Abstract
This paper focuses on the role of criticism in the process of establishing spirit of conscious capitalism in the Czech startup environment. The transformation of the economic system is always partly based on the recuperation of critical ideas, and the current intensified critique of capitalism (ecological, social, moral) produces a number of "third ways", reformist compromises that combine the demands of critical movements with capitalist dynamics (Chiapello 2013).
I consider one such reformist option to be conscious capitalism, which I define by a normative framework according to which social impact and utility are not at odds with the market imperative of profit, but are themselves sources of surplus/value. The paper introduces three modes of recuperation of critique by young conscious enterpreneurs, which are conscious commodity (1), philanthropy (2) and distance/irony (3).
These figures overlap and complement each other, and I attribute to them an important role in the process of shaping a compelling conscious production and consumption reality. I further relate the identified modalities to John Law's (2004) concept of method-assemblage.
Method-assemblages are ways of knowing and organizing the world and knowledge about it, establishing relationships by constructing presence, manifest absence and Otherness. Such way of thinking helps me to grasp the absent and displaced processes and relations of the dynamic negotiation of the spirit of conscious capitalism.
Using the method-assemblage, the conscious enterpreneurship can be understood as a sphere that produces conscious products, producers and consumers that are distinct from mass, cheap, non-ecological production and consumption driven by "mere" price (= corporate capitalism). At the same time, some essential aspects and relations that constitute this mode of organizing reality are silenced in this process (self-exploitation, consumerism, or issues without a lean market or philanthropic solution).
In this paper, I thus aim to do two things: to understand the role of critique in the process of establishing the spirit of conscious capitalism, and to analyze what enables it to hold together.