The propertied self : the psychology of economic history / Brian J. McVeigh.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McVeigh, Brian J., author.

Contributor:

McVeigh, Brian J., editor.

Series:

Psychology Research Progress

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Economics--Psychological aspects.

Economics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (227 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York : Nova Publishers, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book was originally part of a much larger project tentatively entitled The Propertied Self: Wealth, Progress, and Human Nature. This was an overly ambitious manuscript whose coherence was probably not obvious to many readers. It was never published. However, portions that were not included in the work formed another book called A Psychohistory of Metaphors: Envisioning Time, Space, and Self through the Centuries, which is now in progress. The first draft of this book was much longer, and included a chapter entitled "The Aesthetics of the Propertied Self", which explored in more detail how the emergence of the propertied self and changes in the human psyche impacted not just the political economic landscape, but also influenced aesthetics. Economic and political indicators (dress, fashion, and lifestyle) were investigated and linked to how transformation in practices of wealth acquisition over an individual's lifetime led to new notions of time and self-narration. For example, a section called "The Aesthetics of Atomized Individuation" explored the psycho-politics of "obsessive cleanliness." I also discussed how technological advances that led to the invention of new spaces of "consumutopia," such as cyberspace, elaborated and reshaped psychological interiority in new ways. Examples drawn from popular culture were intended to demonstrate these changes. These topics will have to wait for another publishing opportunity. Julian Jaynes once advised me that the best way to read William James's The Principles of Psychology was not from beginning to end, but to dip into it here and there. I suspect we would appreciate many other books if this advice were followed. I am tempted, then, to suggest that this book be read in the same way, not because it is on intellectual par with The Principles of Psychology, but because books rather than disputations in orderly logic are more often extended conversations between author and reader. "Consciousness" is a vague, multi-referential term, so I will devote some space to carefully defining it. But in order to add some clarity and specificity to my usage, throughout this book I use the synonymous expressions such as "conscious interiority," "interiorized experiences," and "interiority." Finally, the careful reader will note the difference between my use of Psyche (meaning mind) with the italicized psyche, which refers to the ancient Greek concept of soul. Finally, note that my use of "personalty" is not a typo (i.e., I do not mean "personality"). The former term is a legal concept describing a kind of property.

Contents:

THE PROPERTIED SELF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ECONOMIC HISTORY ; THE PROPERTIED SELF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ECONOMIC HISTORY ; Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data; Contents; Acknowledgments; Notes to the Reader; Prologue: Premises and Problems; A Starting Point: Getting Rich in a Chinese Village; Questions, Themes, and Arguments; Legitimizing the Inner Person with Property; Chapter 1 Studying Person and Property in Global Perspective; Remarrying Politics and Psychology; Politics, Psyche, and Ownership; Asserting the Interior Life of the Individual; The Nature of Psyche

What Is Interiority?Interiority Down through the Ages: a Political Economic Phenomenon; Interiority as a Lens for Understanding History; Psychology as an Expression of the Modern; Inner Utopias of Psyche; Self-Autonomy and Self-Sovereignty as Increased Interiority; Self-Expression as Increased Interiority; Justifying the Individual's Accumulation of Property; What Is Property?; The Rediscovery of Property; Property and the Modern Person; The Self and Property; The Nature of the Propertied Self; Justifying Modern Property Arrangements; Towards a Broad Definition; Classifying Property

Four Types of PropertyBalancing Freedoms; Pursuing Utopian Social Progress; The Dominant Narratives of Modernity; Units of Analysis and Periodization; Migratory Ideologies and Modernity Outside the Western Tradition; The Invention of the Future; Modernity as Belief in the Future; The Propertied Self as Narrative; From Modernity to Postmodernity; Increasing Interiority as a Feature of Postmodernity; Encouraging Widespread Socioeconomic Mobility; The Propertied Self as a Common Denominator; The Propertied Self in Historical Perspective; The Economics of the Propertied Self

Chapter 2 Force Fields of Persons and PropertiesThe Political Economics of Psychology; Towards a Common Idiom of Person, Property, and Psychology; Person-Property-Polity Regimes; Presenting Self and Stabilizing Property Relations; Person: The Axis of Value; The Corporeal Framework: The Body; Psyche: The "Inner Person" as Property; Psychologizing the Person: Interiority; Where Psychology and Politics Meet: Self-Recognition as Property; Adornment: Decorating the Person with Property; The Politics of Self-Expression and Appearance; Personalty: Personal Property

Property-in-Person as Property-in-ThingsAssets: Intangible Property; Abstract Wealth and the Imagination; Ultimate and Subordinate Property Regimes; Individual Dignity and the Collective Control of Assets; Money: An Example of an Asset; Applying the Approach in a Chinese Village; Presenting Self and Stabilizing Relations in a Chinese Village; Chapter 3 The Emergence of the Propertied Self; The Economic Revolutions of Modernity; The Commercial Revolution; Manufacturing Consumerism: The Industrial Revolution; The Second Industrial Revolution: Cultivating; Desires through Techno-Science

The Birth of Modern Abstract Economics

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-63483-917-X