Perché dovremmo vivere altrimenti? Alcune ragioni etico-pragmatiche per desiderare un’altra vita

The essays collected in Rahel Jaeggi Forme di vita e capitalismo, represent an exemplar exception to what I would be tempted to call the “division of theoretical labour” within the social sciences. After the economic crisis of 2007, many disciplinary ields – including political philosophy – have focused their attention on the topic of critique; however, this renewed interest towards this issue has not been combined with a similar, deep consideration of the social order that produced that crisis. At the same moment political philosophy calls into question the validity and the eficacy of social critique, it seems not to criticize neoliberal capitalism. Rahel Jaeggi tries to bridge such a theoretical gap through a wide understanding of economy and a pragmatical critique of capitalism as a form of life. Besides analysing the main advantages ensured by this original framework, the article tries to shed light on the structural contradictions of capitalism that Jaeggi’s approach would risk to underestimate. Capitalism can be criticized not only because of the crisis met by the institutionalized norms of economical institutions, but also because this form of life threats its structural conditions of reproduction, be they economical or extra-economical. Rather than representing a confutation of Jaeggi’s perspective, such a integration is aimed at reinforcing her philosophical proposal by developing a multidimensional critique of capitalism as a form of life.