The Passions and the Interests or Down and Out in the Great Depression

The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph

Author: Albert O Hirschman

In this volume, Albert Hirschman reconstructs the intellectual climate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to illuminate the intricate ideological transformation that occurred, wherein the pursuit of material interests --so long condemned as the deadly sin of avarice --was assigned the role of containing the unruly and destructive passions of man. Hirschman here offers a new interpretation for the rise of capitalism, one that emphasizes the continuities between old and new, in contrast to the assumption of a sharp break that is a common feature of both Marxian and Weberian thinking. Among the insights presented here is the ironical finding that capitalism was originally supposed to accomplish exactly what was soon denounced as its worst feature: the repression of the passions in favor of the "harmless," if one-dimensional, interests of commercial life. To portray this lengthy ideological change as an endogenous process, Hirschman draws on the writings of a large number of thinkers, including Montesquieu, Sir James Steuart, and Adam Smith.

Table of Contents:

	Foreword
	Preface to the Twentieth Anniversary Edition
	Acknowledgments
	Introduction	3
Pt. 1	How the Interests were Called Upon to Counteract the Passions	7
	The Idea of Glory and Its Downfall	9
	Man "as he really is"	12
	Repressing and Harnessing the Passions	14
	The Principle of th e Countervailing Passion	20
	"Interest" and "Interests" as Tamers of the Passions	31
	Interest as a New Paradigm	42
	Assets of an Interest-Governed World: Predictability and Constancy	48
	Money-Making and Commerce as Innocent and Doux	56
	Money-Making as a Calm Passion	63
Pt. 2	How Economic Expansion was Expected to Improve the Political Order	67
	Elements of a Doctrine	70
	Related yet Discordant Views	93
Pt. 3	Reflections on an Episode in Intellectual History	115
	Where the Montesquieu-Steuart Vision Went Wrong	117
	The Promise of an Interest-Governed World versus the Protestant Ethnic	128
	Contemporary Notes	132
	Notes	137
	Index	147

Go to: Negotiating Commercial Real Estate Leases or Nursing Now

Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man

Author: Robert S McElvain

Down and Out in the Great Depression is a moving, revealing collection of letters by the forgotten men, women, and children who suffered through one of the greatest periods of hardship in American history. Mainly because of his radio talks, thousands felt they knew President Franklin Roosevelt personally and could confide in him about their troubles. Sifting through some 15,000 letters from government and private sources, Robert McElvaine has culled nearly 200 examples that best show the problems, thoughts, and emotions of ordinary people during this time. For this twenty-fifth anniversary edition, McElvaine provides a new foreword recounting the history of the book, its impact on the historiography of the Depression, and its continued importance today.

Table of Contents:

Foreword to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition     xi
Preface     xv
Acknowledgments     xix
Introduction     1
The Early Depression     33
Reactions to Hoover and Economic Breakdown     35
Conditions of Life in the Thirties     49
Proud But Frightened: Middle-Class Hardship     51
The Grass Roots: Rural Depression     67
A Worse Depression: Black Americans in the 1930s     79
To Be Old, Sick, and Poor     95
The Forgotten Children     113
Reactions to the Depression     121
Attitudes toward Relief     123
The Conservative     143
T he Desperate     155
The Cynical     173
The Rebellious     183
The "Forgotten Man" Looks at Roosevelt     201
The Unconvinced     203
"Our Savior"     215
Notes     235
Sources of Letters     243
Index     247