Showing papers on "Capitalism published in 1985"

The Nation-State and Violence

Abstract: Introduction. 1. State, Society and Modern History. 2. The Traditional State: Domination and Military Power. 3. The Traditional State: Bureaucracy, Class, Ideology. 4. The Absolutist State and the Nation--State. 5. Capitalism, Industrialism and Social Transformation. 6. Capitalism and the State: From Absolutism to the Nation--State. 7. Administrative Power, Internal Pacification. 8. Class, Sovereignty and Citizenship. 9. Capitalist Development and the Industrialization of War. 10. Nation--States in the Global State System. 11. Modernity, Totalitarianism and Critical Theory. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

Making Sense of Marx

Abstract: Preface and acknowledgments Introduction 1. Explanation and dialectics Part I. Philosophy and Economics: 2. Philosophical anthropology 3. Economics 4. Exploitation, freedom and justice Part II. Theory of History: 5. Modes of production 6. Classes 7. Politics and the state 8. Ideologies 9. Capitalism, communism and revolution Conclusion references Index of names index of subjects.

Capitalism and social democracy

Abstract: This is a study of the choices faced by socialist movements as they developed within capitalist societies. Professor Przeworski examines the three principal choices confronted by socialism: whether to work through elections; whether to rely exclusively on the working class; and whether to try to reform or abolish capitalism. He brings to his analysis a number of abstract models of political and economic structure, and illustrates the issues in the context of historical events, tracing the development of socialist strategies since the mid-nineteenth century. Several of the conclusions are novel and provocative. Professor Przeworski argues that economic issues cannot justify a socialist programme, and that the workers had good reasons to struggle for the improvement of capitalism. Therefore, the project of a socialist transformation, and the fight for economic advancement, were separate historical phenomena.

The urbanization of capital

Abstract: This article analyses the creation of capitalist urban space during the socalled « Keynesian », or « Fordist », epoch and the transition from this epoch to the era of so-called « post-Fordism » which we are currently experiencing. The production of a spatial fix which is specific to each phase of development is, for capitalism, both a means of managing its internal contradictions, thus ensuring its survival, and of displacing these contradictions onto a new terrain. This terrain is the result notably of the tensions and constraints inherent in the spatial fix inherited from the previous period and remodelled by the constant transformation of the mode of production. The Keynesian urban space, constituted by cities oriented towards demand, and moulded by the joint intervention of state planning and credit-based finance, is succeeded by the post-Fordist city, which is reshaped by intensified interurban and interregional competition, and by the exacerbation of the polarisation of, and separation between, social classes. The reproduction of social relations by and through space poses new problems, at the same time that it opens new possibilities, for class struggles and alternative socialist projects.

The Politics of Production: Factory Regimes Under Capitalism and Socialism

Abstract: M ichael Burawoy, professor da U n iversidade da Ca l iforn ia , Berkeley, partindo de reflexoes das teorias marxistas do processo de traba lho , especia lmente da obra de Harry Braverman : "Traba lho e capita l monopol ista" , chega a conclusoes das impl icacoes para a pol ftica atraves de sua ' 'teoria de producao . " Os estudos deste teo rico sao rea l izados a partir de experiencias em cada uma das a reas por e le ana l isadas , 0 que dao ao seu l ivro , As politicas de produgf1o, u rn campo raro de comparacoes internaciona is e aprofundamento emplrico . Este e u rn l ivro cuja tese contem d u a s partes, ou seja , a arg umentayao de que a classe tra ba l hadora ind ustria l tern fe ito intervenyoes sign ificativas e auto-conscientes na h istori a , e q u e essas intervenyoes foram e cont inuam a s e r formadas pelo processo de produyao. C o m esta obra , crit ica o s estudos sobre processo d e traba lho q u e se concentram na expl icayao econ6mica e desafia a separacao d a base econ6mica da super-estrutu ra pol lt ica . Nesta l i nha , considera que a recons­ trucao do marxismo passa pelo exame de como 0 processo de produyao forma a cia sse traba lhadora industria l , nao a penas objetivamente , isto e , pelo tipo de traba lho que faz, mas tambem subj eti­ vamente , ou seja , pelas lutas engendradas por u ma experiencia espedfica ou interpretay5es daque le traba lho . Estrutu ra seu l ivro em cinco capltu los : 0 processo de traba lho na sociedade capita l ista ; Karl Marx e as fabricas satan icas ; a transformacao dos reg i mes fabris sob 0 capita l ismo ava ncado ; tra ba lhadores e m estado socia l ista e 0 l a r ocu lto do sub-desenvolvimento. A ana l ise de B URAWOY sobre a obra de BRAVERMAN e u m tanto paradoxa l pois , ao tempo em que a recon hece como insuperave l , se pro poe a crit icaIa ; ao tempo em que nega a infiuencia de B RAVERMAN n a sua vida d iaria , admite manter-se no marxismo e uti l iza os pressupostos deste teorico para enriquecer as suas ana l ises e, particu larmente , 0 segundo capitu lo de As Politicas de Produgfio . Entretanto , ao lado de BRAVERMAN , ele e crit icado por nao privi leg iar a s u bjetividade e pela postura essencia l ista , que tambem 0 faz superest imar 0 poder do gerente . Ao Emtender , d iferentemente de BRAVERMAN(1 ) , que e 0 ocu ltamento s imultaneo a gara nt ia d o excede nte e nao 0 contro le , a essencia do processo de traba lho capita l ista , Burawoy busca 0 seu fundamento no feuda l ismo, por considera r que nos modos de producao nao capita l ista a exp loracao e transparente . Com esta posiyao, fica a ideia de que os trabalhadores (servos) ass u me m a explora9ao de forma consciente e imed iata . Entretanto , a a usencia de evidencias emplricas e teoricas que confi rmerr esta ind ica9ao nos leva a questionar: neste caso , estaria 0 consent imento l igado a u ma pseudo-consciencia?

Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean

Abstract: Before the age of Industrial Revolution, the great Asian civilisations - whether located in the Middle East, India, South-East Asia, or the Far East - constituted areas not only of high culture but also of advanced economic development. They were the First World of human societies. This 1985 book examines one of the driving forces of that historical period: the long chain of oceanic trade which stretched from the South China Sea to the eastern Mediterranean. It also looks at the natural complement of the seaborne commerce, its counterpart in the caravan trade. Its main achievement is to show how socially determined demand derived from cultural habits and interpretations operated through the medium of market forces and relative prices. It points out the unique and limiting features of Asian commercial capitalism, and shows how the contribution of Asian merchants was valued universally, in reality if not legally and formally. Professor Chaudhuri's book, based on more than twenty years' research and reflection on pre-modern trade and civilisations, was a landmark in the analysis and interpretation of Asia's historical position and development.

The Geopolitics of Capitalism

Abstract: I wish to consider the geopolitical consequences of living under a capitalist mode of production. I shall construct my argument theoretically, but its historical relevance will, I hope, be self-evident enough to encourage debate and, perhaps, political action on a matter of deep and compelling urgency.

Bringing the State Back In: The State and Taiwan's Economic Development

Abstract: Two features of Taiwan's post–World War II history are striking. First, it is one of the few nonsocialist economies since Japan to rise from the grossest poverty and to enter the world of the “developed.” Second, the state in Taiwan has played a leading role in the process of capital accumulation. It has positioned itself to prevail on key economic parameters such as the size of the surplus extracted from agriculture and the rate of profit in industry. To understand Taiwan's economic growth, therefore, it is necessary to understand its potent state. The challenge of understanding the role of the state in Taiwan's economic development is increased by the fact that the state's initial aims were so clearly military and geopolitical rather than economic. When Taiwan was occupied by the vanquished Nationalist government in 1949, the Guomindang was obsessed with one objective: military buildup in order to retake the Mainland. As Edwin Winckler bluntly put it, “The Jiang Jie-Shi forces, if they had had their own way, wouldn't have spent one penny on economic development.” Given that militarism and economic development must to some extent operate at cross-purposes, competing for the same scarce resources, Taiwan's success must seem somewhat paradoxical. If the role of the state is critical to economic development, why should an economy under the heel of the military end up with a “good claim to be ranked as the most successful of the developing countries”?

The nature and logic of capitalism

Abstract: In search of an answer, The Nature and Logic of Capitalism takes us on a far-ranging exploration to the unconscious levels of the human psyche and the roots of domination and submission; to the organization of primitive society and the origins of wealth; to the sources of profit and the conception of a "regime" of capital; to the interplay of relatively slow-changing institutions and the powerful force of the accumulation of wealth. By the end of this tour we have grappled not only with ideas of Adam Smith and Karl Marx but with Freud and modern anthropologists as well. And we are far closer to understanding capitalism in our time, its possibilities and limits.

Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility, Part 2

Abstract: HAVING SET FORTH THE LIMITATIONS of the social control thesis and explored the implications of the case of the starving stranger, we can now proceed to the third and final stage of the argument, a brief sketch-no more-of an alternative way to formulate the relationship between capitalism and the origins of the humanitarian sensibility. As the reader will recall, the thesis to be maintained here is that the crucial links between capitalism and humanitarianism stem not from the rise of the bourgeoisie per se but from its most characteristic institution, the market, and they are bonds created not by class interest but by the subtle isomorphisms and homologies that arise from a cognitive style common to economic affairs, judgments of moral responsibility, and much else. This is not to deny that some effects of the attack on slavery furthered bourgeois interests. The consequences of the antislavery movement that. Davis called "hegemonic" are real enough, but we have not been given any adequate reason to think they were produced by class interest, by a desire for hegemony, or by any other form of intention, conscious or unconscious. They belong mainly to the category of unintended consequences. "Hegemonic" exaggerates their purposefulness, and the term "self-deception" is not capable of clarifying their status. None of these conclusions require us to give up the most important contribution of Marxian historiography: the suggestion that the humanitarian impulse emerged when and where it did because of its kinship with those social and economic changes that we customarily denominate as "the rise of capitalism." The task now is to specify the nature and extent of that kinship. One could argue in the spirit of Norbert Elias that the kinship is very strong indeed, that the practices we label "capitalistic" and the acts we identify as "humanitarian" are simply different manifestations of a single cultural complex, or "form of life." Elias's brilliant account of the shifting "thresholds of embarrassment" and "standards of affective control" that have regulated manners during European man's long ascent up the ladder of the "civilizing process" provides 547

Did British capitalism breed inequality

Abstract: 1. The issues PART I 2. Real wages and standard of living 3. Earnings inequality, skill scarcity and the structure of pay 4. Income inequality PART II 5. What drives inequality? 6. Disequilibrating factor demand: The industrialization bias 7. Equilibrating supply: men, machines and skills PART III 8. Modeling inequality in a resource-scarce open economy 9. Fact or fiction? 10. Accounting for the Kuznets Curve, 1821-1911 11. Why was British growth so slow before the 1820s? 12. Inequality, industrialization and the standard of living during wartime: conjectures 13. Data, theory and debate Appendices.

Disorganized Capitalism: Contemporary Transformations of Work and Politics

Abstract: Should the Western democracies, contrary to their prevailing self-image as "planned" and "managed," be seen as highly disorganized systems of social power and political authority? If so, what are the symptoms, consequences of, and possible remedies for these disorganizing tendencies?In these ten essays, Claus Offe seeks to answer such questions. Moving beyond the boundaries of both Marxism and established forms of political sociology, he focuses on the growth of serious divisions within the work force (and between the employed and unemployed), the importance of the "informal" sector, the severe difficulties faced by trade unions in coping with the present economic crisis, the vulnerability of neocorporatist mechanisms, and the failures of state policymaking based on either majority rule or bureaucratic administration.In examining these and other fundamental problems of advanced capitalist democracies, Offe also contests some widely held assumptions of contemporary social science. He calls into question the neutrality of liberal democratic mechanisms of participation and representation, the centrality of the category of work and the division between labor and capital, and the feasibility and desirability of full employment.Claus Offe is the author of numerous books and essays, including Contradictions of the Welfare State (MIT Press paperback). He is currently Professor of Political Science and Sociology in the Faculty of Sociology, University of Bielefeld, West Germany. John Keane is Senior Lecturer in Political Theory and Sociology at the Polytechnic of Central London. Disorganized Capitalism is included in the series, Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.

Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility, Part 1

Abstract: AN UNPRECEDENTED WAVE OF HUMANITARIAN reform sentiment swept through the societies of Western Europe, England, and North America in the hundred years following 1750. Among the movements spawned by this new sensibility, the most spectacular was that to abolish slavery. Although its morality was often questioned before 1750, slavery was routinely defended and hardly ever condemned outright, even by the most scrupulous moralists. About the time that slavery was being transformed from a problematical but readily defensible institution into a selfevidently evil and abominable one, new attitudes began to appear on how to deter criminals, relieve the poor, cure the insane, school the young, and deal with primitive peoples.' The resulting reforms were, by almost any reasonable standard, an improvement over old practices that were often barbarous. Even so, twentiethcentury historians have not been satisfied to attribute those reforms either to an advance in man's mnoral sense or, simply, to a random outburst of altruism. In explaining the new humanitarianism, historians have repeatedly pointed to changes in what Marxists generally call the economic base or substructure of society, that is, the growth of capitalism and beginnings of industrialization. Tracing links between humanitarianism and capitalism has been a major preoccupation of historians, and the enterprise has succeeded, I believe, in greatly extending our understanding of the new sensibility. We know now that the reformers were motivated by far more than an unselfish desire to help the downtrodden, and we

Capitalism and Confrontation in Sumatra's Plantation Belt, 1870-1979

Abstract: Over the last century, North Sumatra has been the site of one of the most intensive and successful pursuits of foreign agricultural enterprise of any developing country. Colonial expansion by Europeans resulted in overt--sometimes violent-- conflict between capital and labor, as workers resisted plantation interests. "Capitalism and Confrontation in Sumatra's Plantation Belt, 1870-1979" is a fascinating ethnographic history that analyzes how popular resistance actively molded both the form of colonialism and the social, economic, and political experience of the Javanese laboring communities on Sumatra's plantation borders."A well-crafted and expertly researched history . . . exhibits a brand of intellectual integrity that is rare in a work so critical and this makes it a major contribution to the literature of the impact of imperialism and capitalism on the traditional populations of the Third World." --Peasant Studies"From written historical records, as well as from very broad and intensive field work, Ann Laura Stoler has pieced together an eminently rich and meaningful episode of Indonesian history . . . . What makes for its quality is the remarkable balance, maintained throughout the study, between description, analysis and interpretation."--Pacific AffairsAnn Laura Stoler is Professor of Anthropology and History and Women's Studies, University of Michigan, and the author of "Race and the Education of Desire: A Colonial Reading of Foucault's The History of Sexuality." She is the recipient of the 1992 Harry J. Benda Prize in Southeast Asian Studies from the Association of Asian Studies.

The Masses: The Implosion of the Social in the Media

Abstract: TU P TO NOW there have been two great versions of the analysis of the media (as indeed that of the masses), one optimistic and one pessimistic. The optimistic one has assumed two major tonalities, very different from one another. There is the technological optimism of Marshall McLuhan: for him the electronic media inaugurate a generalized planetary communication and should conduct us, by the mental effect alone of new technologies, beyond the atomizing rationality of the Gutenberg galaxy to the global village, to the new electronic tribalism-an achieved transparency of information and communication. The other version, more traditional, is that of dialectical optimism inspired by progressivist and Marxist thought: the media constitute a new, gigantic productive force and obey the dialectic of productive forces. Momentarily alienated and submitted to the law of capitalism, their intensive development can only eventually explode this monopoly. "For the first time in history," writes Hans Enzensberger, "the media make possible a mass participation in a productive process at once social and socialized, a participation whose practical means are in the hands of the masses themselves."l These two positions more or less, the one technological, the other ideological, inspire the whole analysis and the present practice of the media.2

Capitalism, petty commodity production and the farm enterprise

Abstract: Marx and Engels wrote very little about agriculture. If we exclude the very extensive discussion of ground rent in the third volume of Capital, we are left with a couple of fragments in the first volume of Capital and three polemical, although penetrating, essays - The Eighteenth Brumaire, The Peasant Question in France and Germany and the Critique of Gotha Programme. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that Marxists have spent so much time interpreting, and elaborating upon, what Marx and Engels wrote. Lenin, Kautsky, Preobrazhensky, Kritsman, Rosa Luxemburg, Gramsci, Mariategui … the list is a long one.

Powers and Liberties: The Causes and Consequences of the Rise of the West

Abstract: Why did capitalism emerge only in Western Europe? What is the relation between class and nation? Is the West declining, and what are its options? These are some of the questions asked by David Hume and Adam Smith - and Karl Marx - but often neglected in recent times. Now, in this book, the origins of the West's unprecedented economic dynamism is examined. John A. Hall offers a wealth of insights into many major topics, but they are always based on recent historical research. He shows, for example, how the rise of capitalism was related to Christianity in ways unsuspected by Max Weber. He goes on to consider how, today, the liberal political traditions of Europe - inevitably in conflict with those of state socialism and the Third World - must adapt or perish.

The Little Deal: Brezhnev's Contribution To Acquisitive Socialism

Abstract: Vera Dunham described the accommodation that emerged between regime and middle class in the Soviet Union under Stalin as the "Big Deal."' It represented a dilution of the idealistic, egalitarian goals of Marxian socialism by means of a tacit accommodation in practice to the materialistic, self-regarding behavior of the new Soviet middle class. For technocrats and skilled workers in preferred sectors, material incentives increasingly displaced moral incentives. For the middle class, privilege and perquisite replaced egalitarianism and self-denial. The accumulation of private, personal property not only became acceptable, it was now protected against public encroachment, and acquisitive impulses gained relative to altruistic ones. The rhetoric of Bolshevism continued, of course, to glorify self-sacrifice, collectivism, and egalitarianism, but these goals, like a particular kind of optical illusion, retreated farther and farther into the future with each new official pronouncement. One day in the future collective farms would be elevated to full status as socialist enterprises. Private agricultural plots would disappear. Public distribution of consumer goods and services would be entirely socialized and thus depecuniarized. "Commodity production," the "law of value," and other relics of capitalism would eventually become otiose and disappear simultaneously with the appearance of the new Soviet man (and woman).2 Meanwhile, however, first the building of heavy industry, then prosecution of World War II, next reconstruction of the postwar economy took precedence. Thus private production, markets, differential wages, private wealth, and personal acquisitiveness had to be tolerated, and even encouraged, for the duration. The economy under Stalin relied heavily upon powerful, noneconomic disincentives as well as upon material incentives. Success was rewarded materially and morally. Failure was unacceptable. Discipline and punishment provided a counterpoint to privilege and perquisite, and they insured that acquisitiveness would not jeopardize the aims of the state, however it might militate against the early appearance of the new socialist citizen. High rates of growth and a general rise in the material standard of living of the majority of the Soviet population during the early years of Khrushchev's rule created a strong sense of optimism.3 Egalitarianism was taken seriously by

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism

Abstract: Max Weber's Problemattk still retains its power: why did only Christian Europe amongst the world civilisations autonomously create an economic dynamism, broadly capitalist in character? This essay gives an answer to this question, but it is one, for the most part, not in the spirit of the great German sociologist. There is, of course, a major academic industry devoted to the interpretation of Weber's work, but it still remains safe to say that Weber's own explanation for the fortuitous rise of the West had to do with ideological options concerning rational economic behaviour which gained particular salience in the fifteenth century despite having been present in embryo for a much longer period.

The Invisible Hand of Planning: Capitalism, Social Science, and the State in the 1920s

Abstract: Guy Alchon examines the mutually supportive efforts of social scientists, business managers, and government officials to create America's first peacetime system of macroeconomic management.Originally published in 1985.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

After Capitalism—What?

Abstract: The traditional Marxist answer of course is socialism. And the essence of socialism, running like a red thread through all of Marx and Engels' writings, is the replacement of the bourgeoisie as the ruling class by the proletariat, the exploiters by the exploited. As Marx and Engels wrote in the Manifesto, "the first step in the revolution by the working class" is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy. The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class, and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.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.

Understanding Capitalism: Competition, Command, and Change

Abstract: Understanding Capitalism provides an introduction to economics with extensive attention to the global economy, inequality, the information revolution, the exercise of power and the historical evolution of economic institutions and individual preferences. Its three dimensional approach focuses on competition in markets, command in firms, governments and international relations, and change as a permanent feature of a capitalist economy promoted by technical innovation and conflict over the distribution of income.

Radical Analyses of Imperialism, the Third World, and the Transition to Socialism: A Survey Article

Abstract: THIS PAPER IS A SURVEY of Marxist and other radical interpretations of interactions among the three "worlds" of advanced capitalism, socialism, and the less developed countries (LDCs). It includes, first, analyses of the causes, aims, and methods of capitalist imperialism. The survey next examines the impact of world capitalism on LDCs, including theories of dependency and unequal exchange and the role of international agencies in the development process of LDCs. The third general topic is that of domestic policies of the LDCs, such as policies of import substitution and export promotion, as well as other social programs aiming for development. The survey, finally, extends to the efforts of some less-advanced countries to achieve socialist societies-that is, to issues of the transition process from precapitalist or immature capitalist economies to socialist ones. Wherever possible, we appraise or raise questions about the radical literature, for the purposes of guiding readers who are unfamiliar with the terrain and of stimulating radicals to improve their efforts in these areas. By radical literature we mean that which is highly critical of capitalism, favors socialism, and often employs Marxian analysis. Marxian analysis contains an economic interpretation of historical changes, which employs the categories of the productive forces, the relations of production, and the superstructure; the view of the primacy of the production process in establishing class structures, other social relations, and noneconomic institutions and