In The Making of Capitalism in France, Xavier Lafrance offers the first thorough analysis of the origins of French capitalism, understood as distinct type of historical society and implying a new mode of class exploitation.
Historians, since the 1960s, argue that the French economy performed as well as did any economy in Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries thanks to the opportunities for profit available on the market, especially the large consumer market in Paris. Whatever economic weaknesses existed did not stem from the social structure but from exogenous forces such as wars, the lack of natural resources or slow demographic growth. This book challenges the foregoing consensus by showing that the French economy performed poorly relative to its rivals because of noncapitalist social relations. Specifically, peasants and artisans controlled lands and workshops in autonomous communities and did not have to improve labor productivity to survive. Merchants and manufacturers cornered markets instead of being subject to the market’s competitive imperatives. Thus, distinctive features of capitalism—primitive accumulation (the dispossession of peasants and artisans) and the competitive obligation faced by merchants and manufacturers to reinvest profits in order to keep the profits—did not prevail until the state imposed them in a process lasting for a century after the 1850s. For this reason, it was not until the 1960s that France caught up to (and in some cases surpassed) its economic rivals.
Historians, since the 1960s, argue that the French economy performed as well as did any economy in Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries thanks to the opportunities for profit available on the market, especially the large consumer market in Paris. Whatever economic weaknesses existed did not stem from the social structure but from exogenous forces such as wars, the lack of natural resources or slow demographic growth. This book challenges the foregoing consensus by showing that the French economy performed poorly relative to its rivals because of noncapitalist social relations. Specifically, peasants and artisans controlled lands and workshops in autonomous communities and did not have to improve labor productivity to survive. Merchants and manufacturers cornered markets instead of being subject to the market’s competitive imperatives. Thus, distinctive features of capitalism—primitive accumulation (the dispossession of peasants and artisans) and the competitive obligation faced by merchants and manufacturers to reinvest profits in order to keep the profits—did not prevail until the state imposed them in a process lasting for a century after the 1850s. For this reason, it was not until the 1960s that France caught up to (and in some cases surpassed) its economic rivals.
In The Making of Capitalism in France, Xavier Lafrance offers the first thorough analysis of the origins of French capitalism, understood as distinct type of historical society and implying a new mode of class exploitation.
The Statesman is a difficult and puzzling Platonic dialogue. In A Stranger's Knowledge Marquez argues that Plato abandons here the classic idea, prominent in the Republic, that the philosopher, qua philosopher, is qualified to rule. Instead, the dialogue presents the statesman as different from the philosopher, the possessor of a specialist expertise that cannot be reduced to philosophy. The expertise is of how to make a city resilient against internal and external conflict in light of the imperfect sociality of human beings and the poverty of their reason. This expertise, however, cannot be produced on demand: one cannot train statesmen like one might train carpenters. Worse, it cannot be made acceptable to the citizens, or operate in ways that are not deeply destructive to the city's stability. Even as the political community requires his knowledge for its preservation, the genuine statesman must remain a stranger to the city.Marquez shows how this impasse is the key to understanding the ambiguous reevaluation of the rule of law that is the most striking feature of the political philosophy of the Statesman. The law appears here as a mere approximation of the expertise of the inevitably absent statesman, dim images and static snapshots of the clear and dynamic expertise required to steer the ship of state across the storms of the political world. Yet such laws, even when they are not created by genuine statesmen, can often provide the city with a limited form of cognitive capital that enables it to preserve itself in the long run, so long as citizens, and especially leaders, retain a "e;philosophical"e; attitude towards them. It is only when rulers know that they do not know better than the laws what is just or good (and yet want to know what is just and good) that the city can be preserved. The dialogue is thus, in a sense, the vindication of the philosopher-king in the absence of genuine political knowledge.
How do we explain what Perry Anderson calls “the bizarre prominence of Bernard-Henri Lévy,” easily the best-known “thinker” under sixty in France? “It would,” he continues, “be difficult to imagine a more extraordinary reversal of national standards of taste and intelligence than the attention accorded this crass booby in France’s public sphere, despite innumerable demonstrations of his inability to get a fact or an idea straight. Could such a grotesque flourish in any other major Western culture today?” This book, based on a careful investigation comparing BHL’s words with his deeds, seeks to explore the remarkable persistence of this celebrity pseudo-philosopher since he burst onto the scene in 1977. Delving into his networks in the spheres of politics, the media and big business, Lindgaard and de la Porte reveal what the success of this three-decade long imposture tells us about the degeneration of contemporary French intellectual and cultural life.
This volume offers an in-depth study of key themes common to the Hindu and Christian religious traditions. It redefines how we think about Hinduism, comparative study, and Christian theology. This book offers a bold new look at how traditions encounter one another, and how good comparisons are to be made. Redefining theology as an interreligious, comparative, dialogical, and confessional practice open to all people, it invites not only Hindus and Christians, but also theologians from all religious traditions, to enter into conversation with one another.
Taxing Artificial Intelligence will be essential reading for scholars, policy makers and students across law and economics. It will also be invaluable for law and tax professionals seeking to understand the latest developments in AI, automation, and the future of work.
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