hello everybody oli here with another
video about philosophy reading
recommendations from the last few books
I read I'm afraid that none of the books
I'm talking about today I actually have
with me to show you and that's because
as you may have noticed I've moved into
a new flat and most of my bookshelf is
currently empty space but they will all
be appearing along the bottom of the
screen as usual if you want to take
notes and find out what they are and you
know what else is down the bottom of the
screen the subscribe button so let's
kick things off the first book I have to
recommend for you is Michelle fucose
discipline and punish now if you follow
me on twitter at philosophy tube you'll
know that this is a book I've been
talking about a lot recently I've done a
lot of Twitter threads on Foucault as
his starting point he says look
punishment has changed a lot over the
last 250 years we used to take criminals
out into the street and execute and
publicly live hangings and drawings and
quartering the burnings and all kinds of
gruesome stuff nowadays not so much
nowadays things have changed we've got
prison prisons slightly different
different things are happening an
essential thesis is that how a society
defines and punishes its criminals says
a lot about the nature of power in that
society
that's his starting point and then he
explores what today's punishment systems
say about power in contemporary
societies and what he ultimately goes on
to say is that the penal system isn't
supposed to prevent crime or reformed
criminals it actually has a very very
different purpose he thinks and we're
going to be talking about fuko's views
on prisons and government surveillance
and forced labor on an upcoming double
episode of the show by the way if you
want to pick up any of the books that I
talked about today then you can find
links to all of them in the description
you can get them on Amazon and if you
use the links that I provide then I get
a percentage of the sale so you'll be
helping me out as well so the other two
books I want to recommend to you I want
to discuss as a pair
the first is Max Weber's the Protestant
ethic and the spirit of capitalism and
the other is Alexander and Nevis and
Karem Nissan CEO Gullu whose names are
probably just absolutely butchered I'm
sorry how the West came to rule both of
these books are about the origins of
capitalism the economic system that we
live under today whether thinks that
capitalism has its roots in religion
actually it's a very famous book Weber's
and he says that capitalism came out of
particularly Protestant
Calvinist religious traditions and
that's quite an interesting theory the
idea that today this economic order
which is as far as we can tell pretty
secular it actually has its roots in
religion and that was a really cool idea
that I wouldn't have thought of before
it isn't a very long book it does get a
little bit technical though if like me
your knowledge of Protestantism isn't
you know enough to make you a candidate
for a vicarage then you might find a
little bit difficult cuz sometimes he
says okay and then we have the Baptist
of the Methodists and the Calvinists and
someone like okay I'm gonna just slow
down one of all these different groups
and what do they believe just just slow
down a bit there so I can get a little
bit tough but really the main criticism
I have of it is that I came away from it
feeling like okay this is cool but I
feel like there's just something missing
here in particular any any historical
account of the origins of capitalism
that doesn't mention slavery he's kind
of missing out on something a little bit
like I was thinking back to Eric
Williams's book capitalism and slavery
which I've talked about before on the
show which is a really really cool book
about the interplay between those two
different systems and Weber just kind of
doesn't really mention slavery that much
I was like okay what you said is cool
but it is it really the whole picture
and that's why I really enjoyed how the
West came to rule because those two guys
whose names I won't insult on my tryna
pronounce their names again they take a
very internationalist look at the
origins of capitalism they say okay a
lot of historians like Weber have sat
down and said capitalism was something
that the Dutch and the English just
invented one date is totally out of hole
golf but no actually there are a lot of
different countries and different people
in different systems that helped create
it so for instance they have a chapter
on the Mongolian Empire and the Black
Death
they have a chapter on the Ottoman
Empire and the way that the wars with
the Ottoman Empire shaped capitalism
they have a chapter on the discovery of
the new world and the slavery and
genocide of indigenous American peoples
they have a chapter on the Dutch East
India Company and all the colonialism
they did in Southeast Asia and all the
slavery in the unwaged labor that they
brought in so lots of different systems
all combining to help create capitalism
and explain why it took off in the
countries that it did and didn't just
expand and then fizzle out I would say
that you don't need to understand Karl
Marx and Marxism to understand this book
100
but if for instance you had watched a
series of YouTube videos explaining
Marxism it might just help explain where
they're coming from because they assume
that you know what they mean when they
say things like means of production
beaugeois and class and just a little
bit of passing familiarity with Marx
would help you out there most of the
time they do take care to define their
terms and explain where they are in the
theoretical map their definition of
capitalism for instance I talked about
on Twitter as well it's one of the best
I've ever seen it's absolutely fantastic
they also take care to emphasize not
only where other countries outside of
Europe were exploited and invaded and
that people were genocided
but also where they took some agency and
said no actually this is this is a
system that work in it they didn't know
they were helping creative but they took
action and played an active role with
helping shape it so it's not just a
history of exploiting the rest of the
world although obviously that's a big
part of it there's other stuff going on
as well which is really cool to see so
absolutely 100% totally recommend that
one read that one and then go and read
Webber and Williams as well that book
was a gift from a fan of the show called
John Sherman so John thank you so much
for sending it to me I really really
enjoyed it if you ever want to get me a
present of some research materials for
the show I have an Amazon wish list the
books link in the doobly-doo patreon.com
slash philosophy tube is obviously the
other place that you can support the
show with a regular relation if you
could and don't forget to subscribe