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Bankruptcy and Debt Collection in Liberal Capitalism: Switzerland, 1800–1900
Mischa SuterDrawing on perspectives from anthropology and social theory, this book explores the quotidian routines of debt collection in nineteenth-century capitalism. It focuses on Switzerland, an exemplary case of liberal rule. Debt collection and bankruptcy relied on received practices until they were standardized in a Swiss federal law in 1889. The vast array of these practices was summarized by the idiomatic Swiss legal term "Rechtstrieb" (literally, "law drive"). Analyzing these forms of summary justice opens a window to the makeshift economies and the contested political imaginaries of nineteenth-century everyday life. Ultimately, the book advances an empirically grounded and theoretically informed history of quotidian legal practices in the everyday economy; it is an argument for studying capitalism from the bottom up.
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Cover
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Title Page
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Copyright Page
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Contents
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Acknowledgments to the German Version
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Acknowledgments to the English Translation
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Introduction
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One. Enter Kaufmann
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Two. Law as Local Knowledge 1800–1870
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Three. Theoretical Interlude
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Four. Debt and Subjectification in Narrative
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Five. Bankruptcy and Social Classification
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Six. Collateral
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Conclusion
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Notes
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Bibliography
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Index
- 978-0-472-12885-3 (ebook)
- 978-0-472-13252-2 (hardcover)