Cold Intimacies

It is commonly assumed that capitalism has created an a-emotional
world dominated by bureaucratic rationality; that economic behavior
conflicts with intimate, authentic relationships; that the public
and private spheres are irremediably opposed to each other; and
that true love is opposed to calculation and self-interest.

Eva Illouz rejects these conventional ideas and argues that the
culture of capitalism has fostered an intensely emotional culture
in the workplace, in the family, and in our own relationship to
ourselves. She argues that economic relations have become deeply
emotional, while close, intimate relationships have become
increasingly defined by economic and political models of
bargaining, exchange, and equity. This dual process by which
emotional and economic relationships come to define and shape each
other is called emotional capitalism. Illouz finds evidence of this
process of emotional capitalism in various social sites: self-help
literature, women's magazines, talk shows, support groups, and the
Internet dating sites. How did this happen? What are the social
consequences of the current preoccupation with emotions? How did
the public sphere become saturated with the exposure of private
life? Why does suffering occupy a central place in contemporary
identity? How has emotional capitalism transformed our romantic
choices and experiences? Building on and revising the intellectual
legacy of critical theory, this book addresses these questions and
offers a new interpretation of the reasons why the public and the
private, the economic and the emotional spheres have become
inextricably intertwined.