Beyond Justification: Dietrologic and the Sociology of Critique

I understand The New Spirit of Capitalism to be explaining the present by recourse to existing mechanisms of power, including resistance to that power. There appears to be nothing external to the explanation which could cause it to fail because everything is included. This appears to mean that the future must be more of the same, and that all the vibrant forms of intellectual and practical resistance to contemporary capitalist forms are doomed to be incorporated too. This chapter explores the problems with this argument and suggests that there are actually many alternatives to the new spirit of capitalism, should we care to look for them. In part this is an attempt to counter Boltanski and Chiapellos sociologic with empirical evidence, but it is also to insist that there are already existing forms of action and justification that cannot be explained (away) by their argument.