Passions and Interests

Albert O. Hirschman, one of the well-known names in political economy, examines the intellectual atmosphere in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when capitalism was taking shape, and seeks answers to the question of how the pursuit of material gain, which was considered a sin for a very long time, came to be at the center of life. The author, who brings a different interpretation to the rise of capitalism, emphasizes the continuity between the old and the new, not the idea of rupture, which is the common denominator of Marxist and Weberian thought. Examining the views of thinkers such as Montesquieu, James Steuart, John Millar, and Adam Smith, Hirschman defines the long-term ideological change as an internal process and states that the passions and interests that were defined against each other over a long historical period were held together by Adam Smith, resulting in a whole chain of thought being erased from memory. indicates that it has been deleted. On the one hand, he addresses criticisms that capitalism hinders the development of the "full human personality", noting that before the nineteenth century, capitalism was already advocated for the purpose of suppressing the passions of rulers and other nobles and creating "a less faceted, less unpredictable, one-dimensional human personality". On the other hand, he underlines that the arguments of proponents of the "laissez-faire" ideology, such as Keynes, are just a repetition of the idea that "everyone pursuing their own interests will ensure a good order", which was dominant before capitalism showed its reactionary face. Obtaining information about the part of the history of thought discussed in this book will make a significant contribution to the studies on capitalism.



Number of Pages: 152

Year of Printing: 2014


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Metis Publishing

First Print Year: 2007

Number of Pages: 152

Language Turkish