The Capitalist Personality: Face-to-Face Sociality and Economic Change in the Post-Communist World

Contemporary research has established links between capitalism and a pro-democratic, self-expressive, and tolerant political attitude. But if focus shifts from the public to the private sphere, to arguably the core aspect of human sociality, the face-to-face social bond, we can see how capitalist culture produces tensions that challenge face-to-face sociality in everyday life. Through case studies of China, Russia, and Central Europe, this book describes how capitalist culture tends toward the individualization of values in this sense, one that involves sacrifice, even for the economic "winners" of the transformation.