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The book El nuevo espíritu del capitalismo (The new spirit of capitalism, Madrid: Akal, 2002), by Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello, traces the outlines of the new spirit of capitalism from a new analysis of business management texts which have provided employers with food for thought, have inspired the new forms of organisation of companies and have redefined the new status of the work force exploited by those companies: from the mid seventies, capitalism has renounced the Fordian principle of the hierarchical organisation of work and has developed a new organisation in the form of a network based on the initiative of the agents and the relative autonomy of their work, all at the cost of their material and psychological security.
This new spirit of capitalism has triumphed thanks to the formidable recovery of "artistic criticism" which, after the May 68 revolution, had not ceased to denounce the alienation of everyday life produced by the alliance between capital and bureaucracy.
At the same time, "social criticism", which did not succeed in mapping the turns brought about by the new modes of exploitation and domination of capitalism, was trapped in the old structures of hierarchical production and suffered a growing paralysis when the years of crisis affected the social structure.

(Translation of a fragment of the text on the back cover of El nuevo espíritu del capitalismo. Madrid: Akal, 2002)

Luc Boltanski is a sociologist and director of studies at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales en Sciences Sociales.

Ève Chiapello is a sociologist and lecturer at the Groupe Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC).


Programme

TUESDAY 17 JUNE, 19.30
Thoughts about the role of the critic in the context of the new spirit of capitalism
Lecture open to the public
Auditorium. Admission free. Limited number of places. With simultaneous interpretation service

WEDNESDAY 18 JUNE
Encounter with Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello