Elster, Leibniz y el espíritu del capitalismo

Abstract

Jon Elster suele considerar su primer libro Leibniz et la formation de l’esprit capitaliste como algo profundamente vergonzoso. Aquí intentaremos hacer una relectura de él que, a partir de desnudar sus debilidades, haga lucir sus bondades, especialmente para comprender tanto el lugar clave que el libro ocupa dentro de la obra del filósofo noruego, como los elementos del sistema de Leibniz que hicieron posible las conexiones que nos presenta. Dentro de nuestro análisis tendrá un lugar especial la consideración del elemento metodológico central de su texto: la analogía.

Jon Elster considers his first book Leibniz et la formation de l’esprit capitaliste as something profoundly shameful. Here we will try to do a new reading of it, that reavealing its weaknesses help us make its strengths shine. The book is specially important to understand the course of Elster’s work, because of its position between his thesis about Hegel and Marx and his books about rational choice. We will show also how the leibnizian concepts he describes present an interesting way to approximate capitalism, and in particular, economic rationality. In our analysis of his work we will focus with special atention the central methodological element of his text: analogy.