week 5 - capitalism, class and conceptions of political development Flashcards
Heywood - capitalism definition
A system of generalized commodity production, featuring:
- productive wealth, mainly private
- market principles
- wage labour
- profit and other material incentives
Land and human beings are commodified under capitalism
Capitalism: rival interpretations
Liberal
Adam Smith: commercial society, cities began to develop, trade expanded internationally, by middle of 18th century commercial society appeared
- emerges from late medieval Italian and Dutch cities
- spreads to Atlantic coast and beyond
- creates middling classes
Smith - markets are:
- spontaneous
- driven by self interest, profit orientation
- sites of decentralization, independent decision making by sellers and buyers
Economic growth via competition and specialization:
- division of labour
- comparative advantage
State-society relations
- individualism
- limited role for the state
Limited conception of political development (lipset)
Historical Trajectory- Lipset: capitalism was reducing the gap between the rich and the poor, create more equality
A) industrialization matters - but what is it?
- dramatic growth in productivity
- mechanization, factory production
- shift of resources from agriculture to manufacturing
B) industrialization: linked to urbanization, literacy expansion, values changes and democracy (democracy indicates fully developed society)
C) social changes key
D) competition not conflict
E) Lipset: effects
- marginalize radicals
- broaden middle class the point of near universality
- any quality does not disappear but the wealthier a country the less is status inferiority experienced as a major source of deprivation
- integration into national cultural life challenges influence of class
Critiques of liberalism
- economic development hasn’t always brought full social and political development
- industrialization taken up in non-capitalist countries like USSR
- capitalism has survived, but in many varieties including Chinese communist capitalism
Capitalism: rival interpretations
Marx
Marxist:
- capitalism is a system of commodity production for broad exchange
- Capital is a social relation
- dialectical materialism (capitalism as a stage in history) or one of several modes of production = material forces of production + relations of production (carry internal contradictions producing class conflict)
Under capitalism for Marx:
- the bourgeoisie owns the means of production and exploits the proletariat
- because labour is a source of value and competition drives down wages
Conflict intensifiers (capitalism- Marx)
- immiseration of labour
- socialization of labour
- concentration of capital
Proletariat grows in consciousness
- of itself
- of the inevitability of class struggle
- of the need for revolution
Capitalism’s role (Marx)
- eliminating scarcity
- creating proletariat as the nearly universal social class
The proletariat
- smashes the state which lacks autonomy
- as the executive committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie
- revolution begins the movement toward a classless society
- and ultimately the withering away of the state - public power ceases to be political
Critiques of Marx
- more than two classes, blurring the lines of conflict
- classes internally divided
- reductionist - other human motivations include nationalism, religion and ideology
- State autonomy
- multiple paths of historical development
Class (Marx)
- not just relationship to means of production
- but based on access to an interconnected syndrome of benefits: wealth, education and social networks
- still a powerful predictor of behaviour
- permitting new classes to emerge
- key criticism: much democratization has already occurred by 1950 to 90 + missing historical data strengthens the development democracy correlation
