PER UNA GENEALOGIA WEBERIANA DEL CAPITALISMO DI CONSUMO. IL CASO DEL MARKETING NEGLI STATI UNITI (1890-1930)

Overall explanations for the rise of modern capitalism are usually divided between productivist thesis which assign causal primacy to the production system and anti-productivistic thesis which give consumer culture an active role in the process. I claim that a multi-causal approach is more adequate if we want to better understand the interplay of production and consumption at the origin of modern capitalism; moreover, I suggest that a study of marketing is well fitted for such a task, since marketing is the link between the production system and the spheres of consumption. Drawing on the Nietzsche-inspired Weberian genealogical method and following the path-breaking works on consumer capitalism in America, I delved into a study of the origin and development of marketing in U.S. between 1890 and 1930 in order to outline a genealogy of consumer capitalism. This research is the object of my Ph.D. dissertation which I present in the essay.