Identity and the Emergence of Modern Sensibilities

Abstract

As Louis Dumont shows in his illuminating book From Mcmdeville to Marx: The Genesis and Triumph of Economie Ideology individualism was instrumental in the emergence of economics, the latter becoming the acme and the heart of individualism. The implication of Dumont’s thought would be that the more economic thought dominates our value-and-idea system and the more it emancipates from political thought, the more radical version of modernity we have.