BOLTANSKI AND CHIAPELLO, THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM

[having read to p. 86]

The "new spirit" of capitalism is the set of arguments made, at a given time (it's a periodizing concept), for the value of capitalism over and above the justification internal to it (i.e. its ontology): to invest capital in order to make more capital. Assumed is the fact that financial gain alone is not enough to motivate people to invest in companies as thoroughly as they need to invest to produce the labor that they company needs produced. But this is not just an ideological concept in the sense of a veil over the real. It describes the real, lived conditions of people's lives, both of the capitalists and the wage workers.

B and C are concerned with two eras and the changes btw them: the 60's and the 90's. The triangle of concepts their book is located within is: capitalism, spirit of capitalism, critique. Critique is internal to and an engine of the spirit of capitalism. It drives the move from one spirit to another. In that sense, capitalism always internalizes critique. The critique that drove the spirit of capitalism in the 60s was a critique of "familial capitalism," capitalism wherein promotions and value generally at companies was driven capriciously, nepotistically. As a effect of this critique, capitalism was re-organized around a more "accountable" set of goals and objectives, which could be known, and counted on. Companies thus came to look more transparent, internal value more fair. Business seemed more meritocratic, so managers [their main source of data is management lit in France] could invest more, personally, in the job.

In the 90s, the critique of hierarchy continued, now pursued all the way to the critique of large companies, bureaucracies and inflexibility. Touted now was the networked company, who focused on a core business and contracted the rest out. Who was organized around flexible teams and projects. In this system, control was internalized (self-control) and externalized (the client becomes the boss). The control of direct management was also replaced by the control of company "vision" and "core values," with which one is supposed to identify, and which thereby becomes an instrument of self-control. This is true at the level of factory workers, who (e.g. in Toyota, held up as a model) become responsible for day to day production demands, and the "health" of the line. On average, everyone needs more education and is said to be more autonomous.

When critics talk about capitalism as the enemy of, say, avant garde art, what part of capitalism do they mean? And is art world capitalism (galleries) organized like the capitalism operated and modeled by Toyota? What period of capitalism do they mean? Are they talking about the changes to capitalism or its constants (exploitation, capital re-investment, homogenization)?

If the problem that Beacon faces is incorporation by the institutions of capitalism, and the goal it seeks is critique of it, what part threatens to incorporate it? Or, in a rosier model, what part does it critique?