Professor: Bronislaw Misztal
<http://www.cua.edu/~misztal>
Department of Sociology
Catholic University of America
email: misztal@cua.edu
CAPITALISM, GLOBALIZATION & CONSUMPTION
(SOC 334/ECON 334)
FALL 2003
Office Hours: T, Th.
3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. (by appointment only)
LCI # 213
Class meets: T, Th.
5:10 p.m.-6:40 p.m.
CALD 117
What this course is about?
Capitalism is the most successful and yet most controversial wealth-creating
economic system that the world has ever known. It advances continuously to higher
levels of productivity and technological sophistication, and while doing so it destroys
the "old" before the "new" institutional structures can take over. It develops in
certain geo-political regions, and fails in other countries. It stimulates peoples
hopes and market behavior, and prompts them to consume even more. Yet the
development of global economy has not been matched by the development of a
global society. The advance of capitalism is accompanied by periodic recessions,
downturns and protest waves.
This course presents students with a systematic analysis of the origins, emergence
and transformations of modern capitalism. It examines the role of money, open
markets, mass consumption, and the logics of globalization. It introduces most
recent critiques of global capitalism. Students will learn about the interfaces and
discontinuities between the economy and society, and in particular about economic
market integration and its impact on states and societies. Material includes works
by Gilpin, Greenfeld, Lindblom, de Soto, Soros, and Weber. During the semester
each student will prepare one paper on arguments about the emergence of and on
models of modern capitalism.
TEXTS:
two major texts are used:
Fliegstein, Neil. 2003. The Architecture of Markets. Princeton: Princeton
University Press. [FLIEGSTEIN]
Greenfeld, Liah. 2001. The Spirit of Capitalism. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press. [GREENFELD]
Dowd, Douglas. 2002. Understanding Capitalism. London: Pluto Press. [DOWD]
Additional readings are recommended for each week’s load.
2
Course format and structure.
This is an undergraduate review course in economic sociology. It is designed to
build the foundations of conceptual and analytical competence in this exciting field
by:
(i) sampling some of the classical work that is most relevant to our
contemporary concerns in the area,
(ii) focusing on the much-debated problem of social origins and workings of
capitalism, and
(iii) examining a selection of other topics of importance in economic sociological research (modernization, [under]development, informality, etc.).
It involves weekly lectures, followed by occasional student presentations designed
to initiate debate, discussions of the readings, and your professor’s occasional
summaries of contextual and background info.
You are responsible for preparing a one-page, typed outline (a sketch focussing on
key concepts, definitions, ideas, a heuristic conceptual comparison table, etc.) of
what you consider to be the "essence" of the work discussed during the given week.
Outlines are due every Tuesday. They serve as: (1) basis for in-class discussions,
(2) reminder of some of the crucial components of the material for your future
reference. Grading is based on a judicious combination of class participation and the
paper.
Paper:
Develop a maximum 5000-word research paper (20 single side, double-space pages
with a 10-cpi font, 1-inch margins) on a topic which falls within the broadlyconceived subject matter of the course (the origins of capitalism, globalization and
consumption and their impact on modern society. Book reviews are not acceptable.
The purpose of the paper is to use intelligently and creatively some sociological
ideas regarding economic phenomena, broadly construed. Its final version is due on
Tuesday, November 25, 2003. Hand in a one-paragraph outline of the paper as
soon as possible but no later than Tuesday, September 16, 2003. (You are welcome
to come during my office hours to discuss possible topics and approaches.) You
may submit your outline via email (see my address above).
Weekly Schedule (approximate)
week 1
ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY; THE SOCIOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVE ON THE ECONOMY, THE ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE ON SOCIETY THE
POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE ON PRODUCTION AND COMMERCE
Lecture Contents:
° transactional nature of human society (review of major types of transactions
conducted by individual and collective actors)
° processual nature of human society (review of major types of social processes)
° moral underpinnings of human actions (review of major justifications for economic
activities)
° motivational foundations of human success
° various causes for the emergence of modern (capitalistic, growth oriented)
economies
° institutional patterns for organization of a good society
Outline Hints: review and compare how is the concept of “political economy” treated in both
Smelser and Greenfeld? what is the historical and social genealogy of political economy and
how it differed between France and Germany?
Readings:
Smelser, Neil J. and Richard Swedberg. 1994. "The Sociological Perspective on the
Economy." Pp. 3-26 in Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedberg (eds.) The Handbook of
Economic Sociology. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
[FLIEGSTEIN] chapter 1
week 2
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE ECONOMY
Lecture Contents:
° markets as the most important social institutions
° economic approaches to the market (prices, values, commodities)
° sociological interpretations of the market (division of labour, differenciation of
power)
° social-institutional approaches to the markets (reciprocity, redistribution and
exchange, Karl Polanyi’s interpretation)
° historical forms and types of markets
° the social structure of modern capitalist markets (labour, capital, consumer,
industrial), and post-capitalist markets (knowledge, access, network)
Outline Hints: review and compare how Marx and Weber conceived of and explained
markets and entrepreneurship (research both Smelser and Greenfeld); what role ascribes
Greenfeld to the entrepreneurial (economic, business) activity?
Readings:
Swedberg, Richard. 1994. “Markets as Social Structures.” pp. 255-282 in Neil J. Smelser
and Richard Swedberg (eds.). The Handbook of Economic Sociology. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
[FLIEGSTEIN] chapters 2-3
week 3
THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC FORMATIONS OF THE MODERNITY
Lecture Contents:
° various sources and definitions of capital and capitalism
° what makes capitalism modern?
° accumulation of profit and exploitation of labour-Marxian view of capitalism
° specialization and rationalization of social organization-Durkheimian perspective
on modernity
° early attempts to justify economic activity in England
° prosperity as the new national characteristic and an autotelic moral value
° the effect of nationalism on the British Economy
° development of commerce and financial trade in the Netherlands
° the class foundations of the Dutch capitalism
4
Outline Hints: review Greenfeld’s criticism of Marx; what, according to Greenfeld,
constituted the modern contents of the capitalist socio-economic systems in the Netherlands
and in England?
Readings:
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. 2000 (1848). “Manifesto of the Communist Party.” Pp. 2537 in J. Timmons Roberts and Amy Hite, eds.. From Modernization to Globalization.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Durkheim, Emile. 2000 (1893). “The division of labour in society.” pp. 37-67 in J. Timmons
Roberts and Amy Hite, eds. From Modernization to Globalization. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell.
[GREENFELD] “Another Take on How It All Began.” Part I, pp. 27-104.
[FLIEGSTEIN] chapters 4-6.
[DOWD] chapters 1-3.
week 4
THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM. I. MAX WEBER’S HYPOTHESIS.
Lecture Contents:
° the increased role of the Economics as a statecraft
° the German model of totalitarianism and the role of Romanticism as an ideology
which supports individual sacrifice and subdues happiness to collective good
° the French Revolution as a factor contributing to the German nationalism
° Weber’s interpretation of the religious and ethical foundations of the German
capitalism
° what made the German capitalism modern: ideology, religion or the intellectuals?
° Greenfeld’s argument about the role of universities and the relative deprivation of
scholars in the emergence of economic sciences
° Weber’s argument about history as the march of rationalization
Outline Hints: summarize and compare Weber’s thesis about the religious and moral
underpinnings of capitalism, with Grenfeld’s thesis about the ideological and class factors
Readings:
Weber, Max. 2000 (1905). “The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism.” Pp. 67-81 in
J. Timmons Roberts and Amy Hite, eds. From Modernization to Globalization. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell.
Collins, Randall. 1992. "Weber's Last Theory of Capitalism." Pp. 78-110 in Swedberg,
Richard and Mark Granovetter (eds). The Sociology of Economic Life. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
[GREENFELD] “The Protestant Ethics Controversy.” Pp. 10-21; “The Power of Concerted
Action. Putting the Spirit of Capitalism to Work in Germany.” ch. 4, pp. 154-224.
Wuthnow, Robert. 1994. “Religion and Economic Life.” Ch. 25, pp. 620-646 in Neil J.
Smelser and Richard Swedberg (eds). The Handbook of Economic Sociology. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
week 5
THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM. II. ROBERT BRENNER’S HYPOTHESIS.
Lecture Contents:
° the logic of the late feudalism in Europe
° feudalism as the social-welfare system
° political divisions and economic differentiation on both sides of the river Elbe
° two ways of coming out of serfdom
° the importance of the land and of agricultural economy for the emergent forms
of capitalism
Outline Hints: explain the reasons for which capitalism was far more advanced on the West
of the river Elbe
Readings:
Brenner, Robert. 1985. The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism. Pp. 262-323 in The
Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brenner, Robert. 1989. “Economic Backwardness in Eastern Europe in Light of Developments
in the West.” ch. 2, Pp. 15-53 in The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe.
Daniel Chirot (ed.). Oxford: University of California Press.
Esping-Andersen-Gosta. 1994. “Welfare States and the Economy.” Ch. 29, Pp. 711-732 in
Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedberg (eds). The Handbook of Economic Sociology.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
[GREENFELD] “Nationalism and Economic Liberty.” Pp. 187-199.
week 6
THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM. III. KARL POLANYI’S HYPOTHESIS.
Lecture Contents:
° the role fo the state in assuring continuity between the pre-capitalist and capitalist economic formations
° three modes of economic integration: reciprocity, redesitribution and market
exchange
° redistributive power of the state
° appropriation and allocation of economic goods and the social regulatory mechanisms
Outline Hints: recapitulate major arguments of Polany with regards to archaic and modern
economic systems
Readings:
Polányi, Karl. 1957 (1944). The Great Transformation. Boston: Beacon Press. Chapters:
3-6, 11-18.
Block, Fred and Margaret R. Somers. 1984. "Beyond the Economistic Fallacy: The Holistic
Social Science of Karl Polanyi." Pp. 47-84. in Skocpol, Theda (ed.) Vision and Method in
Historical Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6
Szelenyi, Ivan. 1991. “Karl Polanyi and the Theory of a Socialist Mixed Economy.” Pp. 231248 in Marguerite Mendell and Daniel Salee, eds., The Legacy of Karl Polanyi. New York:
St. Martin’s Press.
week 7
THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM. III. DE SOTO’S HYPOTHESIS.
Lecture Contents:
° what is the capital and what is it embedded in?
° transparency and convertibility of capital in the contemporary world
° modern forms of capitalism
° capitalism without the capital
Outline Hints: reconstruct the argument about five major issues related to the emergence of
capitalism in the Western and non-western societies
Readings:
De Soto, Hernando. 2000.“The Five Mysteries of Capital.” Ch. 1, Pp. 1-15 in The Mystery of
Capital. New York: Basic Books.
week 8
THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM. IV. LIAH GREENFELD’S HYPOTHESIS.
Lecture Contents:
° distinguishing between the necessary and the sufficient, or contributing factors
in the emergence of modern capitalism
° the essence of capitalism and its definition
° capitalism and the capitalists: the system and its principal actors
° searching for the carriers of the inclination for ever-increasing gains: the role of
nationalism(s)
° how does nationalism contribute to individual and collective identity?
Outline Hints: reconstruct Greenfeld’s argument about the interface between the national
identity and the justification of the necessary social-structural reconstruction of modern
societies
Readings:
[GREENFELD] “Why Nationalism?” Pp. 21-26; “The Economic Civilization: The Spirit of
Capitalism in the New World.” Part IV, pp. 363- 483.
week 9
CONTESTING THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM: STATE SOCIALISM.
Lecture Contents:
° state socialism as a transition society, as state capitalism and as bureaucratic
collectivism
° socialist redistributive economy
° prospects of the market socialism (marketization of society or socialization of the
market?)
° the Soviet and the Polish way of running the state socialist sytem
Outline Hints: in the light of the faling state socialits model evalute the Fukuyama’s
argument about the “end of history”
Readings:
[DOWD] chapters 1-3
Szelenyi, Ivan, Katherine Beckett and Lawrence P. King. 1994. “The Socialist Economic
System.” Pp. 234-254 in Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedberg (eds). The Handbook of
Economic Sociology. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Szelenyi, Ivan. 1978. “Social Inequalities under State Redistributive Economies.”
International Journal of Comparative Sociology 1: 61-87.
Portes, Alejandro. 1994. "The Informal Economy and Its Paradoxes." Pp. 426-50 in Neil J.
Smelser and Richard Swedberg (eds). The Handbook of Economic Sociology. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
week 10
CRITIQUES OF CONTEMPORARY CAPITALISM
Lecture Contents:
° the development differential resulting from globalisation
° displacement of social goals
° individualism and consumerism
° ambiguity of the advanced capitalism
Readings:
Soros, George. 1998. The Crisis of Global Capitalism. New York: Public Affairs. Part Two.
Pp. 101-214.
Castells, Manuel. 2000. “Information Technology and Global Capitalism.” Pp. 52-75 in
Hutton, Will and Anthony Giddens, eds. 2000. Global Capitalism. New York: The New
Press.
Harvey, David. 2000. “Capitalism: The Factory of Fragmentation.” Ch. 18, Pp. 292-298 in T.
Roberts (ed.). From Modernization to Globalization. London: Basil Blackwell.
week 11
GLOBAL CAPITALISM AND MASS CONSUMPTION
Lecture Contents:
° development of modern mass society
° consumption replaces production--what are its implication
° homo videns replaces homo economicus
Readings:
[FLIEGSTEIN] chapter 9
week 12
SOURCES OF ECONOMIC BACKWARDNESS
Lecture Contents:
° why certain countires and national economies are lagging behind?
° East-European pattern of backwardness
° Latin-American pattern of backwardness
° Carribean pattern of backwardness
° African pattern of backwardness
8
Readings:
Gerschenkron, Alexander. 1992 (1952). "Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective."
Pp. 111-130 in Swedberg, Richard and Mark Granovetter (eds.) The Sociology of
Economic Life. Westview Press, Boulder. OR: in Hoselitz, Bert (ed.) 1952. The Progress
of Underdeveloped Countries. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[DOWD] chapters 4-6.
week 13
GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTINUITIES
Lecture Contents:
° has globalization gone too far-the Falk/Roderik hypothesis
° the limits of globalization
° the ends of globalization
Readings:
[FLIEGSTEIN}, chapter 9.
week 14
HYBRIDIZATION OF CAPITALISM--POST-SOCIALIST GREAT TRANSFORMATIONS.
Lecture Contents:
° new forms of capitalism in the post-soviet countries
° marketisation of socialism
° socialisation of the market
Readings:
Stark, David and László Bruszt. 1998. Post-socialist Pathways: Transforming Politics
and Property in Eastern Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Böröcz, József. 1993. "Simulating the Great Transformation. Property Change under
Prolonged Informality in Hungary." Archives européennes de sociologie--Europäisches
Archiv für Soziologie / European Journal of Sociology. XXXIV,1 (May): 81-107.
Stark, David. 1996. "Recombinant Property in East European Capitalism." AJS, 101, 4, Jan,
993-1027
You will find most books in the Politics & Prose bookstore at Connecticut &
Nebraska or at the CUA bookstore.