Showing papers on "Capitalism published in 1978"

The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph

Abstract: In this volume, Albert Hirschman reconstructs the intellectual climate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to illuminate the intricate ideological transformation that occurred, wherein the pursuit of material interests--so long condemned as the deadly sin of avarice--was assigned the role of containing the unruly and destructive passions of man. Hirschman here offers a new interpretation for the rise of capitalism, one that emphasizes the continuities between old and new, in contrast to the assumption of a sharp break that is a common feature of both Marxian and Weberian thinking. Among the insights presented here is the ironical finding that capitalism was originally supposed to accomplish exactly what was soon denounced as its worst feature: the repression of the passions in favor of the \"harmless,\" if one-dimensional, interests of commercial life. To portray this lengthy ideological change as an endogenous process, Hirschman draws on the writings of a large number of thinkers, including Montesquieu, Sir James Steuart, and Adam Smith. Featuring a new afterword by Jeremy Adelman and a foreword by Amartya Sen, this Princeton Classics edition of \"The Passions and the Interests\" sheds light on the intricate ideological transformation from which capitalism emerged triumphant, and reaffirms Hirschman's stature as one of our most influential and provocative thinkers.

Social limits to growth

Abstract: One in a while, every twenty years perhaps, a book appears that makes one see a whole area of human experience in a new light. Once pointed out, the new insights are sp obvious that one cannot understand how one could have missed them before. In the broad area of the political economy of western society, J.A. Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1943) was one such book. So, with all its faults, was J.K. Galbraith's The Affluent Society (1957). Fred Hirsch's Social Limits to Growth (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1977) is another.

Intellectual and Manual Labour: A Critique of Epistemology

Abstract: What defines the character of intellectual labour in its full‐fledged division from all manual labour is the use of non‐empirical form‐abstractions which may be represented by nothing other than non‐empirical, 'pure' concepts. The explanation of intellectual labour and of this division thus depends on proving the origin of the underlying, non‐empirical form‐abstractions. This is the task we have undertaken. And we can see that this origin can be none other than the real abstraction of commodity exchange, for it is of a non‐empirical form‐character and does not spring from thought. This is the only way in which justice can be done to the nature of intellectual labour and of science and yet avoid idealism. It is Greek philosophy which constitutes the first historical manifestations of the separation of head and hand in this particular mode. For the non‐empirical real abstraction is evident in commodity exchange only because through it a social synthesis becomes possible which is in strict spatio‐temporal separation from all acts of man's material interchange with nature. And to my knowledge this kind of social synthesis does not reach fruition before the eighth or seventh centuries B.C. in Greece, where the first introduction of coinage around 680 B.C. was of fundamental importance. Thus we are here confronted with the historical origin of conceptual thought in its fully developed form constituting the 'pure intellect' in its separation from all man's physical capacities.

Political economy and capitalism: notes on Dobb's theory of crisis

Abstract: I began the formal study of economics in the late 1960s, when the cry for 'relevance' was sweeping the US. Though at the time we were frequently unclear about just what our demand for 'relevance' implied, we were certain of one thing: it did not imply any further meditation on the arcane mysteries of perfect competition, perfect knowledge and perfect greed. Not surprisingly, many of us turned elsewhere to acquire the knowledge which was so conspicuously absent from our education. And as we did so, we came to realise that 'relevance' meant much more than just focusing on the concrete history and existence of our world: it meant having a practice which made such a study necessary, and a theoretical structure which made its results intelligible. Maurice Dobb had such a practice and theory-Marxism-and he illuminated it with a guiding intelligence which makes his work 'relevant' in the precise sense of the word: it continues to be important to our understanding of the conditions in which we live. In these few pages, it is obviously impossible to do justice to the scope and depth ofDobb's contribution to Marxist economic theory. I do not intend even to try. Instead, what I would like to do is to try to focus on one particularly important work of his, Political Economy and Capitalism. On re-reading this book, which was written in 1937, I was especially struck by the timeliness of Dobb's discussion of the contradictions in capitalist accumulation. The current crisis in world capitalism has made crisis theory respectable once again, thus giving rise to a fresh round of debates on many of the very same issues which Dobb analysed almost 40 years ago. Of course, to a certain extent Maurice Dobb's contributions are already incorporated into the current discussions; nonetheless, there are still many lessons to be learned from this book alone. One of the most important points Dobb makes in his analysis of crises is to emphasise that, within Marxist analysis, a crisis is not to be viewed as a departure from equilibrium; instead, a crisis is the equilibrating mechanism itself. It 'appears as catharsis as well as retribution: as the sole mechanism by which, in [the capitalist system], equilibrium can be enforced' (Dobb, 1937, pp. 102-103); to 'study crises [is] ipso facto to study the dynamics of the system', for they are its 'dominant form of movement' (p. 80). This is a crucial point to make, for otherwise Marxist analysis is saddled with a notion of 'equilibrium' which is imported wholesale from orthodox economics. Marx's own

Migration and Underdevelopment

Abstract: The importance of migration to the question of development in the capitalist world system lies in two interrelated characteristics: first it is a source of labor one which often plays a fundamental role in capitalist economic expansion; second it is simultaneously the way exploited classes in the periphery attempt to cope with the constraints of their situation. As has been seen such constraints are often deliberately imposed so as to generate labor migration. As was also shown the advantages of migrant labor for capitalist expansion are not automatic and must frequently be produced through political manipulation. In general the structure of economic forces in core and periphery tends to be arranged so as to condition migrants to sell their labor in places where needed and at the cheapest possible price. Exceptions motivated by the occasional clash of interests between landowning and entrepreneurial classes or the temporary measures of a liberal regime do not substantially modify the general trend. Working classes in peripheral areas frequently attempt through multiple displacements to take advantage of a structure of economic opportunities distributed unequally in space. Since head-on competition within the formal system is impossible such initiatives occur in the interstices. The nature of peripheral capitalism marked by the imperfect penetration of state control and large-scale enterprises provides room for informal economic initiatives and hence the possibility of survival. The phenomenon of migration thus stands at the crossroads between national and regional inequalities and class exploitation. It is the way through which the exploited contribute to erect ever-expanding structures of economic domination and simultaneously the form in which they react to their power. It shows how economic concentration and inequality are perpetuated by the conduct of both dominant groups and their victims. While the case studies reviewed above are only illustrative they document the general point that transactions between relatively advanced and backward regions conducted by people across space constitute both a central problematic and a defining feature of world capitalism. (excerpt)

Marx and the end of Orientalism

Abstract: First published in 1978, this title analyses a range of problems that arise in the study of North Africa and the Middle East, bridging the gap between studies of Sociology, Islam, and Marxism. Both Sociology and the study of Islam draw on an Orientalist tradition founded on an idealist epistemology, ethnocentric values and an evolutionary view of historical development. Bryan Turner challenges the basic assumptions of Orientalism by considering such issues as the social structure of Islamic society, the impact of capitalism in the Middle East, the effect of Israel on territories, revolutions, social classes and nationalism. A detailed and fascinating study, Marx and the End of Orientalism will be of particular interest to students studying the sociology of colonialism and development, Marxist sociology and sociological theory.

Contributions to modern economics

Abstract: Contributions to Modern Economics includes contributions to two great intellectual upheavals in economic theory: the Keynesian Revolution and the revival of the classical theory of profits led by Piero Sraffa. The formation of prices in capitalist and socialist economies and of international trade is also discussed. The evolution of these ideas is linked to the personal and historical events that influenced them. Comprised of 24 chapters, this book begins by describing the second crisis of economic theory, which is related to the first crisis — the great slump of the 1930s. The reader is then introduced to the theory of money and the analysis of output; obstacles to full employment; and the concept of hoarding. Subsequent chapters explore capital, profits, and prices, with emphasis on the theory of capital, imperfect competition, and the theory of value. International trade, capitalism, and beggar-my-neighbor remedies for unemployment are also examined. This monograph should be of interest to economists.

The origins of the economy : a comparative study of distribution in primitive and peasant economies

Abstract: become marginal, and this corroborated his theory. His first example of a 'postindustrial' theorist was FoucaultF ! ) It is surprising that a book on French sociology can avoid reference to the influence of academic Marxism and structuralism of 1968 to the present. Whether onewants to call it postindustrial society or late capitalism, the sphere of production has become less important. Not just Foucault, but French Marxists withdrew attention from production and examined knowledge, the state, culture and laws. And this has been absolutely central in the development of academic sociology. To wit, who are the most widely known junior associates of Touraine in Britain today? Not Claude Durand, but Marxist urbanist M. Castells and the PCF'sJean Lojkine. Equally, in a book in partconcerned with labour process theories, how can the work of Christian Palloix whose Proces de production et crise du capitalism is by far the most sophisticated macro-theoretical treatment of the labour process, be omitted ? Despite these drawbacks, Rose's book is worth reading. Both for the interesting information provided, and the beginnings of a model for a sociology of knowledge as applied to industrial sociology. Scott M. Lash University of Lancaster

A Marxist View of Medical Care

Abstract: Marxist studies of medical care emphasize political power and economic dominance in capitalist society. Although historically the Marxist paradigm went into eclipse during the early twentieth century, the field has developed rapidly during recent years. The health system mirrors the society's class structure through control over health institutions, stratification of health workers, and limited occupational mobility into health professions. Monopoly capital is manifest in the growth of medical centers, financial penetration by large corporations, and the "medical-industrial complex." Health policy recommendations reflect different interest groups' political and economic goals. The state's intervention in health care generally protects the capitalist economic system and the private sector. Medical ideology helps maintain class structure and patterns of domination. Comparative international research analyzes the effects of imperialism, changes under socialism, and contradictions of health reform in capitalist societies. Historical materialist epidemiology focuses on economic cycles, social stress, illness-generating conditions of work, and sexism. Health praxis, the disciplined uniting of study and action, involves advocacy of "nonreformist reforms" and concrete types of political struggle.

Capitalism and peasant productivity

Abstract: This article is a response to comments upon and criticisms of the author's two books, and especially to N. Mouzelis’ critique published in this journal. The central thesis is that family farming is the most successful form of production for putting the maximum volume of surplus peasant labour at the disposal of urban capitalism and constitutes the most efficient way of keeping down the prices of agricultural products. The argument is developed in general terms (i.e. theoretically rather than empirically) and must be judged or countered in those terms. It is, however, illustrated with respect to Greece and to other countries of Southern and of Eastern Europe.

Analyses in the Social Division of Welfare

Abstract: Richard Titmuss’s ‘The Social Division of Welfare’ has been neglected as a framework for assessing changes in social policy and society. The analytical, as opposed to the descriptive, value of the original essay becomes more evident, and more significant, when the relations between the social divisions of labour and welfare are examined in terms of the distribution of benefits and services through the public, fiscal and occupational systems; the growth and differential recognition of needs and ‘man-made’ states of dependency; the variations in the primary objectives of welfare including control; the interrelationship of the different systems and the ways in which they legitimate the existing social structure. This paper seeks to show that, combined with a consideration of power and the state, time and security and the institutions of capitalism, the ideas of the original essay encourage a more dynamic analysis of the impact of the three systems of welfare on society than has so far been attempted.

Dobb on the transition from feudalism to capitalism

Abstract: After some three decades Maurice Dobb's Studies in the Development of Capitalism (1946) continues to be a starting point for discussion of European economic development. It does so because it remains a powerful statement of the proposition that the problem of economic development must be approached historically, that any theory of economic development must be constructed in historically specific terms. Dobb thus follows Marx in rejecting any attempt to grasp economic transformations in terms of what might be called transhistorical economic laws based for example on the postulates of orthodox economic theory. It is the burden of his position that economic development, the growth of labour productivity and of per capita output, must be comprehended in terms of the limits and possibilities opened up by historically developed systems of social-productive relations specific to a given epoch, that the key therefore to the rise of new patterns of economic evolution is to be found in the emergence of new social relations of production. The Marxist idea of the mode of production thus provides the point of departure for Dobb's analysis. It is perhaps his central contribution that through developing the mode of production conception in relation to the long-term trends of the European feudal economy, he is able to begin to lay bare its inherent developmental tendencies or 'laws of motion'. Dobb argues that the formative impact of feudal surplus extraction relations characterised by extra-economic compulsion by feudal lords, in relationship to the potentialities and limits of its peasant forces of production, determined a distinctive pattern of economic evolution. In this way, he provides a basis in both method and historical analysis for surpassing the unilineal view of development, hitherto widespread among Marxists, in which the transition to capitalism is conceived as the gestation of an embryonic self-developing mode of production, alongside and external to a feudal agricultural mode—an approach characteristically bound up with techno-functionalist premises. In this classic conception, a trading bourgeoisie develops within the interstices of an essentially immobile feudal agrarian society on the foundations of technically dynamic productive forces. The needs of new, self-propelling productive forces impel the construction of new, more suitable (capitalist) class relations, and bring about the destruction of outmoded (feudal) ones. In contrast, Dobb is able in the first place to provide a powerful critique of the notion that economic development took place through the progressive and dissolving effects of trade and merchant capital upon feudal social productive relations, originating from outside it, by showing the way in which class relations themselves structured a distinctively feudal and non-capitalist development of

Medicine Under Capitalism.

Abstract: tion. His first-rate and first-hand working knowledge of geology and paleontology as well as his clear perception of the weak arguments in Darwin's theory raise this book far above the level of similar endeavors of the period. Dawson attempts to salvage his faith by careful analysis ofthese arguments. He demonstrates, for example, that the fossil record does not provide support only for the Darwinian interpretation ofevolution, and also that without a clear statement of the mechanism by which adaptive mutations in one generation are transmitted to succeeding ones the notion of "survival of the fittest" collapses. Because ofthese failures, Dawson concludes that Darwinism not only did not, but could not, explain the origin of species. For him this failure represented the triumph of teleology or design in nature. This was crucial for Dawson because the argument from design provided the link between God and nature so necessary for those intent on harmonizing religion and science. Without that pivot, God could be logically banished from the operations ofnature and Dawson rejoices in believing he has staved offthis threat. The cause for such joy disappeared the year after Dawson's death with the rediscovery and publication ofthe Mendelian patterns of inheritance by DeVries and Correns. This and subsequent research in genetics provided the "missing link" so eagerly sought or feared by the nineteenth century antagonists of science vs. religion for now the path was open to finding the mechanisms behind evolutionary processes. In closing, I would add that the publication of this and similar reprints by Neale Watson's various enterprises provide a great service to historians of biology and medicine. THOMAS P. GARIEPY Department ofHistory of Science and Medicine Yale University

The Survival of Capitalism

Abstract: The article reviews the book “The Survival of Capitalism,” by Henri Lefebvre and translated by Frank Bryant.

The Demise of a Rural Economy: From Subsistence to Capitalism in a Latin American Village

Abstract: 1. Anthropological economics and a small village2. An economy evolves3. Household production: subsistence and surplus4. The production process5. Organizing a labour force6. The seeds of a transformation7. Horizons and reflections

The Social Democratic Image of Society : A Study of the Achievements and Origins of Scandinavian Social Democracy in Comparative Perspective

Abstract: Part 1: Achievements 1. The Political Dominance of Social Democracy 1.1. The Relative Strength of the European Social Democratic Parties 1.2. The Emergent Scandinavian Labour Movements 1.3. The Road to Power 1.4. The Mechanisms of Social Democratic Ascendancy 1.5. New Problems and New Parties 2. Equality and Welfare in Capitalist Society 2.1. Taking an Agnostic Approach 2.2. Devising a Measure of Welfare State Provision 2.3. The Data and an Interpretation 2.4. Dimensions of Equality and Welfare in Scandinavia 2.5. Capitalism and the Social Democratic Image of Society Part 2: Origins 3. Paradoxes of Scandinavian Political Development 3.1. Class and Party in Scandinavia 3.2. The Politics of Virtuous Circles 3.3. The Weakness of the Right

Dominion Capitalism: A First Statement

Abstract: The capitalist social orders of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as Argentina and Uruguay, exhibit a specific configuration of parallel economic structures which distinguish these five nations as a distinctive category within the world economy. Given the formal status of Canada, Australia and New Zealand as self-governing white dominions within the British Empire, and the informal economic integration of Argentina and Uruguay as ’honorary dominions’ within the Empire up until World War I, we label this specific category as ’dominion capitalism’. The salient features of dominion capitalism are :-

The Economic Socialization of Children: A Neo-Marxist Analysis.

Abstract: The literature in social psychology is remarkably free of socialization research exploring how children acquire ideas about capitalism. In this paper, we report the results of such a study. Generally, we find strong empirical evidence suggesting that economic socialization progressively orients children to a favorable view of capitalism and structured social inequality.

The Liberation of Women: A Study of Patriarchy and Capitalism

Abstract: Acknowledgements. Introduction. 1. The Changing Role of Women in the Seventeenth Century 2. The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism: a Marxist Perspective on the Changing Role of Women. The feudal family. The transition to capitalism. A Marxist analysis: two classes. Two classes of women 3. The Transition from Catholicism to Protestantism, a Transformation in Patriarchal Ideology. A Feminist Perspective on the Changing Role of Women: Catholicism, women and the family. The Protestant world-view. The 'little church'. The implications for women: a win, a loss, or a draw? The feminist analysis: a proper marriage. A proper wife 4. An Examination of the Marxist and Feminist Theories. The debate. The historical test. Bibliography. Index.

Entrepreneurs and Managers in German Industrialization

Abstract: Concepts and Scope The definitions used in this Chapter have to meet two requirements. First, they must be applicable within the whole period under discussion. They must be flexible and broad enough to subsume the tremendous changes occurring within entrepreneurship and management from the late eighteenth century to the twentieth. However, they need not be so broad and abstract as to cover all types of entrepreneurs and managers in history. They should rather be framed with regard to characteristics of the German economy which remained constant through this whole period (without necessarily existing at other times and places) and which were, at the same time, of central importance for the development of entrepreneurship and management. Such a characteristic we find in the fact that this has been, and – for the larger part of Germany – still is, a period of industrialization structured according to capitalist principles. The general features of industrial capitalism which are most central for the study of entrepreneurship and management during the whole period are ( a ) a factory system which is characterized by power-generating and manufacturing machines, by large amounts of fixed capital, by maturing techniques on an increasingly scientific basis, by the separation between organizational and operative functions, and by contractual labour working under centralized managerial authority, not at home, according to elaborate patterns of labour division; and ( b ) largely independent and autonomous business enterprises on the basis of the private ownership and control of capital, which is used for the production of goods and services and their sale on the commercial market, according to the criteria of profitability; business enterprises relate to each other mainly through market mechanisms.