Historical capitalism and the culture of modernity

The historical features of the transition from Agraria to Industria--urbanization, industrialization, state-building, the culture of abstract time-coordination--are investigated in an effort to uncover the predilections of nineteenth century liberal, Marxist and Weberian theorizing. The nineteenth century vision of progress and its scientific method are investigated as an admixture of rationality and secular idealism. Marx's positivism is critiqued in his theory of the falling rate of profit. To recenter and transcend the lopsided dialectic of an objective material sphere and a subjective social one, a reconceptualization of culture is needed. A variety of nineteenth century cultural productions are investigated--painting, fiction, city planning, etc.--to detail the use of culture as a locus of support and resistance to modernization. The basic experience of modernity is the dialectic of subjectivity/objectivity. An epilogue considers one postmodernist reading of resistance and transcendence to the subject/object dialectic of modernity.