Authors: Laura Gherardi, Gianluca Maestri, Mauro Magatti
Abstract
The relationships between sustainability and recent transformations of capitalism are illustrated comparing two bodies of articles appeared in international managerial and economic journals in the years 2008-2010 (after Lehman Brother’s failure) and a decade after, in the years 2019-2021. In the two-year period 2008-2010, a capitalism criticized for unsustainability makes environmental and social sustainability the pillar of a new axiology called Sustainable City. Ten years later, in the same literature, this axiology collapses and sustainability is placed at the service of technology and decoupled from the social component, so that a new wave of social criticism rises, as expressed by the climate movement. This dynamic is known as the evolution of the Spirit of capitalism illustrated by Boltanski and Chiapello concerning the seventies: during a crisis, capitalism incorporates values from its critics and pervert them in order to turn them to profit, so that criticism must find new bases to relaunch itself.
Keywords: Sustainability, capitalism, social criticism, purpose
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LAURA GHERARDI è professoressa associata presso il Dipartimento di Discipline Umanistiche, Sociali e delle Imprese Culturali dell’Università degli Studi di Parma
Email: laura.gherardi@unipr.it
GIANLUCA MAESTRI è ricercatore post-doc presso il Dipartimento di Discipline Umanistiche, Sociali e delle Imprese Culturali dell’Università di Parma. gianluca.maestri@unipr.it
MAURO MAGATTI è professore ordinario presso il Dipartimento di Sociologia dell’Università Cattolica di Milano
Email: mauro.magatti@unicatt.it