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The capitalist market, progressives bemoan, is a cold monster: it disrupts social bonds, erodes emotional attachments, and imposes an abstract utilitarian rationality. But what if such hallowed critiques are completely misleading? This book argues that the production of new sources of faith and enchantment is crucial to the dynamics of the capitalist economy. Distinctively secular patterns of attraction and attachment give modern institutions a binding force that was not available to more traditional forms of rule. Elaborating his alternative approach through an engagement with the semiotics of money and the genealogy of economy, Martijn Konings uncovers capitalism's emotional and theological content in order to understand the paradoxical sources of cohesion and legitimacy that it commands. In developing this perspective, he draws on pragmatist thought to rework and revitalize the Marxist critique of capitalism.
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Reviews
"A unique and original rethinking of the conceptual and affective armature of economy, both in its emergence as a distinct domain of social life and object of analysis over the past century and in its new salience under the sign of neoliberalism."
New York University
"This extraordinarily incisive and provocative book goes a long way toward explaining the tenacious grip of money on the American moral imagination."
Villanova University
"In The Emotional Logic of Capitalism: What Progressives Have Missed, Martijn Konings reframes Marx's observations about money, calling on semiotics as well as political economy to make his case. Konings provides a thoughtful intellectual history to justify his framework, and he arrives at several refreshingly counterintuitive conclusions . . . Konings makes a compelling argument that markets are
European Journal of Sociology