The New Spirit of Capitalism and a Christian Response

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Kathryn Tanner
Keyword(s):  
Financial Markets ◽  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Public Debt ◽  
Shareholder Value ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Economic Behavior ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Collège De France ◽  
Economic Organizations ◽  
Spirit Of Capitalism

This chapter discusses Max Weber’s approach to the influence of Christian beliefs and practices on economic behavior, and ties it to the sort of comparison of forms of ‘spirituality’ offered by the French philosopher Michel Foucault in his Collège de France lectures. The chapter explores the general characteristics of finance-dominated capitalism, especially with reference to derivatives and financial markets. It discusses how finance disciplines other economic organizations, such as states through the issuance of public debt, and non-financial corporations through the priority given to shareholder value. The culture of finance-dominated capitalism is also talked about as a specific form of work ethic. Finally, the chapter outlines the basic shape of the larger argument of the book, concerning the potential for Christianity to counteract contemporary capitalist modes of control.

Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Tanner
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Economic Behavior ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Current Configuration ◽  
Spirit Of Capitalism ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Christian Beliefs

The current configuration of capitalism, in which finance plays a dominant role, has the capacity to shape people in ways that hinder the development of any critical perspective on it. This book explores the various cultural forms of finance-dominated capitalism and suggests how their pervasive force in human life might be countered by Christian beliefs and practices with a comparable person-shaping capacity. In this way, the book reverses the project of the German sociologist Max Weber in his Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, while employing much the same methods as he used for discussing the relationship between religious beliefs and economic behavior. Weber showed how Christian beliefs and practices, by way of its work ethic, could form persons in line with what capitalism required of them. This book demonstrates the capacity of Christian beliefs and practices to help people resist the dictates of capitalism in its present, finance-dominated configuration.

scholarly journals Prosumers’ Behavior under a Regulation That Encourages Strict Self-Sufficiency. The Case of Spanish Photovoltaic Micro-Generation

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1114
Author(s):  
Pere Mir-Artigues ◽  
Pablo del Río
Keyword(s):  
Electricity Markets ◽  
Electricity Market ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Economic Behavior ◽  
Distribution Grid ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Regulatory Limits ◽  
Regulatory Measures ◽  
Self Production ◽  
Municipal Level

The reduction of equipment costs encourages the diffusion of photovoltaic micro-generation, however, proper regulatory measures should be implemented to facilitate self-production dissemination and to promote the emergence of new electricity markets which integrate prosumers. The specific form of these markets will depend on the level of prosumers’ self-sufficiency and the type of grid to which they will be connected. Unfortunately, Spain has been an example of resistance to micro-generation deployment. However, some things have started to change recently, albeit only to a certain extent. This article explains the key elements of the latest regulation of photovoltaic micro-generation in Spain and, through a stylized model, describes the economic behavior of prosumers in such a regulatory framework. It is concluded that this regulation only encourages prosumer plants which are strictly focused on self-sufficiency because it discourages exports and limits capacities and this regulation discourages the smart renewal of the distribution grid because it prevents prosumers from participating in the electricity market. It is recommended that the aforementioned regulatory limits be removed and pilot experiences for the market participation of prosumers be promoted by creating the appropriate technical and regulatory conditions, for example, at the municipal level.

FROM SEXUALITY TO GOVERNMENTALITY: THE OEDIPUS COMPLEX OF MICHEL FOUCAULT

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
BRANDON KONOVAL
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Oedipus Complex ◽  
Critical Pathway ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Collège De France ◽  
The Individual

The figure of Oedipus haunted the thought of Michel Foucault from the outset of his tenure at the Collège de France, in association with several key philosophical and historical projects, and enduring until the conclusion of his career. However, it was with Foucault's account of an “Oedipus complex”—one that operated “not at the individual level but at the collective level; not in connection with desire and the unconscious but in connection with power and knowledge” (“Truth and Juridical Forms,” 1973)—that Foucault was able to enlist Oedipus for a genealogy of “sexuality” and, furthermore, of “governmentality,” such as would increasingly preoccupy him through the mid- to late 1970s. Foucault's attention to classical texts—in particular the Oedipus Tyrannos of Sophocles and the Republic of Plato—thereby helped to clear a critical pathway through the conventional Marxism embraced by the “repressive hypothesis,” and to arrive at a Nietzschean genealogy of sexuality and power.

scholarly journals Segurança, território, população

Sociologias ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (28) ◽  
pp. 370-380
Author(s):  
Edson Benedito Rondon Filho
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Collège De France

A obra retrata o curso de mesmo nome ministrado por Michel Foucault no Collège de France (1977-1978), onde o autor desenvolveu a genealogia de uma forma de saber político centrado nos mecanismos que possibilitam a regulação da população. A arte de governar e o 'governo de si' são questionados em um transcurso histórico que desaguou em uma "razão de Estado", cuja racionalidade implicou na construção de conjuntos de saberes e de tecnologias de poder, necessários para o crescimento das forças do Estado. Ao demonstrar os problemas que a Polizeiwissenschaft devia controlar, delimitou o papel da polícia como garantidora da ordem interna e técnica de controle populacional, dotada de saberes específicos, constituindo-se, junto com segurança e a Economia Política, naquilo que Foucault denominou de biopolítica.

scholarly journals Exercícios ascéticos e práticas pedagógicas: por uma genealogia do poder disciplinar

2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 191
Author(s):  
Ernani Chaves
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Collège De France

O presente artigo pretende mostrar, a partir do curso “O poder psiquiátrico” ministrado por Michel Foucault no Collège de France em 1973-1974, a relação entre exercícios ascéticos e as práticas pedagógicas desenvolvidas nas comunidades religiosas medievais e a constituição histórica do poder disciplinar. Para isso, avalia-se o lugar estratégico dos cursos de Foucault para a compreensão de seu pensamento, assim como se aponta a consequência de sua análise, qual seja, por um lado, a necessidade da solidão, do isolamento para a produção do conhecimento e, por outro lado, entretanto, a necessidade de romper este isolamento, tendo em vista a circulação social do saber. Encontrar uma resolução para este conflito constitui-se, por sua vez, numa forma de resistência ao poder disciplinar.

scholarly journals Las gubernamentalidades del neoliberalismo

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-56
Author(s):  
Nicholas Gane
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
Zygmunt Bauman ◽  
Collège De France

El artículo toma como punto de partida la obra de Michel Foucault, particularmente los cursos sobre biopolítica dictados en el Collège de France (1978-1979), para examinar los distintos modelos de vigilancia con los que operan el liberalismo y el neoliberalismo en tanto formas de gobierno. En primer lugar, se hace una re-lectura de Vigilar y Castigar a la luz del análisis que realiza Foucault en sus cursos sobre el arte de gobierno liberal. Se argumenta que el Panóptico no es solo una arquitectura de poder centrada en la disciplina y la normalización, tal como se lo ha entendido comúnmente, sino un modelo normativo de la relación del Estado con el Mercado que, para Foucault, es ‘la fórmula misma de un gobierno liberal’ (2009: 89). En segundo lugar, los límites del panoptismo, y, por extensión, del gobierno liberal, son expuestos a partir del análisis de Gilles Deleuze sobre la mutación de sociedades disciplinarias a sociedades de ‘control’, y los escritos de Zygmunt Bauman acerca de la individualización y el ‘Sinóptico’. En respuesta a Deleuze y Bauman, la última sección de este artículo regresa a los cursos sobre biopolítica de Foucault para argumentar que la sociedad capitalista contemporánea está marcada no solo por la disminución de los poderes estatales o por la transmisión de responsabilidades del Estado al individuo, sino por la mercantilización neoliberal del Estado y sus instituciones en tanto proceso condicionado por una forma específica de gubernamentalidad. En conclusión, se proponen cuatro tipologías de vigilancia: como disciplina, como control, como interactividad y como mecanismo para promover la competencia. Se argumenta que, si bien estos tipos de vigilancia no son mutuamente excluyentes, están configurados por diferentes gubernamentalidades que pueden ser empleadas para examinar diferentes aspectos de la relación entre el Estado y el Mercado, así como lógicas culturales y sociales del capitalismo de mercado contemporáneo en un sentido más amplio.

scholarly journals Financial Globalization, Inequality, and the Rising Public Debt

2014 ◽  
Vol 104 (8) ◽  
pp. 2267-2302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Azzimonti ◽  
Eva de Francisco ◽  
Vincenzo Quadrini
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Incomplete Markets ◽  
Public Debt ◽  
Government Debt ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Idiosyncratic Risk ◽  
International Financial Markets ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Potential Mechanism

During the last three decades government debt has increased in most developed countries. During the same period we have also observed a significant liberalization of international financial markets. We propose a multicountry model with incomplete markets and show that governments may choose higher levels of debt when financial markets become internationally integrated. We also show that public debt increases with the volatility of uninsurable income (idiosyncratic risk). To the extent that the increase in income inequality observed in some industrialized countries has been associated with higher idiosyncratic risk, the paper suggests another potential mechanism for the rise in public debt. (JEL D31, E62, F65, H63)

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document