Showing papers on "Capitalism published in 1971"

The Rise and Fall of the Manorial System: A Theoretical Model

Abstract: European economic history has always been concerned with the grand theme of the rise of the Western World. Sometimes this is put in terms of the transition from feudalism to capitalism and, if a Marxian dialectician is present, eventually to socialism. The literature is essentially the product of historians and as such is particularistic. No consistent theoretical foundation runs through it, except perhaps the Marxian one. The result is a chaotic output for which generalization is difficult, and in which bits and scraps of evidence are proffered for almost every specific explanation. This has helped the Marxist explanation to survive since, despite its evident shortcomings, it does provide a single path through the wilderness of medieval and modern European economic history.

The intelligent woman's guide to socialism, capitalism, sovietism, and fascism

Abstract: A lucid and entertaining explanation of socialism and capitalism. Shaw at his best, and still relevant.

The Morals of Markets and Related Essays

Abstract: Although the market economy is not as unpopular now as when Acton wrote THE MORALS OF MARKETS, the morality of buying and selling has long bothered man's conscience. Defenses of capitalism often establish its efficiency or rely on a "that is the way human nature is anyway" argument. This book asserts that a free market is a necessary condition for the pursuit of moral excellence. Its analysis of the relation between capitalism and moral virtue has not been superseded. The demise of Marxism and the moral bankruptcy of socialism throughout the world do not end the debate over capitalism. Acton's book is distinctive in discussing the 'morals of markets' in a way that forms an essential addition -- often missing -- to the case to be made for free markets.

Nationalism and capitalism in peru

Abstract: There has been a great deal of confusion, both inside and outside Peru, about the nature of the new regime which came to power as the result of the coup d'etat of October 3, 1968. Conservatives and even some leftists have seen Peru as a new Cuba. Others, again including leftists, have variously described the new regime as pro-oligarchy and pro-imperialist, bourgeois reformist, military populist, etc. This confusion has arisen not only from what spokesmen for the regime have said about its nature and intentions but also because the measures it has actually adopted have often been, or seemed to be, inconsistent and contradictoryThis article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Semi-industrial capitalism in the third world: implications for social research in Africa

Abstract: Power structures often change faster than men's perceptions of them. This has been especially true for the major transformations of Third World political economies which have occurred since the Great Depression. During the last decade, a diverse stream of analyses emerged which, taken together, do much to update and correct our perceptions of the Third World. The composite view contained in these interpretations is quite different from orthodoxies all along the political spectrum. My intention in this essay is to give an initial synthesis of some of this new thinking in terms of an economic sociology: rather than examining political economies as flows of commodities and money, I will focus on the social relations and institutions which sustain these flows and the political, economic, and cultural sanctions which maintain Third World power structures.

Development under Two Systems: Comparative Productivity Growth since 1950

Abstract: A Familiar and yet notable feature of socialism is the nature of the countries where that form of social organization prevails. With few exceptions, all are economically among the less advanced countries of the world. At least, they were so at the time socialism emerged in them. In those countries, then, socialism rather than its great rival, capitalism, has been the instrument for further economic development. How have they fared in consequence ? What in particular of the claim often made by proponents that socialism is a superior system for such development?

Capitalists without Capitalism: The Jains of India and the Quakers of the West

Abstract: Professor Nevaskar explores two vastly different cultures--the Quakers of America and the Jains of India--to show how non-economic factors affect the development of economic systems.

Alienation, Freedom, and Economic Organization

Abstract: This paper discusses the classical liberal doctrine that capitalism is conducive to individual freedom in the light of the Marxian doctrine that capitalism causes alienation. It first examines the literature on alienation, attempting to develop a meaningful definition and elucidate its economic origins. It then considers whether the existence of alienation in a society is compatible with the maintenance of freedom. The conclusions do not bear on whether capitalism is a necessary condition for freedom. Rather, they attempt to clarify the limited circumstances under which the sufficient condition for freedom can be established.

J. S. Mill on Alternative Economic Systems

Abstract: JOHN STUART MILL was not only one of the great economists of his day, but one of the most knowledgeable minds as well. He was a social philosopher with a critical eye for examining, explaining, and improving the society of his time. It is the primary purpose of this paper to inquire into Mill's beliefs concerning alternative economic systems; that is, the systems popularly called capitalism, socialism, and communism. A secondary purpose will be to examine the influence and effect of Mill's thought in these controversial areas.

Capitalism and modern social theory: Social differentiation and the division of labour

Abstract: The writings of Marx, Weber and Durkheim, in their varying ways, fuse together an analysis and a moral critique of modern society. Weber's insistence upon the absolute logical dichotomy between empirical or scientific knowledge, and value-directed action, should not be allowed to obscure his equally emphatic affirmation of the relevance of historical and sociological analysis to active involvement in politics and social criticism. Both Marx and Durkheim reject Kant's ethical dualism, and attempt more directly to integrate a factual and a moral assessment of the characteristic features of the contemporary social order. Durkheim maintained a lifelong commitment to the formulation of a scientific foundation for the diagnostic interpretation of the ‘pathological’ features of the advanced societies. Marx's work and political actions are predicated upon the argument that ‘Man must prove the truth, that is, the actuality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking, in Praxis ’. In the works of the latter two writers, the concepts of ‘alienation’ and ‘anomie’ respectively provide the focal point of their critical interpretation of modern society. The conception of alienation is the main prop of Marx's critique of capitalism, and therefore of his thesis that the bourgeois order can be transcended by a new kind of society. It does not merely represent an early Utopian position which Marx later abandoned, nor does it become reduced to the relatively minor place which Marx's discussion of the ‘fetishism of commodities’ occupies in Capital .

Studies in Rural Capitalism in West Africa.

Abstract: Originally published in 1970, this is a collection of studies of indigenous economies in Ghana and Nigeria by an author with an unusual interdisciplinary approach. In the opening section it is contended that most economists interested in underdeveloped countries have neglected the detailed study of economic organization and mechanism in the field, especially in rural areas, and that, as a result, there has been little testing of many conventional implicit assumptions that happen to be invalid. The subsequent chapters of the book are both a vigorous corrective to socio-economic generalisations based on too little data and a demonstration of the possibilities of a research method that owes more to the example of social anthropologists than to that of economists. The sophistication of the picture of certain sectors of rural life that emerges from the whole book will surprise many readers.

Long Swings in the Role of Government: An Analysis of Wars and Government Expenditures in Western Europe since the Eleventh Century

Abstract: In 1914, Henri Pirenne argued that, beginning in the eleventh century, Western European capitalism can be characterized by alternating periods of laisser-faire and public control This paper attempts to judge the validity of Pirenne's hypothesis

Modern Capitalism and the State: How Capitalism Rules; Ruling-Class Elite Theory vs. Marxist Class Analysis

Abstract: While Marxist attempts to describe the economy of the modern capitalist system have grown increasingly sophisticated, until the publication of Ralph Miliband's The State in Capitalist Society conceptions of the political system in capitalist society have not advanced since the early and incomplete formulations of Marx and Lenin. Yet, no one can possibly accept as an adequate explanation of the state's role under capitalism Lenin's assertion in State and Revolution that the capitalist state is simply the "organ of oppression of one class by another." The capitalist state, indeed, engages in an enormous number of activities, from granting shipping subsidies to banning cigarette commercials on television and radio, most of which have no readily perceivable connection with the "oppression of one class by another." Nor can the classical Marxist formulation even explain what has become a central preoccupation of political decision-makers in capitalist society—the use of fiscal and monetary policies to manage the economy.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Capitalism and modern social theory: Marx's early writings

Abstract: There is a sense in which Marx's writings span three centuries. Although Marx was born nearly two decades after the opening of the nineteenth century, and died well before the end of it, his writings have had their greatest influence – certainly in the political sphere, and possibly even in the intellectual world – in the twentieth century. But they have their roots in the late eighteenth century, in the outburst of social and political changes stemming from the Revolution of 1789 in France. Marx's works thus draw the shattering effects of the French Revolution into the modern age, and express a line of direct continuity between 1789 and the October Revolution in Russia of almost one hundred and thirty years later. While rather little is known of Marx's early childhood, various fragments and letters survive from his adolescent pen. The earliest of these are three short essays which Marx wrote during the course of his final school examinations. Inevitably enough, these are of little intrinsic interest or originality, but they do give an indication of the enthusiastic grandiosity which inspired many of Marx's subsequent adult works. The most novel of the three is called ‘Reflections of a young man on choosing a career’, and discusses the moral obligations and the range of freedoms open to an individual who is choosing which vocation to follow in his life.

The Medieval Canon Law of Contracts, Renaissance “Spirit of Capitalism,” and the Reformation “Conscience”: A Vote for Max Weber

Abstract: Do we truly wish to understand the relations of religion, law, economic ethics, moral impulse in the affairs of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation?

Ideology and the Middle Class in Marx and Weber

Abstract: In a recent paper in this journal, entitled 'Marx, Weber and the Development of Capitalism',1 Anthony Giddens considered the relationship between Marx and Weber's theoretical approaches, and stated that '. . . in order ... to assess the main points of similarity and divergence between Marx and Weber, it is necessary to reconsider the nature of historical materialism in general, and Marx's conception of the genesis, and trend of movement of capitalism in particular'.2 This reconsideration, Giddens argues, follows from the appearance of a number of previously unpublished works of Marx, which confound any view of Marx which would suggest either that his view of historical materialism was the same as that of Engels or, more importantly, that Marx himself had a rigid conception of the determinants of the historical process. In many respects, Giddens' article is not only excellent but is also a breath of reason for it is the case that much of the work of Marx and Weber can be seen as complementary rather than as antagonistic, and that, further, much of Weber's argument is directed against Marxism rather than Marx himself. Thus, Giddens is correct to give a short socio-political history of the period in which Weber wrote. Only in these terms can Weber's disagreements with Marx be fully understood. Giddens, however (as I shall have cause to note), does not similarly locate Marx's pronouncements in their historical ground. Moreover, Giddens goes on to note that the ultimate distinction between Marx and Weber is at an epistemological level rather than at the level of social theory.3 But, whilst in agreement with Giddens' concern to undermine the view of Marx and Weber as mutually exclusive theorists, one cannot help but feel that he achieves this at the expense of simplifying the positions held by both. More importantly, Giddens so frequently qualifies any comparism that, at the general level, we are rarely shown the possibility of a major disagreement between the two theorists. In short, Giddens does not do what he claims, namely to re-evaluate aspects of the theoretical conflict between Marx and Weber in the light of Marx's posthumously published writings'. All of this would be unimportant for sociologists were it not for the fact that three of these works, the 1844 Manuscripts , the Grundrisse and Theories of Surplus Value 4 have in the past been the basis for major re-evaluations of the work of Marx, and, that they are perhaps even more likely to be so in the future.5 There is, of course, no space here to engage in the thorough re-evaluation that these works deserve, so I shall limit my discussion of the weaknesses of Giddens' article to a few arguments, which concentrate on the importance of the meaning of Marx's Grundrisse , and his Theories of Surplus Value.

Labour and the Catholic Social Studies Movement

Abstract: The emergence of the Australian Democratic Labor Party (D.L.P.) and the National Civic Council (N.C.C.) during the 1950s was a not insignificant addendum to a gradual development of Roman Catholic social conscience during the preceding two decades. The world-wide economic depression in the early 1930s resulted in a period of widespread unrest which wras destined particularly to affect Australia. To many people, the depression seemed to illustrate serious shortcomings in existing economic and political systems. Economic capitalism and democracy based on political parties had not only failed to prevent depression, but had been powerless to alleviate its rigours once it had arrived. The logical next step was to undertake a search for a substitute form of government, and this theoretical quest was part of a mental and political process of international proportions. The incredible poverty and extreme social tensions engendered by depression encouraged both J. T. Lang's agitation in New South Wales for repudiation of Australia's interest payments to overseas bondholders, and Western Australia's secession movement. Lang received adulation and considerable support from the lower classes which were predom inantly Roman Catholic in New South Wales,1 thereby provoking a frightened reaction from the middle-classes and Protestants. These latter groups provided the bulk of the membership and supporters of the New Guard, a quasi-fascist movement organised on military lines, which at its peak around 1932 had almost 100,000 members. Marxists were also active in advocating Communism as an alternative to capitalism and party democracy, and the Communist stimulus caused a counter attack from a few highly educated Roman Catholics who claimed that if viable replacements for capitalism and party democracy were being canvassed, there was no need to look further than the various theories and practical suggestions found in the social encyclicals of the Popes. The Communist-Roman Catholic dialogue carried over into dis agreement concerning Australia's posture during the sundry international crises of the 1930s. In 1934 Soviet Russia had been admitted to

Capitalism and modern social theory: Max Weber: Protestantism and capitalism

Abstract: While Max Weber was an almost exact contemporary of Durkheim, the intellectual climate in which each lived was, in important respects, very different. The short period which Durkheim spent studying in Germany while a young man served to introduce him to some of the leading trends in German social thought, and he did not subsequently relinquish his interest in the works of German social scientists. Durkheim was certainly acquainted with Max Weber's writings, as well as with those of the latter's brother, Alfred. There are at least two sets of writings by German authors which connect Durkheim and Weber directly: those of Schindler and the members of the Verein fur Sozialpolitik on the one hand, and those of Georg Simmel on the other. But even these fairly direct intellectual connections are of marginal significance. While Simmers thought undoubtedly was of some importance in the shaping of Weber's views, Durkheim was highly critical of Simmel, and was not influenced by the latter's writing in any important respects; and while the writings of Schmoller and the Kathedersozialisten formed a point of departure for Durkheim's early works, those aspects of their views which Durkheim found most sympathetic were exactly the ones which Weber rejected, and indeed fought against.