The spirit of luxury
The spirit of luxury
The aim of this article is to introduce and examine the concept of the “spirit of luxury.” Accordingly, we commence by delineating the philosophical idea of luxury, emphasizing its discursive meaning, and contemplating its earliest historical and etymological origins. We continue through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by means of a discussion of the philosophical, political, and economic writings of David Hume, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, Émile Louis Victor Laveleye, and Werner Sombart. Employing Sombart’s sociological work on the spirit of capitalism, we advance and elaborate on the notion of the spirit of luxury. Offering a “Sombartian” account of recent luxury research, specifically the core contributions to this special issue of Cultural Politics, we conclude by critically assessing the concepts of luxury, spirit, and capitalism
luxury, spirit, capitalism
1-22
Armitage, John
19639b0b-0399-4dc6-9369-4d8c1ed77480
Roberts, Joanne
c49f0cf6-8c79-4826-b7f2-8563d7aa99cf
1 March 2016
Armitage, John
19639b0b-0399-4dc6-9369-4d8c1ed77480
Roberts, Joanne
c49f0cf6-8c79-4826-b7f2-8563d7aa99cf
Abstract
The aim of this article is to introduce and examine the concept of the “spirit of luxury.” Accordingly, we commence by delineating the philosophical idea of luxury, emphasizing its discursive meaning, and contemplating its earliest historical and etymological origins. We continue through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by means of a discussion of the philosophical, political, and economic writings of David Hume, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, Émile Louis Victor Laveleye, and Werner Sombart. Employing Sombart’s sociological work on the spirit of capitalism, we advance and elaborate on the notion of the spirit of luxury. Offering a “Sombartian” account of recent luxury research, specifically the core contributions to this special issue of Cultural Politics, we conclude by critically assessing the concepts of luxury, spirit, and capitalism
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ARMITAGE & ROBERTS Accepted.pdf
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 11 September 2015
e-pub ahead of print date: 1 March 2016
Published date: 1 March 2016
Keywords:
luxury, spirit, capitalism
Organisations:
Winchester School of Art
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 382056
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/382056
ISSN: 1743-2197
PURE UUID: 6cd73547-82d4-4a63-8329-2669fb1efff9
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Date deposited: 22 Oct 2015 10:33
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 03:24
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