French Literature Reviews - 2026
B. Latour & V. Lepinay, The Economy of Passionate Interests: An Introduction to Gabriel Tarde's Economic Anthropology.
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas
Bruno Latour, Vincent Lepinay,
The Economy of Passionate Interests:
An Introduction to Gabriel Tarde's Economic Anthropology
Published: 09/10/2008
Publisher: La Découverte
ISBN: 978-2-7071-5644-0
Number of pages: 134
Publisher's price: 11 euros
What if economic science has got everything completely backwards? This is the provocative thesis put forward by the authors of this short volume, who explicitly follow in the footsteps of Gabriel Tarde (1843–1904).
They propose a complete reversal of our standard assumptions: nothing in economics is objective; everything is subjective, or rather, intersubjective. Ideas drive the world; the superstructure determines the infrastructure "first and last"—an infrastructure which, in any case, does not exist. The modern economy—the one Tarde observed from his chair at the Collège de France, marked by class struggle, the first great wave of globalization, massive human migration, frantic innovation punctuated by world's fairs, and the carving up of colonial empires—does not by any means present the spectacle of the triumph of reason.
Rather, it presents a spectacle of passions of unprecedented intensity.
What, then, is the economy? It is the science of passionate interests, the authors explain. It is this very entanglement at the heart of economic science that economists have both caught a glimpse of and, astonishingly, fled from in horror, as if gazing upon the Gorgon's head.
Contents:
Why Economics is Quantifiable Because It Is Subjective
The Nature of Economics
Economics Without Providence
Bruno Latour is a professor at Sciences Po (Paris).
Vincent Antonin Lépinay, economic anthropologist, is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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An article on this book can be read on the nonfiction.fr website:
Gabriel Tarde developed his sociological and economic ideas during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a period marked by rapid industrialization, the emergence of mass society, and early globalization. Long overshadowed by the structuralist and objectivist models that dominated twentieth-century social science, his work has experienced a significant reevaluation in contemporary thought. Scholars in economic anthropology and intellectual history have increasingly returned to his focus on intersubjectivity, imitation, and belief as foundational elements of social and economic life.
Readers interested in the intersections of economic theory, sociology, and the history of ideas may find this volume relevant to contemporary debates on the nature of value. The authors propose a complete reversal of standard assumptions, arguing that nothing in economics is objective and that everything is subjective or intersubjective. The modern economy is presented not as the triumph of reason, but as a spectacle of passions of unprecedented intensity, defining the economy as the science of passionate interests.