Bruno Latour, Vincent Antonin Lépinay: The Science of Passionate Interests: An Introduction to Gabriel Tarde’s Economic Anthropology (2009)

“How can economics become genuinely quantitative? This is the question that French sociologist Gabriel Tarde tackled at the end of his career, and in this pamphlet, Bruno Latour and Vincent Antonin Lépinay offer a lively introduction to the work of the forgotten genius of nineteenth-century social thought. Tarde’s solution was in total contradiction to the dominant views of his time: to quantify the connections between people and goods, you need to grasp “passionate interests.” In Tarde’s view, capitalism is not a system of cold calculations—rather it is a constant amplification in the intensity and reach of passions. In a stunning anticipation of contemporary economic anthropology, Tarde’s work defines an alternative path beyond the two illusions responsible for so much modern misery: the adepts of the Invisible Hand and the devotees of the Visible Hand will learn how to escape the sterility of their fight and recognize the originality of a thinker for whom everything is intersubjective, hence quantifiable.

At a time when the regulation of financial markets is the subject of heated debate, Latour and Lépinay provide a valuable historical perspective on the fundamental nature of capitalism.”

Publisher Prickly Paradigm Press, Chicago, 2009
Volume 37 of Paradigm
ISBN 0979405777, 9780979405778
100 pages

Distributor

PDF (updated on 2020-7-13)
Source notes (added on 2012-8-1)

Mark Fisher: Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (2009–) [EN, CZ, CR, GR, ES, FR, IT]

“After 1989, capitalism has successfully presented itself as the only realistic political-economic system – a situation that the bank crisis of 2008, far from ending, actually compounded. The book analyses the development and principal features of this capitalist realism as a lived ideological framework. Using examples from politics, films, fiction, work and education, it argues that capitalist realism colours all areas of contemporary experience. But it will also show that, because of a number of inconsistencies and glitches internal to the capitalist reality program capitalism in fact is anything but realistic.”

Publisher Zero Books, Winchester, 2009
ISBN 1846943175, 9781846943171
81 pages

Interview with author: Matthew Fuller (Monthly Review, 2009).
Reviews: Steven Sherman (Marx&Philosophy, 2010), Ben Granger (Spike, 2010), John F. Murphy (Critical Sociology, 2010), Ed Rooksby (Historical Materialism, 2012), Todd Hoffman (Ctheory, 2016), Matěj Metelec (A2, 2010, CZ), Roman Rakowski (Britské listy, 2010, CZ).

Commentary: Mark Fisher (Strike!, 2012), Alison Shonkwiler, Leigh Claire La Berge et al. (Reading Capitalist Realism, 2014), Alfie Bown (LSE blog, 2017).

Wikipedia
Publisher
Worldcat

Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (English, 2009, updated on 2017-7-12)
Kapitalistický realismus: proč je dnes snazší představit si konec světa než konec kapitalismu (Czech, trans. Radovan Baroš, 2010, 29 MB, added on 2020-4-7)
Kapitalistički realizam: Zar nema alternative? (Croatian, 2011, 4 MB, added on 2013-9-26, updated on 2020-4-7)
Καπιταλιστικός ρεαλισμός. Υπάρχει άραγε εναλλακτική; (Greek, trans. Θέμης Πανταζάκος, 2015, added on 2017-7-12, updated on 2020-4-7)
Realismo Capitalista. ¿No hay alternativa? (Spanish, trans. Claudio Iglesias, 2016, 7 MB, added on 2021-1-22)
Le réalisme capitaliste: n’y t’il qu’une alternative? (French, trans. Julien Guazzini, 2018, added on 2020-4-7)
Realismo capitalismo (Italian, trans. Valerio Mattioli, 2018, added on 2020-4-7)

The Invisible Committee: The Coming Insurrection (2007–) [FR, EN, ES]

“The Coming Insurrection is an eloquent call to arms arising from the recent waves of social contestation in France and Europe. Written by the anonymous Invisible Committee in the vein of Guy Debord—and with comparable elegance—it has been proclaimed a manual for terrorism by the French government (who recently arrested its alleged authors). One of its members more adequately described the group as ‘the name given to a collective voice bent on denouncing contemporary cynicism and reality.’ The Coming Insurrection is a strategic prescription for an emergent war-machine to ‘spread anarchy and live communism.’

Written in the wake of the riots that erupted throughout the Paris suburbs in the fall of 2005 and presaging more recent riots and general strikes in France and Greece, The Coming Insurrection articulates a rejection of the official Left and its reformist agenda, aligning itself instead with the younger, wilder forms of resistance that have emerged in Europe around recent struggles against immigration control and the “war on terror.”

Hot-wired to the movement of ’77 in Italy, its preferred historical reference point, The Coming Insurrection formulates an ethics that takes as its starting point theft, sabotage, the refusal to work, and the elaboration of collective, self-organized forms-of-life. It is a philosophical statement that addresses the growing number of those—in France, in the United States, and elsewhere—who refuse the idea that theory, politics, and life are separate realms.”

French edition
Publisher Editions La Fabrique, Paris, 2007

English edition
Publisher Semiotext(e), 2009
Intervention series, 1
ISBN 1584350806, 9781584350804
136 pages

Wikipedia (EN)
Publisher (EN)

L’insurrection qui vient (French, 2007, updated on 2017-6-26)
The Coming Insurrection (English, 2009, updated on 2017-6-26)
La insurrección que viene (Spanish, undated, added on 2013-9-26)