ‘Are cities the new countries?’ BBC News (http://www.bbc.com/news/education-35305586), R. Florida ‘The rise of the mega-region’, in the Wall Street Journal, 12 April 2008, or the article ‘Nations are no longer driving globalization—cities are’ in Quartz (http://qz.com/80657/the-return-of-the-city-state/).
- 2.
For different assessments of the ideal framework behind the modern project and its ‘legitimacy’ see, standing opposite one another, Löwith (1949) and Blumenberg (1983). See also Voegelin (1952), who is close to Löwith in his diagnosis of modernity and Gauchet (1997), who is instead close to Blumenberg.
- 3.
- 4.
Here we face the split between legein and teukein, that is the ability to order our knowledge and experiences by rearranging the meaning (logos) and the ability to properly act (techné); on this point see Castoriadis (1987).
- 5.
An increasing amount of attention is given to the crisis of democracy provoked by the voraciousness of capitalism and the anarchy of global finance by world-renowned sociologists, economists and philosophers such as Bauman (2011), Beck (2009), Nussbaum (2011), Piketty (2013), Sen et al. (2010) and Stiglitz (2012) among many others.
- 6.
Polany (1944) already highlighted that market economies tend to flee from social, institutional and cultural constraints.
- 7.
This is a central concern of classical sociological theory, increasingly left aside by post-Second World War social theory. On this point see Mills (1959). Specifically, the relation between types of man (Menschentums) and social orders (Sozialordnungen) is the cornerstone of Weberian sociology as recognised by Hennis (1988), Scaff (1989), Szakolczai 1998 and Mϋller (2007). On the pivotal role of that theme in Weberian sociology see the special issue published by Studi di Sociologia (Silla 2016) on the occasion of Max Weber’s 150th birthday.
- 8.
- 9.
See Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft. Eine Kritik der ethischen Grundbegriffe (1892–93), 154–56, now included in the collection of Simmel’s writings: Gesamtausgabe; see volumes 3 and 4 of the collection edited by Köhnke, K.C., Frankfurt, Suhrkamp—published in 1989 and 1991 respectively (in this chapter, quotes have been taken from volume 4, 1991, and translated from German to English by the author).
- 10.
Max Weber investigated this point at length and indicated how the problem of social life is first and foremost a spiritual problem; in fact, it informs our ability, as human beings, to think of the social life and look at it in a way that is not only technical.
- 11.
See, for example, the Simmel’s essay on fashion “Die Mode” 1904 in Simmel (2008a).
- 12.
As Simmel wrote in Soziologie, 1908, now in Simmel (1992, 662–663).
- 13.
See especially Simmel (1900/1907), Philosophie des Geldes.
- 14.
Simmel writes in Sociologie: ‘gratitude is the moral memory of humanity’ and constitutes ‘an ideal bridge … with which we can get close to the other subject. … As much as gratitude is a purely personal kind of affection, it becomes, by virtue of its thousand interlaces within society, one of its stronger connecting tools … If all the reactions of gratitude were suddenly cancelled, society as we conceive it would crumble’ (Simmel 1992, 662–63).
- 15.
R. Horning, ‘Social Media, Social Factory’, The New Inquiry, http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/social-media-social-factory/
- 16.
In Arendt’s words, plurality means that ‘we are all the same, that is, human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live’ (Arendt 1958, 8).
- 17.
‘The force of life is fertility’ (Arendt 1958, 5).
- 18.
‘The living organism is not exhausted when it has provided for its own reproduction, and its “surplus” lies in its potential multiplication’ (Arendt 1958, 108).
- 19.
‘The product is immediately annihilated by the body’s life process’ (Arendt 1958, 103).
- 20.
‘If we were truly nothing but members of a consumers’ society, we would no longer live in a world at all but simply be driven by a process in whose ever-recurring cycles things appear and disappear, manifest themselves and vanish, never to last long enough to surround the life process in their midst’ (Arendt 1958, 134).
- 21.
‘The least durable of tangible things are those needed for the life process itself. Their consumption barely survives the act of their production’ (Arendt 1958, 96). And in so doing we ‘forget’ to take care of the world in common: ‘It is indeed the mark of all laboring that it leaves nothing behind, that the result of its effort is almost as quickly consumed as the effort is spent. And yet this effort, despite its futility, is born of a great urgency and motivated by a more powerful drive than anything else’ (Arendt 1958, 87).
- 22.
‘Without a world whose very permanence stands in direct contrast to life, this life would never be human’ (Arendt 1958, 155).
- 23.
On the reciprocal implication of ‘memorability’ and ‘durability’ see Arendt (1958, 170).
- 24.
Promise allows stability without claiming control: ‘it corresponds exactly to the existence of a freedom which was given under the condition of non-sovereignty’ (Arendt 1958, 244).
- 25.
- 26.
Considering that ‘no action in the social cosmos can remain free of consequences”: for this reason “we should underline our responsibility towards future generations’ (Simmel 1982, 44–45).
References
Appadurai, Arjun. 1990. Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy. Theory Culture and Society 7: 295–310.
Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bateson, Gregory. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine Books.
Bauman, Zygmunt. 1995. Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
———. 1999. In Search of Politics. Oxford: Polity Press.
———. 2011. Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age. Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Bellah, Robert et al. 1992. The Good Society, First Vintage Books Edition, A Division of Random House, New York, USA.
Beck, Ulrich. 2009. World at Risk. Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Blumenberg, Hans. 1983. The Legitimacy of the Modern Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Castoriadis, Cornelius. 1987. The Imaginary Institution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Comte, August. 1875–1877. System of Positive Polity. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
Diamond, Larry. 2008. The Democratic Rollback. Foreign Affairs 87 (March–April): 36–48.
Durkheim, Emile. 1969. Durkheim’s Individualism and the Intellectuals. Political Studies 17(1): 14–30.
Erikson, Erik. 1987. Childhood and Society. London, UK: Paladin Grafton Books.
Gauchet, Marcel. 1997. The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Giaccardi, Chiara, and Magatti, Mauro. 2016. La générativité sociale comme réponse à la crise du capitalisme, Revue du Mauss permanente, 17 décembre 2016. http://www.journaldumauss.net/./?La-generativite-sociale-comme
Hennis, Wilhelm. 1988. Max Weber: Essays in Reconstruction. Boston: Allen & Unwin.
Horning, Robert. 2011. Social Media, Social Factory. The New Inquiry, July 29, www.thenewinquiry.com
Horvath, Agnes. 2013. Modernism and Charisma. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Horvath, Agnes, and Bjorn Thomassen. 2008. Mimetic Errors in Liminal Schismogenesis: On the Political Anthropology of the Trickster. International Political Anthropology 1: 3–24.
Löwith, Karl. 1949. Meaning in History: The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Magatti, Mauro. 2009. Libertà Immaginaria. Le Illusioni del Capitalismo Tecno-Nichilista. Milano: Feltrinelli.
———. 2012. La Grande Contrazione. Milano: Feltrinelli.
Manent, Pierre. 2006. A World Beyond Politics? A Defense of the Nation-State. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. 2013. Metamorphoses of the City: On the Western Dynamic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Mills, Charles Wright. 1959. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mϋller, Hans-Peter. 2007. Max Weber: Eine Einführung in sein Werk. Köln: Böhlau UTB.
Nussbaum, Martha Craven. 2011. Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Piketty, Thomas. 2013. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.
Polany, Karl. 1944. The Great Transformation. New York: Farrar & Rinehart.
Scaff, Lawrence A. 1989. Fleeing the Iron Cage: Culture, Politics, and Modernity in the Thought of Max Weber. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sen, Amartya, Joseph E. Stiglitz, and Jean-Paul Fitoussi. 2010. Mismeasuring Our Lives: Why GDP Doesn’t Add Up/The Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. New York: New Press.
Sennett, Richard. 1976. The Fall of Public Man. New York: Knopf.
Silla, Cesare. 2016. Max Weber Our Contemporary: 1864–2014. In Studi di Sociologia (special issue) vol. LIX, n.1, edited by C. Silla, 1–100.
Simmel, Georg. 1901/1902. Die beiden Formen des Individualismus. In Das freie Wort. Frankfurter Halbmonatsschrift für Fortschritt auf alle Gebieten des geistigen Lebens, Frankfurt, 1, 1901/2.
———. 1923. Schopenhauer e Nietzsche, Milan: Paravia. Or. Ed. Schopenhauer und Nietzsche. Ein Vortragszyklus (1907).
———. 1938. L’intuizione della vita, Milan: Bompiani. Or. Ed. Lebensanschauung. Vier metaphysische Kapitel (1918).
———. 1957a. Individualismus (1917/1919). In Brücke und Tür. Essays des Philosophen zur Geschichte, Religion, Kunst und Gesellschaft. Stuttgart: K.F. Koeler.
———. 1957b. Das Individuum und die Freiheit (1913). In Brücke und Tür. Essays des Philosophen zur Geschichte, Religion, Kunst und Gesellschaft. Stuttgart: K.F. Koeler.
———. 1978. The Philosophy of Money. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul. Or. Ed. Philosophie des Geldes (1900/1907).
———. 1982. La differenziazione sociale, Roma-Bari: Laterza. Or. Ed. Über soziale Differenzierung. Sociologische und psychologische Untersuchungen (1890).
———. 1989. Goethe, 19131/19182. In Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 15. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
———. 1991. Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft. Eine Kritik der ethischen Grundbegriffe (1892–93). In Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 4. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
———. 1992. Soziologie (1908). In G. Simmel, Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 11. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
———. 1995. Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben (1903). In Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 7: Aufsätze und Abhandlungen 1901–1908. Band I. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
———. 1996. Hauptprobleme des Philosophie (1910). In Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 14. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
———. 2001. Das individuelle Gesetz. Ein Versuch űber das Prinzip der Ethik (1913). In Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 12: Aufsätze und Abhandlungen 1909–1918. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
———. 2003. La crisi della cultura. In G. Simmel, Sulla Guerra, Roma: Armando. Or. Ed. Die Krisis der Kultur (1916).
———. 2004. L’etica e i problemi della cultura moderna, Naples: Guida. Ed. Or. Ethik und Probleme der modernen Kultur (1913).
———. 2008a. Die Mode (1904). In Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 18: Englischsprachige Veröffentlichungen 1893–1910. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
———. 2008b. Tendencies in German Life and Thought since 1870 (1902). In Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 18: Englischsprachige Veröffentlichungen 1893–1910. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Stiegler, Bernard. 2011. The Decadence of Industrial Democracies, Disbelief and Discredit. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Stiglitz, Joseph. 2012. The Price of Inequality. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
Szakolczai, Arpad. 1998. Max Weber and Michel Foucault: Parallel Life-Works. New York: Routledge.
———. 2000. Reflexive Historical Sociology. New York: Routledge.
———. 2003. The Genesis of Modernity. New York: Routledge.
Voegelin, Eric. 1952. The New Science of Politics: An Introduction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 1962. World-Empire and the Unity of Mankind. International Affairs 38(2): 170–188.
Zambrano, Maria. 1958. Persona y democracia. Fundación Maria Zambrano.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Giaccardi, C., Martinelli, M., Silla, C. (2017). Out of the Great Recession: The Conditions for Prosperity Beyond Individualism and Consumerism. In: Magatti, M. (eds) The Crisis Conundrum. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47864-7_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47864-7_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47863-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47864-7
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)