The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph (Princeton Classics)

Amazon.com Price: $15.20 (as of 11/10/2019 03:34 PST- Details)

Categories: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Description

In this volume, Albert Hirschman reconstructs the intellectual climate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to light up the intricate ideological transformation that occurred, wherein the pursuit of material interests–see you later condemned as the deadly sin of avarice–was once assigned the role of containing the unruly and destructive passions of man. Hirschman here offers a new interpretation for the upward thrust of capitalism, one that emphasizes the continuities between old and new, in contrast to the assumption of a sharp break that may be a common feature of both Marxian and Weberian thinking. A few of the insights presented here is the ironical finding that capitalism was once at first supposed to accomplish exactly what was once soon denounced as its worst feature: the repression of the passions in favor of the “harmless,” if one-dimensional, interests of commercial life. To portray this lengthy ideological change as an endogenous process, Hirschman draws at the writings of numerous thinkers, including Montesquieu, Sir James Steuart, and Adam Smith.

Featuring a new afterword by Jeremy Adelman and a foreword by Amartya Sen, this Princeton Classics edition of The Passions and the Interests sheds light at the intricate ideological transformation from which capitalism emerged triumphant, and reaffirms Hirschman’s stature as considered one of our most influential and provocative thinkers.

Related products

Home » Shop » Books » Subjects » Engineering and Transportation » Engineering » Reference » Atlases and Maps » World » The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph (Princeton Classics)

Recent Products