English | The Discipline of Economics and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism in the Late Nineteenth Century
| Title | English | The Discipline of Economics and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism in the Late Nineteenth Century |
| Date and Time | Friday, 5 October 2018 10am |
| Venue | HSS Conference Room (HSS-05-57) |
| Description | Based on my recent book, A Political Ecomony of Modernism: Literature, Post-Classical Economics, and the Lower Middle-Class (Cambridge 2018), this presentation argues that the transformations in intellectual life in the late nineteenth century - the creation and formalization of intellectual disciplines, the renovations and innovations of institutions of higher education, and a collective and relatively anonymous understanding of the nature of knowledge more generally - is part and parcel of the rise of corporate capitalism during the long turn of the twentieth centure in Britain and the United States. This is notable particularly in relation to the enormous "explosion" of commodities in the second Industrial Revolution, which created a situation where large numbers of people consumed life-enhancing rather than simply life-sustaining goods - goods which did not simply answer need, but which offered, epecially in the new industry of advertising, what the French novelist Stendhal called "the promise of happiness" at the heart of aesthetic experience. this new organization of political and intellectual "economy" altered social life, understanding, and experience in a manner that manifested itself not only in intellectual institutions but also in generally-held values, intellectual frameworks, and the felt-experience of life in general. In this cultural context the systematic study of wealth and wellbeing at this time - the transformation of the discipline of what has been called "Political Economy" into what came to be called "Economics" on or about 1870 - is a defining example of that change insofar as the object of study of Economics, namely the comprehension and study of value as it is produced and distributed within society, focuses on the social formations, collective and individual experiences, and understanding that affected various other intellectual disciplines. |
| Speaker/s | Ronald Schleifer |
| More information | Registration | |