Book Review

摘要

Not long after The New Spirit of Capitalism was translated into English, Essex University Business School arranged a two-day workshop on whether this heavy book did justice to the sociology of post-1968 capitalism. The event assumed a format with which the majority of contemporary academics will be entirely familiar. First of all, the not insignificant amount of preparation-and-attendance time required would need, in all but the most privileged of cases, to have been considered as an initial investment in anticipation of medium-to-long-term returns. Furthermore, for those who decided that the investment of time was worthwhile, a series of break-out and report-back sessions was coordinated and a mutually satisfactory level of take-away point consensus eventually resulted. This was essentially a reading group treated as a project. Given how The New Spirit of Capitalism, as anybody who had read (about) it already knew, is itself a book about the proliferation of projects since 1968, there was ample opportunity for snake-eating-its-own-tail-albeit-in-a-jaded-fashion discussions (a project on projects, a project about projects which might lead to other projects, a project-based projection of projects guided by a treatise on the essence of projects, etc.) which was lamentably under-exploited. The exact opposite complaint can probably be made against much of what follows here.