300090 The Paradoxes of Capitalism and Emotions - Teil II (S) (WiSe 2019/2020)

For economists capitalism is the organization of economic exchange in a marketplace regulated by supply and demand in which actors plan their moves rationally. For traditional sociologists it is a social organization which disentangles the economy from normative systems and creates a vast process of rationalization of the economy and of ordinary action. But capitalism has proved to be and curiously so, a fantastic machine to produce, control, and commodify emotions. The process of commodification of emotions is pervasive and endemic to the history and sociology of capitalism.
This course will examine the ways in which emotions were made into intrinsic dimensions of the workplace and of the consumer sphere. It examines this process by studying the paradoxes produced by this historical juncture of emotions and capitalism. Five main paradoxes are examined: 1) The emergence of capitalism was accompanied by the institutionalization of self-interest; yet it also marked the emergence of a private sphere saturated with emotions. 2) The leisure industries and the sciences of marketing targeted the social actor as a hedonic subject, thus commodifying desire and subjectivity. This has in turn intensified the romantic bond. 3) Capitalism has produced a new form of commodity, the emodity, or emotional commodity. Emodities have in turn made authenticity into the chief moral vector for the development of the self. 4) Happiness psychologists and economists have joined forces to change policy and introduce ‘happiness indexes’ to measure the state of the nation. Happiness – once thought to be a radical demand of the Enlightenment—is now joining forces with neo-liberalism to transform notions of selfhood and privatize risk. 5) Choice is the key legitimating motive of capitalism; yet choice increasingly undermines the very notion of rational subjectivity which was supposed to have been at the heart of the rational subject.

Further Informationen:
- maximum 25 doctoral researchers can take part in the seminar, please register

Bibliography

List of literature:

Lectures 5 and 6: Choice as a Sociological Problem

- Salcel, Renata 2011 The Tyranny of Choice, Verso.

- Illouz Eva, 2018 Wahrum Liebe Endet, Suhrkamp, chapter 3

- Illouz, Eva 2012 Why Love Hurts, Polity Press, chapter 6.

- Schwartz, B. (2004, January). The paradox of choice: Why more is less. New York: Ecco.

Lectures 7 and 8: Authenticity and Capitalist Subjectivity

- Beckert, Jens, “The Transcending Power of Goods: Imaginative Value in the Economy.” In: Beckert, Jens and Patrik Aspers (eds.), The Worth of Goods. Valuation and Pricing in the Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. P. 106-128

- Bernstein, Elizabeth. Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture. University of Chicago Press, 2007.

- Illouz, Eva (2017) Emotions as Commodities: Capitalism, Consumption and Authenticity, Routledge chapter 2 and 3

- Gilmore, James H., and B. Joseph Pine. Authenticity: What consumers really want. Harvard Business Press, 2007.

- Lamla, Jörn. "Consuming Authenticity: A paradoxical dynamic in contemporary capitalism." (2009): 171