The Culture of the New Capitalism

RICHARD SENNETT

ISBN 10: 030010782X / ISBN 13: 9780300107821

Published by Yale University Press, 2006

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 170126/STJWALANG/1FGDFG

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Culture of the New Capitalism
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 030010782X
• ISBN 13: 9780300107821
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dimensions: 2.54W x 14.61H x 22.23D centimeters 2.54 centimeters width by 14.61 centimeters height by 22.23 centimeters depth
• Weight: 363 grams

About this title

Synopsis

The distinguished sociologist Richard Sennett surveys major differences between earlier forms of industrial capitalism and the more global, more febrile, ever more mutable version of capitalism that is taking its place. He shows how these changes affect everyday life—how the work ethic is changing; how new beliefs about merit and talent displace old values of craftsmanship and achievement; how what Sennett calls “the specter of uselessness” haunts professionals as well as manual workers; how the boundary between consumption and politics is dissolving.

In recent years, reformers of both private and public institutions have preached that flexible, global corporations provide a model of freedom for individuals, unlike the experience of fixed and static bureaucracies Max Weber once called an “iron cage.” Sennett argues that, in banishing old ills, the new-economy model has created new social and emotional traumas. Only a certain kind of human being can prosper in unstable, fragmentary institutions: the culture of the new capitalism demands an ideal self oriented to the short term, focused on potential ability rather than accomplishment, willing to discount or abandon past experience. In a concluding section, Sennett examines a more durable form of self hood, and what practical initiatives could counter the pernicious effects of “reform.”

About the Author

Richard Sennett teaches sociology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the London School of Economics. His recent publications include The Corrosion of Character and Respect in a World of Inequality.