Examines Hegel's unique understanding and assessment of capitalism as an economic, social, and cultural phenomenon.Bringing together scholars from varying perspectives, this book examines the value of Hegel's thought for understanding and assessing capitalism, both as encountered by Hegel himself and in forms it takes today. The contributors consider Hegel's complex and multifaceted appraisal of modern market societies, which he understands variously as a condition for a proper account of individual freedom, the framework for a productive account of social interdependency, and the breeding ground for a host of social pathologies concerning individual consumption, labor conditions, and disparities in wealth between the rich and poor. Hegel's ideas about the topic are situated in the context of work by other important thinkers, including Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, J. G. Fichte, Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Theodor Adorno, along with contemporary social and economic theorists. Demonstrating the value of Hegel's philosophy for addressing issues pertaining to capitalism today, the essays bring insight to contemporary concerns such as resurgent neoliberalism, economic globalization, the subordination of ever more spheres of human life to the logic of economic imperatives, and the adequacy of models of utility maximization for comprehending contemporary market societies.
Andrew Buchwalter is Presidential Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Florida. He is the author of Dialectics, Politics, and the Contemporary Value of Hegel's Practical Philosophy and the editor of Hegel and Global Justice.
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Hegel and CapitalismAndrew Buchwalter1. Hegel Discovers Capitalism: Critique of Individualism, Social Labor, and Reification during the Jena Period (1801–1807)Michalis Skomvoulis2. Beyond Recognition in Capitalism: From Violence and Caprice to Recognition and SolidarityKohei Saito3. Anonymity, Responsibility, and the Many Faces of Capitalism: Hegel and the Crisis of the Modern SelfArdis B. Collins4. The Purest Inequality: Hegel’s Critique of the Labor Contract and CapitalismNicholas Mowad5. Hegel’s Notion of Abstract Labor in the Elements of the Philosophy of RightGiorgio Cesarale6. Hegel’s Torment: Poverty and the Rationality of the Modern StateC. J. Pereira Di Salvo7. Capitalism as Deficient Modernity: Hegel against the Modern EconomyMichael J. Thompson8. Economy and Ethical CommunityRichard Dien Winfield9. Two Ways of "Taming" the Market: Why Hegel Needs the Police and the CorporationsLisa Herzog10. Hegel’s Logical Critique of Capitalism: The Paradox of Dependence and the Model of Reciprocal MediationNathan Ross 11. Hegel and Capitalism: Marxian PerspectivesTony Smith12. Hegel’s Ethic of Beruf and the Spirit of CapitalismLouis CarréContributorsIndex