Search results

Der Text liefert einen umfassenden Überblick über Theorien und Studien zur Entwicklung von Rationalisierung. Der Autor stellt ansatzweise die Marxsche Analyse der reellen Subsumtion mit der Rationalitäts- und Vernunftkritik Max Webers bzw. der Frankfurter Schule und der von Marcuse und Breuer aufgestellten These der Unvereinbarkeit von der Theorie der reellen Subsumtion mit der Revolutionstheorie in Zusammenhang und zeigt durch Konfrontation von reeller Subsumtion mit Inhalten und Formen der Rationalisierung widersprüchliche Entwicklungstendenzen des gegenwärtigen Kapitalismus. (HD)

Das theoretische und empirische Interesse an der Fragestellung nach der Wirksamkeit politisch-administrativer Steuerungsressourcen muss den Autoren zufolge vor dem Hintergrund der derzeitigen Staatskrisen- und Planungsdiskussion betrachtet werden, die vor allem das Verhältnis von Ökonomie und Politik unter dem Gesichtspunkt objektiv zunehmender Vergesellschaftung der Produktion und den daraus folgenden ökonomischen, politischen und legitimatorischen Strukturbedingungen thematisiert. Dabei ist das zentrale Problem dieser Diskussion, die theoretische und empirische Ebenenvermittlung zwischen den objektiven Entwicklungsbedingungen ökonomisch-gesellschaftlicher Strukturen, den darauf basierenden politisch-administrativen Prozessen und der konkreten institutionellen und materiellen Problemregulierung noch weitgehend ungelöst. Ferner ist die Frage nicht geklärt, ob die dem politisch-administrativen System zur Verfügung stehenden Steuerungsressourcen in der Lage sind, das prekäre Gleichgewicht von ökonomischen und legitimatorischen Anforderungen in einer möglichst krisenfreien Balance zu halten. Die Autoren stellen in ihrem Aufsatz die Steuerungsressourcen (fiskalische Steuerungsressource, Legitimationserzeugung, politisch-administrative Rationalität) in ihrer bisherigen Wirksamkeit dar, wobei sie diese unter verschiedenen ökonomisch-legitimatorischen Bedingungen primär auf der Zentralstaatsebene und andeutungsweise auf der kommunalen Politikebene untersuchen. (ICI2)

 There are many different answers to the question of what Marx and Spinoza have in common, theories of ideology, materialism, naturalism, and so on, to name a few that have been discussed on this blog. To this list Margherita Pascucci adds that perhaps what Spinoza and Marx have in common is the common itself. This is is claim put forward in Potentia of Poverty: Marx Reads Spinoza (part of the Historical Materialism series, currently it is only out as a hardcover, but it will be out from Haymarket in the Spring). In making such a claim Pascucci focuses on the intersection of not just Marx and Spinoza, but the way in which they both assert in different ways, the primacy of the epistemology and ontology of relation. As Pascucci writes, "The commodity in Marx and the common notion in Spinoza are both defined through an other. This 'other' which defines them is the common among two or more things. In the case of the commodity, this common has a character of abstraction--it disappears at a certain point; in the case of common notions, this common is something material, that which, common to a body and other bodies, brings the trace of relation and allows for knowledge."As they used to say in graduate school, lets unpack this claim. First, we have the common notion in Spinoza, the second kind of knowledge, beyond the imagination. As Spinoza writes in Proposition 37 and 38 of Part Two of the Ethics:P37. What is common to all things, and is equally in the part and in the whole, does not constitute he essence of any singular thing.P38 Those things which are common to all, and which are equally in the part and the whole, can only be conceived adequately. Common notions are understood in terms of both their genesis and their logic. In terms of their genesis let us begin with the simple and most basic encounter, walking around in the house in the dark I bang my shin against something, I do not know what. This is an encounter marked by pain and confusion, by the affects of sadness and hate. Those affects give shape to what could be called the inadequate ideas in which how something affects me and what something is are confusedly muddled in my scream of "ow, shit! what the fuck?" In that encounter there is still something in common, something that can be conceived adequately, I know something about my body, its materiality, and about whatever I ran into in the dark. I know that it is matter too, it has density and hardness. This commonality is incredibly general, but it is the basis for the construction of other common notions. Later, in Proposition 40, Spinoza contrasts common notions, which do not define the essence of any singular things, with the universal. The universal is attempt to define the essence of a singular thing, to understand what quality defines humanity, as rational or political animal, or even featherless biped. However, the problem with this particular essence is precisely the variability of particulars. As Spinoza writes, "But it should be noted that these notions are not formed by all in same way, but very from one to another, in accordance with what the body has been more often affected by, and what the mind imagines or recollects more easily. For example, those who have more often regarded men's stature with wonder will understand by the word man an animal of erect stature. But those who been accustomed to consider something else will form another common image of men--for example that man is an animal capable of laughter, or a featherless biped, or a rational animal."In contrast with a universal burdened with an often unstated particularity we have the common as that which is common to all and particular to none.Okay, what does this has to do with the commodity? Here one only has to think of Part One of Capital.  Value can only be expressed in relation. This is the point of all those formulations about linen and coats. As Marx writes, "The value of linen as a congealed mass of human labour can be expressed only as an 'objectivity' [Geganständlichkeit], a thing which is materially different from linen itself and yet common to the linen and other commodities." There are a lot of jokes, and memes, about the laborious process Marx goes through to show two things: first, that the value of a commodity cannot be shown through itself, a coat is worth a coat is tautology, and that the value any commodity can be expressed through any other commodity. As much as this section seems to go on a bit too long, and with unnecessary precision, its fundamental point, a point that comes out in relation to Spinoza, is worth stressing, and that is that the common, the relational is there even at the heart of capitalism. In capitalism commodities relate even if we remain isolated as subjects of freedom, equality, and Bentham.This brings us back to Pascucci's point, that the difference between the commodity and the common notion is that while the common notion is common to all and in the part and the whole, both my shin and the end table (or whatever I ran into) have extension and mass, value of the commodity is not common to all materially, but is abstracted from it. This abstraction underscores the brief, all too brief discussion of money that takes place in Capital between the general form of value and the famous section of commodity fetishism. Money is of course the general equivalent, it is why we do not go around expressing the value coats, tea, and corn, in the form of linen. Money is the materialization of the abstract idea. As Balibar writes in his little book on Marx, "Money is then constantly reproduced and preserved by its different economic uses (unit of account, means of payment, being hoarded or held in 'reserve' etc.) The other side of this materialization is, then, a process of constant idealization of the monetary material, since it serves immediately to express a universal form or an 'idea."Here is the difference this difference makes. I often think of the opening section of Capital as Marx asking a question that we do not ask in daily life: how are two disparate and different commodities equivalent? We do not ask this question because it presents itself as already answered. Money is the answer. Money is the condition of the equivalence of the disparate and distinct. This is another reason as to why I think that Marx's commodity fetishism section covers the same problem as the Appendix to Part One of the Ethics. In other words, the common, the commonality of labor is obscured in the fetish of the money form. This is not a consideration, much less a review, of the entirety of Pascucci's book. I have not even gotten into the discussion of poverty and subjectivity, parts that I have some serious questions about, but her reflections on the common in Spinoza and Marx not only sheds light on a different commonality between the two, one that ultimately sheds light on the common itself. 

Norbert Michel and Jai Kedia


A few weeks ago, American Compass released Rebuilding American Capitalism, A Handbook for Conservative Policymakers. This Forbes column (American Compass Points To Myths Not Facts) provided a very brief critique of the handbook's "Financialization" chapter, and Oren Cass, American Compass's Executive Director, released a response titled Yes, Financialization Is Real.
This Cato at Liberty post is the third in a series that expands on the original criticisms outlined in the Forbes column. (The first and second in the series are available here and here.) This post demonstrates that the evidence does not support American Compass's claims regarding profits. This post also documents American Compass's failure to clearly specify terms and dates, as well as its selective use of examples that appear to support its positions.
To recap, the American Compass handbook states the following:
American finance has metastasized, claiming a disproportionate share of the nation's top business talent and the economy's profits, even as actual investment has declined." [Emphasis added.]

The original critique in Forbes pointed out: "It's impossible to know exactly what American Compass means by profits because they don't cite anything, but the National Income and Product Accounts provide financial and nonfinancial company profits dating back to 1998." With nothing else to base an analysis on, the critique then summarized the NIPA data, stating:
While the annual share of total corporate profits in the NIPAs has varied, at the end of 2022 it was 18 percent for financial companies versus 82 percent for nonfinancial companies. In 1998 the share for financial firms was a touch higher (20 percent) compared to nonfinancial firms (80 percent).

The original Forbes critique didn't make clear, however, that these respective shares do not suggest either sector "claimed" a share of total available profits at anyone's expense. They're merely part of the Bureau of Economic Analysis's national accounting exercise that estimates the value of all final goods and services produced in the United States. There is nothing inherently wrong with a higher (or lower) profit share in either sector.
In his response, Cass points out that the NIPA data goes back to 1929. He then shows that the share of total corporate profits for financial firms is twice as high in the 2010s versus in the 1950s (using 10‐​year averages for each decade), and finally complains that the original critique's "focus on the 2022 data as the endpoint is unfortunately misleading."
While Cass still neglects to specify any kind of preferred profit metric, fails to explain why his use of 10‐​year averages for each decade between 1950 and 2019 is appropriate, and fails to stipulate what the optimal share of profits should be, at least he acknowledges the NIPA data goes back to 1929. (For the record, it is just as misleading for American Compass to focus on 1950 to 2019 as evidence of an increase in the financial sector share as it would be for us to focus on the decline since 2009 as evidence of a decrease.)
While it is true, as Cass states, that the financial sector share was 28 percent in 2019, it is also true that the series exhibits a high degree of volatility. The standard deviation of the full series is about seven percentage points, and the financial sector share peaked at an unusually high value in 2002 (37 percent) before crashing to an unusually low value in 2008 (8 percent). This high degree of volatility makes it especially important to focus on the long‐​term trend rather than on any specific period.
As Figure 1 demonstrates,[1] using the NIPA data, the long‐​term trend for the financial sector's share of total corporate profits increases slowly throughout the roughly 100‐​year period. The slope of the trend line in Figure 1 indicates the financial sector's share of corporate profits increased by about 0.2 percent per year between 1929 and 2022.









Figure 1: Financial v. Non‐​Financial Share of Corporate Profits, Annual from 1929 to 2022
But that's all the series reveals. It does not provide evidence that the financial sector "claimed" a "disproportionate share" of the economy's profits, much less that this rate of change harmed the broader economy.
Importantly, it is not the case that corporate profits in the non-financial sector have been falling throughout this period. That is, even though the financial sector's share of NIPA corporate profits has been slightly increasing for 100 years, profits in the non‐​financial sector have been steadily growing, as has the broader economy.
Figure 2 provides a similar analysis. It shows that financial sector profits as a share of GDP have averaged less than two percent from 1929 to 2022. The series exhibits a slightly increasing trend, rising about 1.5 percentage points throughout the period, with a recent downtick since the early 2000s. While it would be misleading to claim that this recent downtick demonstrates a major failure of capitalism, selectively fixating on a narrow period to draw incorrect inferences mirrors American Compass's approach to other claims it has made.









Figure 2: Financial Profits as a Share of Nominal GDP, Annual from 1929 to 2022
For instance, in The Rise of Wall Street and the Fall of American Investment, American Compass claims that corporate profits have stagnated. Sort of. For instance, the report states:
Corporate profits from domestic industries fell for four straight years, from 2014 to 2018, even as the stock market was surging. The level in 2018–19 was 11 percent lower than at the prior business cycle's peak in 2005-06.

The report then presents a graph of pre‐​tax real corporate profits from 1998 to 2019, titled Profits Stagnating. The graph displays a very clear upward trend for the full period, but the report only discusses the decline in the level of profits from 2014 to 2018, and the level of profits in 2018 and 2019 relative to the peak in 2005 and 2006. In other words, American Compass's claim that corporate profits have stagnated ignores the broader trend and relative measures of profits, and carefully selects periods for comparison.
The above examples demonstrate American Compass's propensity to pick and choose metrics and time periods that appear to provide evidence for its claims. But, overall, these statistics do not provide evidence that "In recent decades, American finance has metastasized, claiming a disproportionate share of…the economy's profits." Of course, if American Compass has an optimal share for the financial sector in mind, it should clearly explain what that number is and why it is optimal.
In the next post, we will discuss claims involving "financialization's" alleged effect on investment.


[1] The figure omits data for 1932 and 1933 as these values, during the Great Depression, turned aggregate corporate profits negative. For the sake of completeness, the numbers are presented here. In 1932 and 1933, corporate profits are -$0.2 billion in each year, financial firms' profits are $0.6 billion and $0.8 billion respectively, and non‐​financial firms' profits are -$0.8 billion and -$1 billion respectively.

In this article, we present a historical analysis on how Sardinian pastoralism has become an integrated activity in global capitalism, oriented to the production of cheap milk, through the extraction of ecological surplus from the exploitation of nature and labour. Pastoralism has often been looked at as a marginal and traditional activity. On the contrary, our objective is to stress the central role played by pastoralism in the capitalist world-ecology. Since there is currently little work analysing the historical development of pastoralism in a concrete agro-ecological setting from a world-ecology perspective, we want to contribute to the development of the literature by analysing the concrete case of Sardinian pastoralism.
To do so, we will use the analytical framework of world-ecology to analyse the historical dialectic of capital accumulation and the production of nature through which pastoralism -understood as a socio-cultural system that organises nature-society relations for the reproduction of local rural societies- became an activity trapped in the production of market commodities and cheap food exploiting human (labour) and extra-human factors (e.g. land, water, environment, animals etc.). Looking at the exploitation of extra-human factors, the concept of ecological surplus allows us to understand how capital accumulation and surplus was possible thanks to the exploitation of nature, or rather the creation of cheap nature and chap inputs for the production of cheap commodities. We analyse historical pastoralism to understand how geopolitical configurations of global capitalism interact with the national and local scales to change pastoral production, nature and labour relations. We will pay particular attention to the role of land and the relationship between pastoralists and animals. The article is based on secondary data, historical material and primary data collected from 2012 to 2020 through qualitative interviews and ethnographic research.
We identify four main cycles of agro-ecological transformation to explore the interactions between waves of historical capitalist expansion and changes in the exploitation of agroecological factors. The first two phases will be explored in the first section of the paper: the mercantilist phase during the modern era and the commodification of pastoralist products, which extend from the nineteenth century to the Second World War. In the mercantilist phase, the expansion of pastoralism finds its external limits in the trend of international demand (influenced by international trade policies that may favour or hinder exports) and its internal limits in the competition/complementarity with agriculture for the available land that results in a transhumant model of pastoralism. In this phase, the ecological surplus needed for capitalist accumulation is produced by nature as a gift, or nature for free, which results in the possibility of producing milk at a very low cost by exploiting the natural pasture of the open fields. The second cycle, "the commodification of pastoralist products", started at the end of the nineteenth century, with the introduction on the island of the industrial processing of Pecorino Romano cheese, and which was increasingly in demand in the North American market. This pushed pastoralism towards a strong commodification. Shepherds stopped processing cheese on-farm and became producers of cheap milk for the Pecorino Romano processing industry. Industrialists control the distribution channels and therefore the price of milk. Moreover, following the partial privatisation of land and high rent prices, shepherds progressively lose the ecological surplus that was guaranteed by free land and natural grazing, key to lower production costs and to counterbalance the unequal distribution of wealth within the chain. At the beginning of the twentieth century, although the market for Pecorino Romano was growing, these contradictions emerged and the unfair redistribution of profits within the chain (which benefited industrialists, middlemen and landowners to the detriment of shepherds) led to numerous protests and the birth of shepherds' cooperatives.
The second section of the paper will explore the third agro-ecological phase: the rise of the "monoculture of sheep-raising" through the modernisation policies (from the fifties until 1990s). The protests that affected the inland areas of Sardinia, as well as the increase in banditry, signal the impossibility of continuing to guarantee cheap nature and cheap labour, which are at the basis of the mechanism of capitalist accumulation. On the basis of these pressures, the 1970s witnessed a profound transformation that opened a new cycle of accumulation: laws favouring the purchase of land led to the sedenterization of pastoralism, while agricultural modernisation policies pushed towards the rationalisation of the farm. Land improvements and technological innovations (such as the milking machine and the purchase of agricultural machinery) led to the beginning of the "monoculture of sheep raising": a phase of intensification in the exploitation of nature and the extraction of ecological surplus. This includes a great increase of the number of sheep per unit of agricultural area, thanks to the cultivated pasture replacing natural grazing and the production and purchase of stock and feed. Subsidised agricultural modernisation and sedentarisation can once again "sustain" the cost of cheap milk that is the basis of the industrial dairy chain. However, agricultural modernisation results in the further commodification of pastoralism, which becomes increasingly dependent on the upstream and downstream market, making pastoralists less autonomous. Moreover, given the impossibility of further expanding the herd, the productivity need of keeping low milk production costs has to be achieved through an increase in the average production per head. Therefore, there are higher investments in genetic selection to increase breed productivity, higher investments to improve animal feeding and a more intensive animal exploitation to increase productivity. These production strategies imply higher farm costs.
In this context, the fourth phase, the neoliberal phase (analysed in the third section of the paper) broke out in Sardinia in the mid-1990s. With the end of export subsidies and the opening of the new large-scale retail channel in which producers are completely subordinate, it starts a period of increased volatility in the price of milk. In order to counter income erosion and achieve the productivity gains needed to continue producing cheap milk, pastoralists have intensified the exploitation of both human (labour) and non-human (nature) factors, with contradictory effects. In the case of nature, the intensive exploitation of land through monocultural crops has reduced biodiversity and impoverished the soil. In the case of labour, pastoralists have intensified the levels of self-exploitation and free family labour to extreme levels and have also resorted to cheaply paid foreign labourers.
Throughout the paper, we reconstruct the path towards the production of "cheap milk" in Sardinia, processed mainly into pecorino romano for international export. We argue that the production of ecological surplus through the exploitation of nature and labour has been central to capital accumulation and to the unfolding of the capitalist world ecology. However, we have reached a point of crisis where pastoralists are trapped between rising costs and eroding revenues. Further exploitation of human (cheap labour) and extra-human (nature and animals) factors is becoming unsustainable for the great majority, leading to a polarization between pastoralists who push towards further intensification and mechanisation and pastoralists who increasingly de-commodify to build greater autonomy.

Through the examples of Caen and Rennes (France) and the night-time recreational prism, this PHD aims at analysing contemporary city, in a morphogenetic, polemological and dimensional way. Through both spatialised and temporalised qualitative (interviews, speech analysis, press review, archives ans institutional documents) and quantitative (especially statistical approach of censuses and questionnaires) methods, we focus on the mobilisations of night owls, bar owners, residents and institutions who try to appropriate city-center at night. In a first section, the importance of recreational use in the city centers of Caen and Rennes is depicted. As a central attribute of young persons, recreational (more than festive in fact) customs are polarised by a central and abundant commercial offer. Around and sometimes very closely, residents, who are mostly young night owls once they have come back home, but also populations who are much more socially integrated (professionaly, parentally and residentially), have to live with those customs. Therefore, a tension appears between both récrational and biological reproductive uses of city centers at night. A second section highlights the fact that both night owls and bars owners are mobilised through recreational use, the firsts by socialising one another in bars and night clubs which are duly selected ; the seconds by polarising but also managing the firsts. Sometimes, these daily mobilisations become both political and collective ones, the moment recreational and nocturnal appropriation of streets on one hand, commercial activity on the other hand, are threatened. The third section develops the link between recreational and nocturnal customs and residential mobilisations. The social division of urban centers once established, several characteristics have been highlighted so that to explain sound perceptions, such as acoustic and exposure ones, but also sociological ones. Perhaps more than the fists, the latest explains the differents ways of perceiving recreational and nocturnal sounds, the evolution throughout « cycles of life » – that is to say professional insertion and above all experience and property – being most important. This cognitive division goes with an actional one : on one hand, those who are still linked with recreational and nocturnal customs mainly get used to the noise or confront those who are responsible for their sound annoyance (mostly neighbours) ; on the other hand, those who are gradually distancing themselves from these customs do not hesitate to resort to institutions or even to engage in collective action. Eventually, a fourth section deals with the way institutions govern the night owls, the bar owners and the residents who are mobilised. After the administrative and police repression of the night owls but also the bar owners during the 2000's in Rennes and even in Caen, after the contractualisation with the latests and the health handling of the firsts around 2010, a rupture have occurred these last few years. With increasing budgetary restrictions, bar owners seem to be considered today by the institutions more as order and health auxiliaries useful so as to restrain night owls' deviance than as persons responsible for it. Seldom listened by institutions, residents who are mobilised are also being neutralised throughout dedicated devices. On the whole, this research shows the transition from fordist economy which considers night time as a mean to reproduce diurnal workforce to post-fordist one, in which 24/7 city has also to fulfil cognitive capitalism needs. ; Cette thèse se propose d'analyser la ville contemporaine à partir des cas de Caen et Rennes et du prisme récréatif nocturne, dans une perspective morphogénétique, polémologique et dimensionnelle. Au travers de méthodes qualitatives et quantitatives spatialisées et temporalisées, ce sont les mobilisations des « sortants », « commerçants », « cohabitants » et institutions pour l'appropriation de l'espace-temps hypercentral nocturne qui ont fait l'objet d'analyses. Une première partie donne à voir l'importance de l'usage récréatif au sein des hypercentres de Caen et Rennes la nuit. Attribut central de la jeunesse, les sorties récréatives – plus que « festives » – sont dûment polarisées par une offre commerciale dédiée hypercentrale dense. Autour et à proximité parfois immédiate, sont amenés à cohabiter pour bonne part ces jeunes sortants une fois rentrés chez eux, mais aussi d'autres populations beaucoup plus insérées socialement. Ainsi, une « situation tensionnelle » entre usages reproductifs récréatif et biologique se dessine au sein des hypercentres durant le temps de la nuit. Une seconde partie insiste sur la manière dont certains sortants et commerçants se mobilisent au travers de l'usage récréatif nocturne, les uns dans la manière de se sociabiliser entre pairs au sein de bars et discothèques dûment sélectionnées, les seconds du fait de leur souci à attirer les premiers au sein de leurs établissements, mais aussi à les gérer. Ponctuellement, ces mobilisations quotidiennes cèdent le pas à des mobilisations politiques collectives, dès lors que l'appropriation récréative nocturne de certaines rues et place chez les sortants d'une part, la continuité de l'activité commerciale chez les commerçants de l'autre, sont menacées. Une troisième partie s'intéresse aux mobilisations des cohabitants autour de cet usage récréatif nocturne. Une fois la division sociale des hypercentres établie, différents caractères ont été mis en évidence pour expliquer l'inégal ressenti notamment sonore de cet usage, caractères aussi bien acoustiques et liés à l'exposition, que sociologiques. Sans doute davantage que ces deux premiers facteurs, il apparaît que l'appréciation des sorties récréatives nocturnes avoisinantes a fortement à voir avec l'évolution au sein des cycles de vie, l'ancienneté et la propriété allant notamment de pair avec l'expression d'une plus forte gêne. Cette dimension cognitive se double d'un volet actionnel : si ceux qui entretiennent un rapport encore intime avec lesdites sorties se limitent à s'adapter à leur marquage sonore ou à confronter leur bruiteur, le recours aux institutions et l'action collective semblent le propre de ceux qui s'en distancient. Enfin, une ultime partie s'intéresse à la manière dont les institutions gouvernent ces différentes mobilisations « ordinaires ». Si les années 2000 ont été marquées à Rennes et même à Caen par la répression policière et administrative des commerçants et surtout des sortants, si le détour des décennies 2000/2010 l'a notamment été par la contractualisation avec les premiers et la « sanitarisation » surtout communicationnelle des seconds, un changement semble se dessiner ces dernières années. Dans un contexte de restrictions budgétaires étatiques mais aussi municipales croissantes, les commerçants semblent de plus en plus considérés par les institutions tels des auxiliaires d'ordre et de santé publics, utiles pour gouverner à moindre coût la déviance des sortants, plutôt que comme les catalyseurs de cette dernière. Relativement peu suivis par les institutions, les cohabitants mobilisés font parfois même l'objet de dispositifs spécifiques conduisant à leur neutralisation. Se dessine le passage progressif de l'économie fordiste où la nuit servait à reproduire la force de travail diurne à une économie post-fordiste 24h/24, où la nuit devient un vecteur permettant de satisfaire aux besoins eux aussi reproductifs et nocturnes, mais récréatifs, du capitalisme devenu aussi cognitif.

Through the examples of Caen and Rennes (France) and the night-time recreational prism, this PHD aims at analysing contemporary city, in a morphogenetic, polemological and dimensional way. Through both spatialised and temporalised qualitative (interviews, speech analysis, press review, archives ans institutional documents) and quantitative (especially statistical approach of censuses and questionnaires) methods, we focus on the mobilisations of night owls, bar owners, residents and institutions who try to appropriate city-center at night. In a first section, the importance of recreational use in the city centers of Caen and Rennes is depicted. As a central attribute of young persons, recreational (more than festive in fact) customs are polarised by a central and abundant commercial offer. Around and sometimes very closely, residents, who are mostly young night owls once they have come back home, but also populations who are much more socially integrated (professionaly, parentally and residentially), have to live with those customs. Therefore, a tension appears between both récrational and biological reproductive uses of city centers at night. A second section highlights the fact that both night owls and bars owners are mobilised through recreational use, the firsts by socialising one another in bars and night clubs which are duly selected ; the seconds by polarising but also managing the firsts. Sometimes, these daily mobilisations become both political and collective ones, the moment recreational and nocturnal appropriation of streets on one hand, commercial activity on the other hand, are threatened. The third section develops the link between recreational and nocturnal customs and residential mobilisations. The social division of urban centers once established, several characteristics have been highlighted so that to explain sound perceptions, such as acoustic and exposure ones, but also sociological ones. Perhaps more than the fists, the latest explains the differents ways of perceiving recreational and nocturnal sounds, the evolution throughout « cycles of life » – that is to say professional insertion and above all experience and property – being most important. This cognitive division goes with an actional one : on one hand, those who are still linked with recreational and nocturnal customs mainly get used to the noise or confront those who are responsible for their sound annoyance (mostly neighbours) ; on the other hand, those who are gradually distancing themselves from these customs do not hesitate to resort to institutions or even to engage in collective action. Eventually, a fourth section deals with the way institutions govern the night owls, the bar owners and the residents who are mobilised. After the administrative and police repression of the night owls but also the bar owners during the 2000's in Rennes and even in Caen, after the contractualisation with the latests and the health handling of the firsts around 2010, a rupture have occurred these last few years. With increasing budgetary restrictions, bar owners seem to be considered today by the institutions more as order and health auxiliaries useful so as to restrain night owls' deviance than as persons responsible for it. Seldom listened by institutions, residents who are mobilised are also being neutralised throughout dedicated devices. On the whole, this research shows the transition from fordist economy which considers night time as a mean to reproduce diurnal workforce to post-fordist one, in which 24/7 city has also to fulfil cognitive capitalism needs. ; Cette thèse se propose d'analyser la ville contemporaine à partir des cas de Caen et Rennes et du prisme récréatif nocturne, dans une perspective morphogénétique, polémologique et dimensionnelle. Au travers de méthodes qualitatives (entretiens compréhensifs et analyse de discours, revue de presse, d'archives et de documents institutionnels) et quantitatives (statistiques uni-, bi- et multivariées réalisées sur des tableaux de données du recensement et de questionnaires notamment) spatialisées et temporalisées, ce sont les mobilisations des « sortants », « commerçants », « cohabitants » et institutions pour l'appropriation de l'espace-temps hypercentral nocturne qui ont fait l'objet d'analyses. Une première partie donne à voir l'importance de l'usage récréatif au sein des hypercentres de Caen et Rennes la nuit. Attribut central de la jeunesse, les sorties récréatives – plus que proprement « festives » en fait – sont dûment polarisées par une offre commerciale dédiée nombreuse et hypercentrale. Autour et à proximité parfois immédiate, sont amenés à cohabiter pour bonne part ces jeunes sortants une fois rentrés chez eux, mais aussi d'autres populations beaucoup plus insérées socialement – sur un plan professionnel, mais aussi parental et résidentiel. Ainsi, une « situation tensionnelle » entre usages reproductifs – i.e. récréatif et biologique – se dessine au sein des hypercentres durant le temps de la nuit. Une seconde partie insiste sur la manière dont certains sortants et commerçants se mobilisent au travers de l'usage récréatif nocturne, les uns dans la manière de se sociabiliser entre pairs au sein de bars et discothèques dûment sélectionnées, les seconds du fait de leur souci à attirer les premiers au sein de leurs établissements, mais aussi à les gérer. Ponctuellement, ces mobilisations quotidiennes cèdent le pas à des mobilisations politiques collectives, dès lors que l'appropriation récréative nocturne de certaines rues et place chez les sortants d'une part, la continuité de l'activité commerciale chez les commerçants de l'autre, sont menacées. Une troisième partie s'intéresse aux mobilisations des cohabitants autour de cet usage récréatif nocturne. Une fois la division sociale des hypercentres établie, différents caractères ont été mis en évidence pour expliquer l'inégal ressenti notamment sonore de cet usage, caractères aussi bien acoustiques et liés à l'exposition, que sociologiques. Sans doute davantage que ces deux premiers facteurs, il apparaît que l'appréciation des sorties récréatives nocturnes avoisinantes a fortement à voir avec l'évolution au sein des cycles de vie, les insertions professionnelles, et surtout l'ancienneté et la propriété allant de pair avec l'expression d'une plus forte gêne. Cette dimension cognitive se double d'un volet actionnel : si ceux qui entretiennent un rapport encore intime avec lesdites sorties se limitent, en tant que cohabitants, à s'adapter à leur marquage sonore ou à confronter leur bruiteur, le recours aux institutions et l'action collective semblent le propre de ceux qui s'en distancient. Enfin, une ultime partie s'intéresse à la manière dont les institutions gouvernent ces différentes mobilisations « ordinaires ». Si les années 2000 ont été marquées à Rennes et même à Caen par la répression policière et administrative des commerçants et surtout des sortants, si le détour des décennies 2000/2010 l'a notamment été par la contractualisation avec les premiers et la « sanitarisation » surtout communicationnelle des seconds, un changement semble se dessiner ces dernières années. Dans un contexte de restrictions budgétaires étatiques mais aussi municipales croissantes, les commerçants semblent de plus en plus considérés par les institutions tels des auxiliaires d'ordre et de santé publics – nombreux et économiques –, utiles pour gouverner à moindre coût la déviance des sortants, plutôt que comme les catalyseurs de cette dernière. Relativement peu suivis par les institutions, les cohabitants mobilisés font parfois même l'objet de dispositifs spécifiques conduisant à leur neutralisation. Se dessine somme toute le passage progressif de l'économie fordiste où la nuit servait dans le cadre du sommeil à reproduire la force de travail diurne à une économie post-fordiste 24h/24, où la nuit devient un vecteur permettant de satisfaire aux besoins eux aussi reproductifs et nocturnes, mais récréatifs, du capitalisme devenu aussi cognitif.

Through the examples of Caen and Rennes (France) and the night-time recreational prism, this PHD aims at analysing contemporary city, in a morphogenetic, polemological and dimensional way. Through both spatialised and temporalised qualitative (interviews, speech analysis, press review, archives ans institutional documents) and quantitative (especially statistical approach of censuses and questionnaires) methods, we focus on the mobilisations of night owls, bar owners, residents and institutions who try to appropriate city-center at night. In a first section, the importance of recreational use in the city centers of Caen and Rennes is depicted. As a central attribute of young persons, recreational (more than festive in fact) customs are polarised by a central and abundant commercial offer. Around and sometimes very closely, residents, who are mostly young night owls once they have come back home, but also populations who are much more socially integrated (professionaly, parentally and residentially), have to live with those customs. Therefore, a tension appears between both récrational and biological reproductive uses of city centers at night. A second section highlights the fact that both night owls and bars owners are mobilised through recreational use, the firsts by socialising one another in bars and night clubs which are duly selected ; the seconds by polarising but also managing the firsts. Sometimes, these daily mobilisations become both political and collective ones, the moment recreational and nocturnal appropriation of streets on one hand, commercial activity on the other hand, are threatened. The third section develops the link between recreational and nocturnal customs and residential mobilisations. The social division of urban centers once established, several characteristics have been highlighted so that to explain sound perceptions, such as acoustic and exposure ones, but also sociological ones. Perhaps more than the fists, the latest explains the differents ways of perceiving recreational and nocturnal sounds, the evolution throughout « cycles of life » – that is to say professional insertion and above all experience and property – being most important. This cognitive division goes with an actional one : on one hand, those who are still linked with recreational and nocturnal customs mainly get used to the noise or confront those who are responsible for their sound annoyance (mostly neighbours) ; on the other hand, those who are gradually distancing themselves from these customs do not hesitate to resort to institutions or even to engage in collective action. Eventually, a fourth section deals with the way institutions govern the night owls, the bar owners and the residents who are mobilised. After the administrative and police repression of the night owls but also the bar owners during the 2000's in Rennes and even in Caen, after the contractualisation with the latests and the health handling of the firsts around 2010, a rupture have occurred these last few years. With increasing budgetary restrictions, bar owners seem to be considered today by the institutions more as order and health auxiliaries useful so as to restrain night owls' deviance than as persons responsible for it. Seldom listened by institutions, residents who are mobilised are also being neutralised throughout dedicated devices. On the whole, this research shows the transition from fordist economy which considers night time as a mean to reproduce diurnal workforce to post-fordist one, in which 24/7 city has also to fulfil cognitive capitalism needs. ; Cette thèse se propose d'analyser la ville contemporaine à partir des cas de Caen et Rennes et du prisme récréatif nocturne, dans une perspective morphogénétique, polémologique et dimensionnelle. Au travers de méthodes qualitatives et quantitatives spatialisées et temporalisées, ce sont les mobilisations des « sortants », « commerçants », « cohabitants » et institutions pour l'appropriation de l'espace-temps hypercentral nocturne qui ont fait l'objet d'analyses. Une première partie donne à voir l'importance de l'usage récréatif au sein des hypercentres de Caen et Rennes la nuit. Attribut central de la jeunesse, les sorties récréatives – plus que « festives » – sont dûment polarisées par une offre commerciale dédiée hypercentrale dense. Autour et à proximité parfois immédiate, sont amenés à cohabiter pour bonne part ces jeunes sortants une fois rentrés chez eux, mais aussi d'autres populations beaucoup plus insérées socialement. Ainsi, une « situation tensionnelle » entre usages reproductifs récréatif et biologique se dessine au sein des hypercentres durant le temps de la nuit. Une seconde partie insiste sur la manière dont certains sortants et commerçants se mobilisent au travers de l'usage récréatif nocturne, les uns dans la manière de se sociabiliser entre pairs au sein de bars et discothèques dûment sélectionnées, les seconds du fait de leur souci à attirer les premiers au sein de leurs établissements, mais aussi à les gérer. Ponctuellement, ces mobilisations quotidiennes cèdent le pas à des mobilisations politiques collectives, dès lors que l'appropriation récréative nocturne de certaines rues et place chez les sortants d'une part, la continuité de l'activité commerciale chez les commerçants de l'autre, sont menacées. Une troisième partie s'intéresse aux mobilisations des cohabitants autour de cet usage récréatif nocturne. Une fois la division sociale des hypercentres établie, différents caractères ont été mis en évidence pour expliquer l'inégal ressenti notamment sonore de cet usage, caractères aussi bien acoustiques et liés à l'exposition, que sociologiques. Sans doute davantage que ces deux premiers facteurs, il apparaît que l'appréciation des sorties récréatives nocturnes avoisinantes a fortement à voir avec l'évolution au sein des cycles de vie, l'ancienneté et la propriété allant notamment de pair avec l'expression d'une plus forte gêne. Cette dimension cognitive se double d'un volet actionnel : si ceux qui entretiennent un rapport encore intime avec lesdites sorties se limitent à s'adapter à leur marquage sonore ou à confronter leur bruiteur, le recours aux institutions et l'action collective semblent le propre de ceux qui s'en distancient. Enfin, une ultime partie s'intéresse à la manière dont les institutions gouvernent ces différentes mobilisations « ordinaires ». Si les années 2000 ont été marquées à Rennes et même à Caen par la répression policière et administrative des commerçants et surtout des sortants, si le détour des décennies 2000/2010 l'a notamment été par la contractualisation avec les premiers et la « sanitarisation » surtout communicationnelle des seconds, un changement semble se dessiner ces dernières années. Dans un contexte de restrictions budgétaires étatiques mais aussi municipales croissantes, les commerçants semblent de plus en plus considérés par les institutions tels des auxiliaires d'ordre et de santé publics, utiles pour gouverner à moindre coût la déviance des sortants, plutôt que comme les catalyseurs de cette dernière. Relativement peu suivis par les institutions, les cohabitants mobilisés font parfois même l'objet de dispositifs spécifiques conduisant à leur neutralisation. Se dessine le passage progressif de l'économie fordiste où la nuit servait à reproduire la force de travail diurne à une économie post-fordiste 24h/24, où la nuit devient un vecteur permettant de satisfaire aux besoins eux aussi reproductifs et nocturnes, mais récréatifs, du capitalisme devenu aussi cognitif.