Il mito del mercato: la civiltà di Robinson Crusoe = The myth of the market: the civilization of Robinson Crusoe

Abstract

In the galaxy of the myths of modernity, there is one which, more than others, can tell the essence of the market economy and in which the icy logic of "do ut des" informed of itself each atom of every social articulation of thought and imagination. This is the myth of Robinson Crusoe, the founding of the modern possessive individualism. Robinson is, in perspective, the contemporary way of living subjectivity inside the "steel cage" of globalized capitalism. He is possessed by the secularized Protestant ethic in the spirit of capitalism: he saves himself, in an exodus from the social dimension as a place of inauthenticity. Without ever questioning the mode of production and distribution, without subverting the geometry of the existing, Robinson makes a difference to his life: he turns to his own advantage and to the detriment of the poor Friday the contradictions of a system seen as unchangeable.