Individualité et contradictions du néo-capitalisme

This article takes an approach that the author proposes to call methodological relationism, as distinct from methodological individualism such as holism. Such an approach considers social relations as primary realities and individuals and collective institutions as secondary realities, that is, as specific crystallizations of social relations. In the history of sociology, these social relations have been apprehended in a variety of ways. In this article, both ‘individuality’ and ‘capitalism’ are considered to be historical crystallizations of social relations. Capitalism is understood merely as one of the principal tendencies which condition social formations. This article is above all theoretical and programatical. It addresses the Marxist analysis of capitalism, giving a more important place to the individual, and also focuses on the specificities of neocapitalism. To conclude, the author discusses the social effects on individuality and the means of individuality's resistance which the contradictions of neocapitalism tend to generate