Corporate Capitalism and Political Philosophy

Suman Gupta

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Year: 2001
• Print ISBN:
  9780745317557
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781849641142
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Corporate capitalism is usually examined from a sociological or economic viewpoint, and this book breaks new ground in providing a thorough account of the mechanisms which define it from a philosophical perspective, revealing how these processes determine the way we live today. Marxist and other left-oriented political philosophies had ideological roots that were based, sometimes incongruously, on particular economic and sociological readings of the capitalist process. Political philosophies associated with conservatism and neoliberalism have either been assimilated within capitalist discourses, or they have been designed to justify corporate capitalist processes. This book re-examines these issues with an unusually dispassionate approach, providing a systematic view of contemporary corporate capitalism in all its complexity, without expecting the reader to have a specialist knowledge of sociology or economics. It clarifies the scope of political philosophy by reflecting on its own methodology and practice, and offers a controversial conclusion that within contemporary corporate capitalist modes of organisation there is actually no space left for political philosophy at all, as corporate capitalism systematically denies all political agents an ability to exercise their political will.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Part I: Philosophical Methods and Capitalist Processes: Means, Definitions, Intentions
• 1 The Evasiveness of Corporate Capitalism
• 2 The Political State
• 3 The Capitalist Corporation
• 4 The Contradictions of Capitalism
• 5 Intentional Systems
• Part II: Reasons, Causes and Practices in Contemporary Corporate Capitalism
• 6 Classical Sociology and Managerialism
• 7 Management Discourses
• 8 The Macro Issues Behind Executive Pay
• 9 Corporatism and the Corporate Capitalist State
• 10 Corporate Capitalist States and International Relations
• 11 The Mechanics of Disablement
• Part III: The Disabled Political Will and Anti-Political Philosophy
• 12 The Anti-Political Self-Defeat of Mannheim
• 13 Popper's Anti-Political Philosophical Tendencies
• 14 Hayek and the Mature Anti-Political Philosophy
• 15 Nozick's Anti-Political Philosophy
• 16 Fukuyama's Anti-Political Philosophy
• 17 The Need for Rational Utopian Thinking
• Notes
• Index