The New Spirit of Anticapitalism

Abstract

Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello’s interpretation that 68 events would be responsible for the new spirit of capitalism is well-known. Thus, if first spirit, described by Max Weber, is the ascetic puritan inspired by the ethics of labour, the 68’s youth “search for authenticity” would have created a new flexible and conexionist spirit. But, at the same time first spirit was created, an anticapitalist spirit emerged in the unions, socialist intelectuals, and communist and anarchist movements. This spirit was renovated as well by the 68’s youth in the critique of “industrial society”, which was a common unidimensional ground at capitalism and socialist world. Therefore, if it is true that 68 made a renovation on the spirit of capitalism, one can say as well that it renovated anticapitalist spirit, whose radical experiments are nowadays living on the feminist, decolonial and ecological critique of capitalism.