Sociology of capitalism
Peter Wagner
October 2001 – January 2002
The social phenomenon called ‘capitalism’ (or, without necessarily claiming that these terms are synonymous, ‘market society’) has a peculiar status in the contemporary social sciences – much like the one of the wood in relation to the trees in the famous proverb.
On the one hand, it is endowed with such a sense of self-evidence that there is no need to study it all in any empirical or conceptual detail. This is equally true of those scholars that take it for granted that regulation of exchange by market mechanisms is both unproblematic and superior to any other form of regulation, and those who claim the opposite. The latter denounce an intellectual situation described with terms such as ‘la pensée unique’ or ‘there is no alternative’, but at the same time they employ, with a critical intention, for the analysis of this situation conceptual strategies that tend to confirm the absence of any alternative. On the other hand, there is an increasing number of scholars who aim at demonstrating that there are ‘varieties of capitalism’ and that those varieties are persistent even under contemporary conditions, as a shorthand often characterized by the two terms globalization and neo-liberalism. While these attempts are often quite illuminating in showing existing variety, they generally are much less clear or convincing in conceptualizing that of which these arrangements are a variety of, namely capitalism.
The guiding idea of this seminar is that, in such a situation, it is first of all necessary to take a step back – so as to make the wood visible again. If the term ‘capitalism’ refers in some way or other to ‘economic’ arrangements, having to do with the satisfaction of needs by means of the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services, then a sociology of capitalism will precisely not focus directly on this question, but on the ways in which arrangements for the satisfaction of needs are embedded in wider social relations and configurations. In particular, the seminar will address the issues of
a) the motivational sources of capitalist practices, or what one may call a socio-cultural approach to the study of capitalism;
b) the justifications for the establishment and the persistence of capitalist arrangements, or what one may call the social and political philosophy of capitalism;
c) the more or less formalized relations between the institutions for the satisfaction of needs and other social and political institutions in a given social configuration, or what one may call a politico-institutional approach to the study of capitalism.
All these approaches have in common the linkage between a historical and a conceptual mode of inquiry. Dependent on variations in their socio-cultural underpinnings, their social and political philosophy and their politico-institutional setup, capitalisms are never quite the same across time and space. More than just being varieties of a constant phenomenon, however, the very concept of capitalism undergoes changes across its historical variations. The question of the linkage between a historical and a conceptual mode of inquiry, thus, will become an underlying theme of the seminar.
In the light of such discussion, the question of the historical evolution of capitalism can also be posed anew. To prepare the ground, the discussion of the above approaches, which will form the centre of interest in the seminar, will be preceded by a critical look at some of those works that claimed to have identified a logic of capitalism, in the sense of a main mechanism and/or effect as well as a direction of its evolution. Themes such as commodification, the rise of instrumental rationality, the increasing subsumption of (‘traditional’, or, hitherto non-capitalist) practices under capitalism will be addressed. The seminar will aim at concluding by an assessment of the contemporary situation of capitalism.
The full seminar programme will be available at the end of September. Those participants who want to (re-) familiarize themselves with the topic before are advised to consult some of the classic statements for the various approaches:
- for a) Max Weber, The Protestant ethic and the ‘spirit’ of capitalism;
- for b) Albert Hirschman, The passions and the interests;
- for c) Karl Polanyi, The great transformation.
Among more recent writings, the following will be of significance:
- Cornelius Castoriadis, ‘La “rationalité” du capitalisme’, in Cornelius Castoriadis, Figures du pensable, Paris: Seuil, 1999, 65-92;
- Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme, Paris: Gallimard, 1999;
as well as my own:
- ‘Modernity, capitalism, and critique’, Thesis Eleven, no. 66, August 2001, pp. 1-31;
- A sociology of modernity, London: Routledge, 1994.
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Introduction: towards a history and theory of capitalism
Readings:
Arnason, Johann P., ‘Capitalism in context: Sources, trajectories and alternatives, Thesis Eleven, no. 66, August 2001, pp. 99-125
Wagner, Peter, ‘Modernity, capitalism, and critique’, Thesis Eleven, no. 66, August 2001, pp. 1-31
Part I: The grand narratives of capitalism revisited
Marx’s theory of capital
Readings:
Marx, Karl, ‘The fetishism of commodities and the secret thereof’ (from chapter I) and ‘Exchange’ (chapter II) of Capital, vol. 1 (pp. 31-42 of the EB edition)
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (pp. 419-34 of the EB edition)
Wagner, Peter, Politics and modernity in the Communist Manifesto, in: (Warwick and Sussex) Papers in social theory, no. 4, 1998, pp. 8-26
Modernization theory
Readings:
Parsons, Talcott, The system of modern societies, chapter V, pp. 71-85
Parsons, Talcott, and Neil Smelser, Economy and society, sections from chapter II ‘The economy as a social system’, pp. 39-70
Jeffrey C. Alexander, 'Formal and substantive voluntarism in the work of Talcott Parsons: A theoretical and ideological reinterpretation', American Sociological Review, vol. 43, 1978, pp. 177-198 (now also in: Paul Colomy, ed., Neofunctionalist Sociology, 1990)
The rise of the commodity relation and the transformation of the social bond
Readings:
Simmel, Georg, The philosophy of money, chapter 1, part II, pp. 79-101
Lukács, Georg, ‘Reification and the consciousness of the proletariat: I, The phenomenon of reification’ in: History and class consciousness, pp. 83-110
Poggi, Gianfranco, ‘Modern society (1)’ and ‘Modern society (2)’ in Money and the modern mind, pp. 164-212
The rise of instrumental rationality and the eclipse of reason
Readings:
Horkheimer, Max, ‘Rise and decline of the individual’, chapter 4 of The eclipse of reason, pp. 128-61
Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno, ‘The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass deception’ in Dialectic of Enlightenment, pp. 120-67
Löwith, Karl, ‘Introduction’ (pp. 18-27) and section ‘ Rationality as the capacity for individual responsibility …’ (pp. 52-60) in Max Weber and Karl Marx
Part II: The historical trajectories of capitalism revisited
Religion and the ‘spirit’ of capitalism (I)
Readings:
Weber, Max, The Protestant ethic and the ‘spirit’ of capitalism, (author’s) introduction and chapters II and V
Poggi, Gianfranco, Calvinism and the capitalist spirit, in particular chapters 4, 7 and 8
Religion and the ‘spirit’ of capitalism (II)
Readings:
Tawney, R.H., Religion and the rise of capitalism, pp. 175-253
Merton, Robert K., ‘Motive forces of the new science’ (1938), in I Bernard Cohen, ed., Puritanism and the rise of modern science, pp. 112-31
Political philosophy and the justification of capitalism
Readings:
Hirschman, Albert, The passions and the interests, pp. 42-66 and 115-35
McPherson, C.B., The political theory of possessive individualism, chapters I (‘Introduction’) and VI (‘Possessive individualism and democracy’)
Capitalism and the reorganization of society
Readings:
Polanyi, Karl, The Great Transformation, chapters 2, 5, 6, 10 and 21
Capitalism and the decline of politics
Readings:
Arendt, Hannah, The human condition, §§ 5, 6, 7, 17, 30
Donzelot, Jacques, L’invention du social, chapter I
Cultural tensions within capitalism: the rise of consumer capitalism
Readings:
Bell, Daniel, The cultural contradictions of capitalism (selections from chapter I)
Aglietta, Michel, A theory of capitalist regulation, chapter 3, I: ‘The capitalist production of the mode of consumption’, pp. 151-79
Campbell, Colin, The romantic ethic and the spirit of modern consumerism, ‘Conclusion’, pp. 202-27
Part III: Issues for a sociology of contemporary capitalism
Modernity and capitalism
Readings:
Castoriadis, Cornelius, 'Quelle démocratie?' Figures du pensable, pp. 145-80.
Castoriadis, Cornelius ‘La “rationalité” du capitalisme’, in Cornelius Castoriadis, Figures du pensable, pp.65-92
Wood, Ellen Meiksins, The origin of capitalism
Developmental logic or persistent variety of capitalism
Readings:
Crouch, Colin, and Wolfgang Streeck, ‘Introduction: The future of capitalist diversity’, in: Crouch and Streeck, eds., Political economy of modern capitalism, pp. 1-18
Hall, Peter, and David Soskice, ‘Introduction’, in Hall, Peter, and David Soskice, eds, Varieties of capitalism, forthcoming, OUP
Wagner Peter, Theorizing modernity, chapters 4 and 5
Justifications and limitations of contemporary capitalism
Readings:
Boltanski, Luc, and Eve Chiapello, Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme, Paris: Gallimard, 1999, part 1 of the general introduction (pp. 37-68) and chapter VII: ‘A l’épreuve de la critique artiste’ (pp. 501-76)
Boltanski, Luc, The left after May 1968 and the longing for total revolution, Thesis Eleven, no. 69, May 2002
