Fondements et survie du capitalisme.

Abstract

At a time when the new great economic crisis has brought criticism of capitalism back to the fore, the first questions seem as simple in appearance as they are complex in practice : How to criticize capitalism ? How to resist this ? What are the main obstacles to overcome ? In this article, the authors' aim is to address some of the difficulties associated with anti-capitalist critique and resistance. From a double perspective, philosophical and sociological, it is a question of not underestimating the plasticity and the resilience of capitalism. Nevertheless, the authors modestly attempt to extract certain characteristics of capitalism from the study of its critique. One of the objectives lies, for example, in the use of sociological analysis of certain experiments presenting themselves as critics of capitalism, for the purpose of possible philosophical definition of certain ontological features of the capitalist phenomenon. These two approaches have in common a regulationist inspiration which grasps capitalism as an instituted social order, and not only as a mode of production. This leads to a contextual and situated analysis of capitalism, attentive to its transformations and mutations in space and time. The authors' reflection unfolds in three stages, insofar as they strive to face three challenges. The first one is to describe in what ways our respective disciplinary fields deal with the study of capitalism while stressing the need to mobilize several disciplines, explaining theirs specific approach angles. This article then discusses the ways in which marxism tends to structure contemporary works on critique of capitalism ; the aim here is to assess the relevance of updating traditional concepts from Marx’s work. Finally, the goal of the third step is to answer to what extent the revival of criticism can make it possible to analyze contemporary capitalism, in particular through the study of experiments presenting themselves as anticapitalists.

Keywords

• capitalism
• critique
• social philosophy
• sociology
• local currency
• resilience