Mirroring Modernity: on consumerism in cosmopolitan Zanzibar

Beyond Consumerism: New Historical Perspectives on Consumption

If there is one agreement between theorists of modernity and those of post-modernity, it is about the centrality of consumption to modern capitalism and contemporary culture. To thinkers as different as Werner Sombart, Emile Durkheim and Thorstein Veblen at the turn of the twentieth century, consumption was a decisive force behind modern capitalism, its dynamism and social structure. More recen...

Interpreted Modernity Weber and Taylor on Values and Modernity

The writings of Weber and Taylor have some strong affinities. Both start from the anthropological idea that man evaluates his position in the world and constitutes the social world by values. Their analyses of values aim at an understanding of those intersubjective meanings that have constituted western modernity. But, at the same time, their anthropological starting point leads to different in...

Buddhist Reflections on “ Consumer ” and “ Consumerism ”

This paper starts with a characterization of “consumerism” and the idea of “the consumer.” It then explores Buddhist attitudes on wealth and “Buddhist economics” before drawing on these to develop a critical assessment of consumerism as an ineffective and wasteful route to human happiness.

On the modernity of Walras

This text is to appear in a volume produced at the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Léon Walras death. The first part (introduction) answers one initial demand (to the solicited authors), i.e the evaluation of Walras influence on their own research and more generally on contemporary research. The second part “Between the Capitol Hill and the Tarpeian Rock ? ” goes further into the discussio...

Barbarism/Modernity: notes on barbarism