A New Spirit of Capitalism? Quantitative Analysis of Swiss-German Print Job Advertisements (1955–2005) and Their Time Diagnostic Relevance

Abstract

Boltanski and Chiapello put forward the thesis that the spirit of capitalism has fundamentally changed in the course of the 20th century. According to them, diligence, discipline and orderliness are no longer at the core of the new spirit, but values such as passion, authenticity or creativity. Following this line of thought, this contribution analyzes whether the qualifications required in Swiss-German job advertisements suggest the existence of such a new spirit. The results point to a revival of discipline-related qualifications and show that passion-related qualifications are not demanded as their substitutes, but rather in addition.