The economic sociology of late capitalism: The Contributions from Boltanski, Thévenot and Chiapello

Abstract

Together with his colleagues Laurent Thévenot and Eve Chiapello, Luc Boltanski has written two books on the economic sociology of late capitalist society: De la justification. Les economies de la grandeur (1991; Paris: Gallimard; On Justification. The economics of worth) with the economist Thévenot from the Paris convention school and Le Nouvel Esprit du capitalisme (The New Spirit of Capitalism) with Chiapello (1996; Paris: Gallimard). Together these books propose an economic sociology and analysis of the ethics of capitalism that we will briefly discuss and in this paper.