Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price systems, private property, property rights recognition, voluntary exchange, and wage labor. In a market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by owners of wealth, property, or ability to maneuver capital or production ability in capital and financial markets—whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets.
Jürgen Habermas is a German philosopher and social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere.
Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economic system, such as socialism or communism.
Antonio Francesco Gramsci was an Italian Marxist philosopher, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and linguistics. He was a founding member and one-time leader of the Italian Communist Party. A vocal critic of Benito Mussolini and fascism, he was imprisoned in 1926 where he remained until his death in 1937.
Late capitalism is a concept first used in print by German economist Werner Sombart at the start of the 20th century. In the late 2010s, the term began to be used in the United States and Canada to refer to corporate capitalism.
Finance capitalism or financial capitalism is the subordination of processes of production to the accumulation of money profits in a financial system.
An information society is a society or subculture where the usage, creation, distribution, manipulation and integration of information is a significant activity. Its main drivers are information and communication technologies, which have resulted in rapid growth of a variety of forms of information. Proponents of this theory posit that these technologies are impacting most important forms of social organization, including education, economy, health, government, warfare, and levels of democracy. The people who are able to partake in this form of society are sometimes called either computer users or even digital citizens, defined by K. Mossberger as “Those who use the Internet regularly and effectively”. This is one of many dozen internet terms that have been identified to suggest that humans are entering a new and different phase of society.
Postmodernity is the economic or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist after modernity. Some schools of thought hold that modernity ended in the late 20th century – in the 1980s or early 1990s – and that it was replaced by postmodernity, and still others would extend modernity to cover the developments denoted by postmodernity. The idea of the postmodern condition is sometimes characterized as a culture stripped of its capacity to function in any linear or autonomous state like regressive isolationism, as opposed to the progressive mind state of modernism.
Fordism is an industrial engineering and manufacturing system that serves as the basis of modern social and labor-economic systems that support industrialized, standardized mass production and mass consumption. The concept is named after Henry Ford. It is used in social, economic, and management theory about production, working conditions, consumption, and related phenomena, especially regarding the 20th century. It describes an ideology of advanced capitalism centered around the American socioeconomic systems in place in the post-war economic boom.
In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the dominance of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who shape the culture of that society—the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that the worldview of the ruling class becomes the accepted cultural norm. As the universal dominant ideology, the ruling-class worldview misrepresents the social, political, and economic status quo as natural, inevitable, and perpetual social conditions that benefit every social class, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class.
In sociology, the term rationalization was coined by Max Weber, a German sociologist, jurist, and economist. Rationalization is the replacement of traditions, values, and emotions as motivators for behavior in society with concepts based on rationality and reason. The term rational is seen in the context of people, their expressions, and or their actions. This term can be applied to people who can perform speech or in general any action, in addition to the views of rationality within people it can be seen in the perspective of something such as a worldview or perspective (idea). An example of rationalization can be seen in the implementation of bureaucracies in government is a kind of rationalization, as is the construction of high-efficiency living spaces in architecture and urban planning. A potential reason as to why rationalization of a culture may take place in the modern era is the process of globalization. Countries are becoming increasingly interlinked, and with the rise of technology, it is easier for countries to influence each other through social networking, the media and politics. An example of rationalization in place would be the case of witch doctors in certain parts of Africa. Whilst many locals view them as an important part of their culture and traditions, development initiatives and aid workers have tried to rationalize the practice in order to educate the local people in modern medicine and practice.
In political theory, refeudalization is the process of recovering the political mechanisms and relationships that used to define feudalism. Because the term "feudalism" is slightly ambiguous, "refeudalization" is ambiguous, too.
Ernesto Screpanti is a professor of Political Economy who worked in various universities, like Trento, Florence, Trieste, Parma, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Siena. He did research in the “rethinking Marxism” scientific programme, in the attempt to update Marxist analysis by bringing it in line with the reality of contemporary capitalism, on the one hand, and to liberate Marxism from any residue of Hegelian metaphysics, Kantian ethics and economic determinism, on the other.
Legitimation Crisis is a 1973 book by the philosopher Jürgen Habermas. It was published in English in 1975 by Beacon Press, translated and with an introduction by Thomas McCarthy. It was originally published by Suhrkamp. The title refers to a decline in the confidence of administrative functions, institutions, or leadership: a legitimation crisis. The direct translation of its German title is Legitimation Problems in Late Capitalism. In this book, published five years after Knowledge and Human Interests, Habermas explored the fundamental crisis tendencies in the state-managed capitalism. Before the state-managed capitalism, states are primarily concerned with maintaining the market economy, while in the state-managed capitalism, states have additional roles such as providing a social healthcare, pensions, education, and so on. The expanded scopes of state administrations and influence helped managing crisis tendency of capitalism in economic field, but it created another crisis tendency in political as well as social-cultural field, which is legitimation crisis and motivation crisis, respectively.
The Prison Notebooks are a series of essays written by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci was imprisoned by the Italian Fascist regime in 1926. The notebooks were written between 1929 and 1935, when Gramsci was released from prison to a medical center on grounds of ill-health. His friend, Piero Sraffa, had supplied the writing implements and notebooks. Gramsci died in April 1937.
Cognitive-cultural economy or cognitive-cultural capitalism is represented by sectors such as high-technology industry, business and financial services, personal services, the media, the cultural industries. It is characterized by digital technologies combined with high levels of cognitive and cultural labor.
Capitalist propaganda is promotion of capitalism, often via mass media, education, or other institutions, primarily by the ruling private and political elite. According to critics of capitalism capitalist propaganda is commonly deployed in capitalist countries to maintain the cultural hegemony of capitalism, by positioning it as the supreme and only valid system, eliminating opposing and dissenting views, and portraying non-capitalist perspectives and countries as comparatively incompetent and inferior, thus reinforcing capitalism as the dominant ideology.
A critical theory is any approach to humanities and social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to attempt to reveal, critique, and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from social structures and cultural assumptions rather than from individuals. Some hold it to be an ideology, others argue that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation. Critical theory finds applications in various fields of study, including psychoanalysis, film theory, literary theory, cultural studies, history, communication theory, philosophy, and feminist theory.
Western Marxism is a current of Marxist theory that arose from Western and Central Europe in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the ascent of Leninism. The term denotes a loose collection of theorists who advanced an interpretation of Marxism distinct from classical and Orthodox Marxism and the Marxism-Leninism of the Soviet Union.
Marxist cultural analysis is a form of cultural analysis and anti-capitalist cultural critique, which assumes the theory of cultural hegemony and from this specifically targets those aspects of culture which are profit driven and mass-produced under capitalism.
