Stages of transition
from peasant societies to market
societies
Vectoral Chronosophy
Werner Sombart 1863-1941
• Modern Capitalism, 3 vols, 1902-27
• Compares demand oriented and acquisition
oritented types of economies
3 stages of economic systems
1. Individual Economies: total demand of an
economic entity is produced within this entity
2. Transition Economies: partial demand of an
economic entity is provided from other economic
entities (partial acquisition)
3. Capitalist Economies: productive societies are
differentiated on a world scale level and depend
totally on each others
Walt Whitman Rostow, 1916• 1960 Stages of Economic Growth
5 development stages of societies
1. Traditional societies
2. Transition societies
3. Period of economic take-off
4. Industrial stage
5. Mass consumers societies
Karl Polanyi 1886-1964
• 1944 The GREAT TRANSFORMATION
– CRITIQUE on the idea of the self regulating
market (=SRM) by Adam Smith (1723-1790)
– The SRM was „the fount and matrix of the
system,“ the „innovation which gave rise
to a specific civilization.“
• Karl Polanyi 1944: The Great Transformation: The
Political and Economic Origins of our Time.
(Boston: Beacon Press 1957: p3)
Transformation
• humans
• land/ nature
• human labour force
• means of production
Market organization of economic activity is the
natural state of human affairs
CREATION OF LATE 18th AND EARLY 19th century BRITISH THOUGHT
The idea of the dominance of
markets
The market organiszation is the very
organization of human life
At markets
• capital
• goods
• labour forces
are visible as well as paid
services
Activities of Subsistence 
Commodities
•
•
•
•
Eating
Healing
Learning
Housing
• ACITIVITIES
•
•
•
•
Nutrition
Medicine
Schools
Accommodation
• NEEDS
Unpaid reproductive activites?
•
•
•
•
•
informal work
child work
illegal work
homework
subsistence work = peasant‘s work
Market Societies
• Originated from the practice of the
ENCLOSURE OF THE COMMONS
• The market economy has expanded primarily by
enabling state and commercial interests to gain
control of territory that has traditionally used and
cherished by others, and by transforming that
territory – together with the people themselves –
into expandable RESOURCES OF
EXPLOTATION
•  Establishment of the Global Economy
Global Economy had to
established simoultaneously
• In the
CENTERS
COMMODIFICATION
• In the
PERIPHERIES
COLONIALIZATION
Target of this new global Economy
(= World System)
Continued Accumulation of Capital
All results of human work are converted
into commodities
= COMMODIFICATION
Continued submission of all life spheres to the
the new order of production of commodities
COMMODIFICATION (Karl Marx)
• Definition
– „In Marxist political economy, commodification
takes place when economic value is assigned
to something that traditionally would not be
considered in economic terms, for example,
an idea, identity, gender.“ (wikipedia)
Before 1400 land and work were not
considered to be commodities.
Process of Enclosure in the Center
(Britain)
1235 Statute of Merton
Necessity „to approve“ (=improve) land
In order to increase the profit share of land lords
• system of „open-field“ = communally managed strips of arable land
• Commons: pastures, heathland (Heide), swamp (Moore), forests
•Nutzungs-Rechte: estovers (fuelwood)
turbary (peat cutting = Torfstechen)
pannage (turning pigs into the wood)
Development as Enclosures
in the Center -- accelerating in the
19th century
land-lords engaged and gained importance in the expansion processes
Privatization of land, commons and rights of use
 Modernization of Agriculture
SEMIPROLETARIZATION
PEASANTS  day-laborer in extending farms
 day-laborer in the manufactures
 migration into zones of capitalist production
(mirgartion into cities)
Development as Enclosures
at the Periphery
• Dispossession: standard practice was to declare
all “uncultivated” land to be the property of the
colonial administration
• Forced Labor: In the early years of colonial rule,
indigenous labor could only be recruited by
force.
• Taxed into the market by building up a cash
economy: To meet their tax obligations, rural
people had to sell their labor or to grow crops for
sale
Center
Periphery
Periphery
Periphery
Periphery within the Centers
Center
Periphery within the Centers
Periphery is a social category
e.g. all people who cannot effort a
living wage
partly excluded from the market
Sugar boiling-house in the 19th century
 capitalist mode of production
The iceberg-model of formal economy
Market oriented activities:
capital and wage labor
Informal work and services
___________________________
Subsistence work by peasants
Household work
Colonies
Nature