This strikingly original work challenges a familiar assumption
within cultural studies: that cultural practices happen in an
everyday realm that is potentially open-ended, involving everyone;
whereas economics, by contrast, is alien, a force field determined
by international financial interests and legitimized by the arid
discourses of professional economists. The author argues that, in
fact, for most people, most of the time, economic issues are a
central part of everyday life.
Separating economics from everyday practices has resulted in
seemingly interminable debates over the relative importance of
economic conditions and cultural factors in determining the "real"
configurations of power relations; it has also reinforced the
perception that the capitalist marketplace, now global, permits no
alternatives. The author shows instead that a kind of economic
sense-making is at work, a "common sense" that conditions a great
deal about how many people organize their lives and understand
their powers as social agents.
"Common sense," Gramsci recognized, is always equivocal, multiform,
even contradictory, and economic sense-making is no exception. Thus
the author pays special attention to conflicting currents of
economic sense-making and their social effects, thereby showing how
false the assumption of a monolithic and uniform Market actually
is. He looks at a wide range of economic practices and assumptions,
from transnational corporations and human resources management in
the university, to the organization of such very specific markets
as the breeding and sale of show dogs.
But Gramsci also understood that, no matter how equivocal and
conflicted, common sense imposes parameters of possibility. No
political direction is likely to be realized if it is not in some
way deeply engaged in mobilizing some aspect of everyday common
sense. Accordingly, the author's ultimate concern in this book is
to challenge what he calls "capitalist common sense," to find, in
the complex ensemble of often-conflicting assumptions that
consolidate the processes of everyday life into "common sense,"
alternative economies to capitalism--alternatives that are already
here, in operation, every day.
In conclusion, the author argues for ways such everyday economic
practices could be mobilized toward a countercolonial economics
that might lead to the further invention of new and decidedly
noncapitalist forms of economic organization.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
