Tag: Daniel Bell

• May 16, 2026

  Capitalism as a “Mental Technology”: From Bastos to Hartmut Rosa and the social capital theories

  One of the most intensive defenses of capitalism I have recently heard comes from Miguel Anxo Bastos. In several conferences and interviews, he presents capitalism not merely as an economic system, but as a kind of “mental technology”: a way of seeing the world rationally, systematically, and productively. In his account, capitalism emerges from habits…

• May 14, 2026

  Capitalism is a Technology – Miguel Anxo Bastos

  What was humanity like before we young people came to know it? How does one escape poverty? What was there before, 200 years ago? Poverty is always something relative. So, I don’t know whether people in other times felt poor as such, but rather understood that this was existence itself. That was how it had…

• May 13, 2026

  Daniel Bell and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

  Capitalism is often understood as an economic system based on markets, private property, competition, productivity, and growth. However, for the sociologist Daniel Bell, capitalism was not only an economic structure. It was also a cultural system, and this cultural dimension created one of its deepest contradictions. In his influential book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism,…