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jpowerj's review against another edition
4.0
it's not the easiest book to read, in that the language is overly complex and pretentious imo, but the content is super interesting, especially the parts about the evolution of language around commerce before and after smith/hume.
rhyslindmark's review against another edition
5.0
Impressive book on the history of arguments for capitalism.
ovvlish's review against another edition
4.0
This book was required reading for a class. It was difficult at some points to make sense of the language the author uses, but overall was a fascinating read and gave me a lot to think about. And I think, based upon his contemporary notes section, that this was his goal. He was not necessarily trying to convince me, his reader, of any one thing, but rather to open my eyes to the train of past arguments and to make me see that it is important to educate myself in past rhetoric before attempting my own modern rhetoric. I believe this book was initially written in the 70s, but the topic it delves into is just as relevant today as it has been for the past 300+ years. Would highly recommend to anyone looking for a jaunt through the history of philosophizing on the topic of capitalism, or simply a trip through any episode of intellectual history in general.
thickronnie's review
informative
fast-paced
2.5
Hirschman traces the intellectual history of the rise of capitalism by way of political arguments that notable thinkers have put forward before or in the process of its development. The political struggle at the time was over how to constrain the arbitrary excesses of human passions (primarily of the rulers, but also the people's). Ideas developed from repressing or harnessing the passions to countervailing passions (pitting one passion against another); then (economic) interests enter the stage to limit the passions, constituting a new paradigm. Striving for economic gain was thought to be predictable and harmless. In this context, Hirschman works out two strands of thought: 1) Montesquieu, Sir James Steuart, and John Millar, who argue that the expasion of commerce and the interest in keeping it going is so fine-tuned a machine that it would deter any arbitrary political intervention that could hinder it; and 2) the Physiocrats and Adam Smith then mark an endpoint to these narratives, with the formers relying on the sovereign to take interest in keeping the economy running (as opposed to the economy automatically turning everything to the better), and Smith reducing the quarrel of passion vs interests into one striving that can satisfy all passions: economic gain. In the end, the argument is that capitalism came into being not through conflict but through internal factors that largely revolve around limiting the passions - a promise that was overtaken by actual historical developments when economic ambitions became the new destructive passion.
Overall, a fairly interesting read that challenges Weber and Marx, although (at least in contrast to Marxism) not at all in a very convincing way: lots of classic liberal strawmen of Marxist thought, while over-emphasizing idealisms in the rise of an economic order. In other words, how could any serious scientist believe that the - as history confirmed: void - idealist promises of the ruling class intellectuals bear more significance than, say, the gains which elites were accumulating with the new developments. The book should be read as an enumeration of obscure and counterintuitive arguments put forward in favour of an economic system in the making: the early process of ideologizing the actual workings of that system. If one is interested in the origins of capitalist ideology, one can find them here. If one is interested in the actual development of capitalism, they should look elsewhere.
Overall, a fairly interesting read that challenges Weber and Marx, although (at least in contrast to Marxism) not at all in a very convincing way: lots of classic liberal strawmen of Marxist thought, while over-emphasizing idealisms in the rise of an economic order. In other words, how could any serious scientist believe that the - as history confirmed: void - idealist promises of the ruling class intellectuals bear more significance than, say, the gains which elites were accumulating with the new developments. The book should be read as an enumeration of obscure and counterintuitive arguments put forward in favour of an economic system in the making: the early process of ideologizing the actual workings of that system. If one is interested in the origins of capitalist ideology, one can find them here. If one is interested in the actual development of capitalism, they should look elsewhere.
tylerrobinson1's review against another edition
3.0
"[...]the special affinity of rational calculation implicit in th concept of interest with the nature of rational economic interests for these activities eventually monopolizing the contents of the concepts"
Albert Hirschman provides an intellectual history of the rise of capitalism. For Hirschman, unlike Max Weber and Karl Marx's theories of capitalism, there are continuities in the rise of capitalism from feudalism. For Marx capitalism arose from the contradictory forces built into feudalism's programming, and for Weber Protestantism saw the ideology of thrift, saving and reinvestment as a driving force for the accumulation and consolidation of capitalist firms. Hirschman argues that this is wrong, and demonstrates through detailed literary analysis, that many of the assumptions which supported capitalism were merely beliefs lying in the ideological plane beforehand, and were adopted or tweaked to fit the shifting demands. The analysis is not as convincing as Weber or Marx, but Hirschman does provide insight into the important intellectual currents (Adam Smith, Mandeville, Locke, Hume, Rochefoucauld, Steuart, etc), and the way in which they were reinterpreted to suit the new system and its programming.
Albert Hirschman provides an intellectual history of the rise of capitalism. For Hirschman, unlike Max Weber and Karl Marx's theories of capitalism, there are continuities in the rise of capitalism from feudalism. For Marx capitalism arose from the contradictory forces built into feudalism's programming, and for Weber Protestantism saw the ideology of thrift, saving and reinvestment as a driving force for the accumulation and consolidation of capitalist firms. Hirschman argues that this is wrong, and demonstrates through detailed literary analysis, that many of the assumptions which supported capitalism were merely beliefs lying in the ideological plane beforehand, and were adopted or tweaked to fit the shifting demands. The analysis is not as convincing as Weber or Marx, but Hirschman does provide insight into the important intellectual currents (Adam Smith, Mandeville, Locke, Hume, Rochefoucauld, Steuart, etc), and the way in which they were reinterpreted to suit the new system and its programming.