Capitalism and justification

Abstract

Weber's thesis that the spirit of capitalism was preexistent to the rise of capitalism itself inspired many sociologist to search for the cultural background of contemporary forms of capitalism. In this paper, the author focuses on and makes comparisons of three approaches of such kind. The one approach draws from Luc Boltanski and ?ve Chiapello who examine the development of 'new spirit of capitalism' by focusing on the interrelation of two macroactors - capitalism and critique; the other one is of Nigel Thrift who relates the rise of 'soft capitalism' to the strengthening of 'cultural circuit of capital'; and finally, Richard Sennett's approach analyzes the culture of 'new capitalism' and work ethic of the 'mp3 organizations'.