Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-24hb2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-26T23:45:52.176Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

How to Study Contemporary Capitalism?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2012

Wolfgang Streeck*
Affiliation:
Max-Planck Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung, Köln [streeck@mpifg.de].
Get access

Abstract

The paper argues that contemporary capitalism must be studied as a society rather than an economy, and contemporary society as capitalist society. Capitalism is defined as a specific institutionalization of economic action in the form of a specifically dynamic system of social action, with a tendency to expand into, impose itself on and consume its non-economic and non-capitalist social and institutional context, unless contained by political resistance and regulation. The paper illustrates its perspective by four brief sketches, depicting contemporary capitalism as a historically dynamic social order, a culture, a polity, and a way of life. All four examples, it is claimed, demonstrate the superiority of a longitudinal-historical approach over static cross-sectional comparisons, and of focusing on the commonalities of national versions of capitalisms rather than their “varieties”.

Résumé

L’argument est que le capitalisme contemporain relève d’une étude de société, non d’économie que la société contemporaine est une société capitaliste. Le capitalisme se définit comme une institutionnalisation spécifique de l’action économique qui prend la forme d’un système dynamique particulier de l’action sociale qui envahit et absorbe son environnement social non économique et non capitaliste aussi longtemps qu’il ne se heurte pas à une résistance politique imposant régulation. La position défendue s’appuie sur quatre courtes séquences qui décrivent le capitalisme contemporain comme ordre social en mouvement, comme culture, comme système politique et comme mode de vie. Ces quatre séquences sont censées montrer qu’une approche historique longitudinale est supérieure aux comparaisons ponctuelles et qu’il est plus profitable de se focaliser sur les traits communs entre formes nationales de capitalisme que sur leurs différences.

Zusammenfasung

Die Hauptthese des Aufsatzes ist, dass der Kapitalismus der Gegenwart als Gesellschaft und nicht bloß als Wirtschaft analysiert werden muss, und die Gesellschaft der Gegenwart als kapitalistische Gesellschaft. Kapitalismus wird als eine spezifische Institutionalisierung wirtschaftlichen Handelns in Form eines spezifisch dynamischen Systems sozialen Handelns definiert, das dazu tendiert, in seinen nicht-wirtschaftlichen und nicht-kapitalistischen gesellschaftlichen Kontext zu expandieren, ihn sich unterzuordnen und ihn zu konsumieren, sofern es nicht durch politische Regulierung daran gehindert wird. Die vorgeschlagene Perspektive wird in vier kurzen Skizzen illustriert, in denen der gegenwärtige Kapitalismus als dynamische soziale Ordnung, als Kultur, als politisches System und als Lebensform behandelt wird. Alle vier Skizzen zeigen, so die These, die Überlegenheit einer historischen Längsschnittperspektive über einen statischen Vergleich und einer Betonung der Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen verschiedenen nationalen Kapitalismusformen anstelle ihrer Unterschiede.

Type
Research Articles
Copyright
Copyright © A.E.S. 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beckert, Jens, 2009. “The Great Transformation of Embeddedness: Karl Polanyi and the New Economic Sociology”, in Hann, Chris and Hart, Keith, eds., Market and Society: The Great Transformation (New York, Cambridge University Press, pp. 38-55).Google Scholar
Beckert, Jens, 2011a. “Imagined Futures: Fictionality in Economic Action”, MPIfG Discussion Paper 11/8 (Cologne, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies).Google Scholar
Beckert, Jens, 2011b. “The Transcending Power of Goods: Imaginative Value in the Economy”, in Beckert, Jens and Aspers, Patrick, eds., The Worth of Goods: Valuation and Pricing in the Economy (Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 106-130).Google Scholar
Beckert, Jens, 2012. “Capitalism as a System of Contingent Expectations: On the Microfoundations of Economic Dynamics” (Köln, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, unpublished manuscript).Google Scholar
Beckert, Jens and Streeck, Wolfgang, 2008. “Economic Sociology and Political Economy: A Programmatic Perspective”, MPIfG Working Paper 08/4 (Cologne, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies).Google Scholar
Block, Fred, 2002. “Rethinking Capitalism” in Biggart, Nicole Woolsey, ed., Readings in Economic Sociology (Oxford, Blackwell, pp. 219-230).Google Scholar
Block, Fred, 2007. “Understanding the Diverging Trajectories of the United States and Western Europe: A Neo-Polanyian Analysis”, Politics and Society, 35 (3), pp. 3-33.Google Scholar
Block, Fred, 2012. “Varieties of What? Should We Still Be Using the Concept of Capitalism?Political Power and Social Theory, 23, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Bohle, Dorothee and Greskovits, Bela, 2009. “Varieties of Capitalism and Capitalism "tout court"”, Archives Européennes de Sociologie, 50 (3), pp. 355-368.Google Scholar
Camic, Charles, ed. 1991. Talcott Parsons: The Early Essays (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Crouch, Colin, 2009. “Privatised Keynesianism: An Unacknowledged Policy Regime”, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 11 (3), pp. 382-399.Google Scholar
Hall, Peter A. and Soskice, David, 2001a. “An Introduction to Varieties of Capitalism”, in Hall, Peter A. and Soskice, David, eds., Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage (Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 1-68).Google Scholar
Hall, Peter A. and Soskice, David, 2001b. Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage (Oxford, Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Kalecki, Michal, 1943. “Political Aspects of Full EmploymentPolitical Quarterly, 14 (4), pp. 322-331.Google Scholar
Luxemburg, Rosa, 1913. Die Akkumulation des Kapitals: Ein Beitrag zur ökonomischen Erklärung des Imperialismus (Berlin, Buchhandlung Vorwärts Paul Singer GmbH).Google Scholar
Lynd, Robert S. and Merrell Lynd, Helen, 1929. Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture (London, Constable).Google Scholar
Lynd, Robert S. and Merrell Lynd, Helen, 1937. Middletown in Transition: A Study in Cultural Conflicts (New York, Harcourt).Google Scholar
Marshall, Alfred, 1997 [1890]. Principles of Economics (Amherst, Prometheus Books).Google Scholar
Marx, Karl, 1967 [1867, 1887]. Capital. A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. I (New York, International Publishers).Google Scholar
Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, 1977 [1848]. “The Communist Manifesto”, in McLellan, David, ed., Karl Marx: Selected Writings (Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 221-247).Google Scholar
Packard, Vance, 1957. The Hidden Persuaders (New York, D. McKay Co).Google Scholar
Polanyi, Karl, 1957 [1944]. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston, Beacon Press).Google Scholar
Polanyi, Karl, 1992 [1957]. “The Economy as Instituted Process”, in Granovetter, Mark and Swedberg, Richard, eds., The Sociology of Economic Life (Boulder, Westview Press, pp. 29-51).Google Scholar
Riesman, David with Glazer, Nathan and Denney, Reuel, 1950. The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character (New Haven, Yale University Press).Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph, 1928. “The Instability of CapitalismThe Economic Journal, XXXVIII, 151, pp. 361-386.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph, 2006 [1912]. Theorie der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung (Berlin, Duncker & Humblot).Google Scholar
Smith, Adam, 1993 [1776]. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Oxford/New York, Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Streeck, Wolfgang, 2009. Re-Forming Capitalism: Institutional Change in the German Political Economy (Oxford, Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Streeck, Wolfgang, 2010. “Institutions in History: Bringing Capitalism Back In”, in Campbell, John et al. ., eds., Handbook of Comparative Institutional Analysis (Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 659-686).Google Scholar
Streeck, Wolfgang, 2011a. “A Crisis of Democratic Capitalism”, New Left Review, 71, pp. 1-25.Google Scholar
Streeck, Wolfgang, 2011b. “E Pluribus Unum? Varieties and Commonalities of Capitalism”, in Granovetter, Mark and Swedberg, Richard, eds., The Sociology of Economic Life, 3rd edition (Boulder, Westview, pp. 419-455).Google Scholar
Streeck, Wolfgang, 2011c. “Flexible Employment, Flexible Families, and the Socialization of Reproduction” in Coulmas, Florian and Lützeler, Ralph, eds., Imploding Populations in Japan and Germany: A Comparison (Leiden, Brill, pp. 63-95).Google Scholar
Streeck, Wolfgang, 2011d. “Taking Capitalism Seriously: Towards an Institutional Approach to Contemporary Political Economy”, Socio-Economic Review, 9 (1), pp. 137-167.Google Scholar
Veblen, Thorstein, 1994 [1899]. The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York, Penguin).Google Scholar
Weber, Max, 1984 [1904/1905]. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated by Parsons, Talcott, introduction by Anthony Giddens (London, Unwin Paperbacks).Google Scholar