Modern capitalist society

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Modern capitalist society is a term used to describe a type of capitalist society in which a capitalist class of "new elites" and "old elites" concerned with maximizing their wealth secures a political system that serves and protects their interests, leading to the development of a wage-earning class. [1] The term is commonly used by historians to refer to a transition from a premodern feudal society to a modern capitalist society, with consensus being that England emerged as the first modern capitalist society through the English Civil War (1642-51) and the Glorious Revolution (1688-89). [2] [3] Historians identify that the transition into modern capitalist society is often defined by a bourgeois revolution in which rising elites secure a system of representative democracy, rather than direct democracy, that serves their interests over the interests of the previously ruling royal aristocracy, such as in the American Revolution. [1] [2] [4]

Contents

Modern capitalist societies rely on calculated and systematic production, different from the merchant capitalism of the Italian city-states, and are defined by the existence of a wage-earning class that functions as the counterpart to a capitalist class. [2] They are described as highly competitive and individualistic, focusing on private interests over public welfare, through prioritizing commodity production and profit maximization. [5] [6] Defending private property, preserving law and order, maintaining the economic exploitation and political impotence of the wage-earning class, training the wage-earning class in the tasks that modern capitalist society requires to function, educating the wage-earning class to internalize the principles of capitalist-democracy, often through forms of propaganda in the mass media, and conditioning the wage-earning class to believe that they are autonomous and live in a society ruled by the citizenry, have all been identified by scholars as forces which maintain modern capitalist societies. [7] [8] [9]

Modern capitalist societies are positioned in Western culture as a phase of human progression that is superior or "more advanced" than "premodern" forms of society. [10] This perspective was most evidently portrayed through colonial logics which asserted that Indigenous peoples belonged to more "primitive" cultures and therefore should assimilate into more "civilized" societies or face genocide (e.g., "Kill the Indian, Save the Man"). [11] [12] [13] For Marxists, anarchists, and others, modern capitalist society is a phase which will eventually lead to the emergence of a qualitatively different form of society. In opposition, liberals and others are opposed to the structural transformation of modern capitalist society. [14]

Ideological origins

Modern capitalist societies center the concept of means-end rationality, also referred to as instrumental rationality and formal rationality, [15] and its inherent association with domination over nature, so as to manipulate it to suit material needs, and human beings, so as to organize and discipline them in their control over nature. Means-end rationality has held importance in Western culture for longer than modern capitalist societies have existed and historians have identified that this concept may have origins as early as Homer. [16] [17]

Weber

According to sociologist Max Weber, modern capitalist society "arose out of the moral calling of Calvinists; more specifically, the doctrine of predestination which resulted in new tensions between the individual and society and encouraged the believer to rationalize the objectivity of his belief (his or her productive contribution to the accumulation of capital)." [18] As Weber theorized:

The objectivization of one's beliefs was predicated on the distinction between instrumental reality (the actual enactment and application of the prevailing norms and rules of society) and value rationality (how moral beliefs and values define the meaning and scope of these rules and laws). The growth of modern society, in this sense, referred to the creation of large bureaucracies, police forces, and legislative bodies: all autonomous rational structures of the state and modern capitalist society embodying the effects and ends of instrumental rationality. The legitimacy of these institutions thus reflected the dominant function assumed by these institutions in maintaining and administering societal order. [...] The result of this evolving orientation was that citizens learned to obey societal laws which, in turn, served as the basis of dominant and legitimate types of authority in society. [18]

Weber perceived bureaucratization as an efficient institutional representation of rationality in modern capitalist society, yet also recognized how this could be "potentially dehumanizing, even malevolent, in its impersonality and possible elevation of economic efficiency and profit-maximization over human values and social justice. Weber was genuinely alarmed by the prospect that an institutionalized, morally vacuous or pernicious instrumental, and especially, formal, rationality might be used to justify morally questionable ends. Such rationality could potentially strip individuals of their freedom and dignity, placing them, metaphorically, in an 'iron cage' of despair." [19]

Historical lineage

The first modern capitalist society has its origins in England with the English Civil War (1642-51) and the Glorious Revolution (1688-89), which has been identified by historians as a bourgeois revolution that resulted in the transition from a traditional feudal society to a modern capitalist society. [1] [2] [3] These historical events in England were described by scholars as being fueled by the historically inaccurate yet profoundly influential reference to Magna Carta (1215), which was heavily cited in the 17th century by rising elites such as Jurist Edward Coke and others to rally support against the British monarchy through the promotion of individualism. [20] [21] Early colonial charters, such as the Virginia Charter (1606) and the Massachusetts Body of Liberties (1641), as well as support for the American Revolution were influenced from this reference to Magna Carta. Many American colonists fought against Britain to preserve liberties and rights that they believed to be enshrined in Magna Carta. In the late 18th century, the United States Constitution became the supreme law of the land, recalling the manner in Magna Carta had come to be regarded as fundamental law. [22] [23]

As described by political scientist Kenneth Good, "the rewriting of history 'forged a new pedigree for the concept of democracy' traceable from Magna Carta, through the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and the Founding Fathers of the American constitution–all largely aristocratic and elitist events with an absent or passive people–taking precedence over [the alternative canon of] Athens, the Levellers and Diggers, and the Chartists and many others of the 1830s and 1840s." According to Good, "in this heritage, political rights in modern capitalist society no longer had the meaning and potency of citizenship in Athens. There was no clear division between state and civil society, no distinct and autonomous economy. With perhaps an especial contribution from American experience, modern capitalist democracy would be confined to a formally separate sphere while the market economy followed rules of its own, and socio-economic inequalities would coexist with civic freedom and formal political equality. Though new urban working classes struggled for self-determination through nineteenth-century Britain, democracy moved away from active citizenship to 'the passive enjoyment of constitutional rights and safeguards'; checks and balances, the division of powers, the rule of law." For Good, this idea of democracy was most identifiable through British and American liberalism. [4]

Related Research Articles

Magna Carta English charter of rights, first agreed in 1215

Magna Carta Libertatum, commonly called Magna Carta, is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton to make peace between the unpopular king and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons. Neither side stood behind their commitments, and the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, leading to the First Barons' War.

Revolution Rapid and fundamental political change

In political science, a revolution is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due to perceived oppression or political incompetence. In book V of the Politics, the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle described two types of political revolution:

  1. Complete change from one constitution to another
  2. Modification of an existing constitution.
State (polity) Organised community living under a system of government

A state is a polity under a system of governance. Currently, there is no undisputed definition of a state among scientists or researchers. A widely used definition from the German sociologist Max Weber is that a "state" is a polity that maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, although other definitions are not uncommon.

Social class Hierarchical social stratification

A social class is a set of concepts in the social sciences and political theory centered on models of social stratification which occurs in class society, in which people are grouped into a set of hierarchical social categories, the most common being the upper, middle and lower classes.

Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy or representative government, is a type of democracy founded on the principle of elected officials representing a group of people, as opposed to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies are types of representative democracies; for example, the United Kingdom is a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy, France is a unitary semi-presidential republic, and the United States is a Constitutional Representative Republic.

Wage slavery is a term describing a situation in which a person's livelihood depends on wages or a salary, especially when the dependence is total and immediate. It has been used to criticise exploitation of labour and social stratification, with the former seen primarily as unequal bargaining power between labour and capital and the latter as a lack of workers' self-management, fulfilling job choices and leisure in an economy. The criticism of social stratification covers a wider range of employment choices bound by the pressures of a hierarchical society to perform otherwise unfulfilling work that deprives humans of their "species character" not only under threat of starvation or poverty, but also of social stigma and status diminution. Historically, some socialist organisations and activists have espoused workers' self-management or worker cooperatives as possible alternatives to wage labour.

English Revolution Term used by historians to describe various 17th-century episodes in English history

The term "English Revolution" has been used to describe two different events in English history. The first to be so called—by Whig historians—was the Glorious Revolution of 1688, whereby James II was replaced by William III and Mary II as monarch and a constitutional monarchy was established.

Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere. By other authors, civil society is used in the sense of 1) the aggregate of non-governmental organizations and institutions that manifest interests and will of citizens or 2) individuals and organizations in a society which are independent of the government.

Conflict theories

Conflict theories are perspectives in sociology and social psychology that emphasize a materialist interpretation of history, dialectical method of analysis, a critical stance toward existing social arrangements, and political program of revolution or, at least, reform. Conflict theories draw attention to power differentials, such as class conflict, and generally contrast historically dominant ideologies. It is therefore a macro-level analysis of society.

Political sociology Branch of sociology

Political sociology is concerned with the sociological analysis of political phenomena ranging from the State and civil society to the family, investigating topics such as citizenship, social movements, and the sources of social power. The lineage of this discipline is typically traced from such thinkers as Montesquieu, Smith and Ferguson through the founding fathers of sociology – Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber – to such contemporary theorists as Anthony Giddens, Jurgen Habermas and Michael Mann.

Democratization, or democratisation, is the transition to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. It may be the transition from an authoritarian regime to a full democracy, a transition from an authoritarian political system to a semi-democracy or transition from a semi-authoritarian political system to a democratic political system.

Barrington Moore Jr.

Barrington Moore Jr. was an American political sociologist, and the son of forester Barrington Moore.

Marxism Economic and sociopolitical worldview based on the works of Karl Marx

Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict as well as a dialectical perspective to view social transformation. It originates from the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As Marxism has developed over time into various branches and schools of thought, there is currently no single definitive Marxist theory.

In political science and sociology, elite theory is a theory of the state that seeks to describe and explain power relationships in contemporary society. The theory posits that a small minority, consisting of members of the economic elite and policy-planning networks, holds the most power—and that this power is independent of democratic elections.

The capitalist state is the state, its functions and the form of organization it takes within capitalist socioeconomic systems. This concept is often used interchangeably with the concept of the modern state, though despite their common functions there are many recognized differences in sociological characteristics among capitalist states.

Bill of rights Proclamation of fundamental rights to citizens of a polity

A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and private citizens.

Mode of production Marxist economic theory

In the writings of Karl Marx and the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production is a specific combination of the following:

In Karl Marx's critique of political economy and subsequent Marxian analyses, the capitalist mode of production refers to the systems of organizing production and distribution within capitalist societies. Private money-making in various forms preceded the development of the capitalist mode of production as such. The capitalist mode of production proper, based on wage-labour and private ownership of the means of production and on industrial technology, began to grow rapidly in Western Europe from the Industrial Revolution, later extending to most of the world.

Neo-Marxism

Neo-Marxism is a Marxist school of thought encompassing 20th-century approaches that amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, typically by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions such as critical theory, psychoanalysis, or existentialism.

Instrumental Marxism

Instrumental Marxism, or elite model, is a theory which reasons that policy makers in government and positions of power tend to "share a common business or class background, and that their decisions will reflect their business or class interests". It tends to view the state and law as ultimately an instrument or tool for individuals of the economically dominant class to use for their own purposes, particularly maintaining economic exploitation while winning ideological assent to their hegemony. This view is contrasted with structural Marxism, which views the class background of policymakers and so on as purely incidental to the "bourgeois" nature of the modern state, which is seen instead as a result of the position of the state and law in the objective structure of capitalist society and their objective function of reproducing the relations of production and private property regardless of the class background of the individuals involved in the administration thereof. For example, whereas for instrumentalist Marxists the formal equality of contract law in capitalist societies is a kind of ideological shell or mystification used by the elite to conceal the real kernel of exploitation, for structural Marxists that formal legal equality is itself the real normative basis for properly capitalist exploitation, whether or not elites understand it as such as it allows labour-power to be traded at its real exchange-value, thus making regularity and rational allocation in labour markets possible.

References

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  2. 1 2 3 4 Lundskow, George (2008). The Sociology of Religion: A Substantive and Transdisciplinary Approach. SAGE Publications. p. 97. ISBN   9781412937214.
  3. 1 2 Burnham, Michelle (2008). "Textual Investments: Economics and Colonial American Literatures". In Castillo, Susan; Schweitzer, Ivy (eds.). A Companion to the Literatures of Colonial America. Wiley. p. 68. ISBN   9781405152082.
  4. 1 2 Good, Kenneth (2014). Trust in the Capacities of the People, Distrust in Elites. Lexington Books. p. 16. ISBN   9781498502443.
  5. ↑ Wood, Ellen Meiksins (1991). The Pristine Culture of Capitalism: A Historical Essay on Old Regimes and Modern States . Verso. pp.  146.
  6. ↑ Dutt, Sagarika (2006). India in a Globalized World. Manchester University Press. p. 98. ISBN   9781847792143.
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  8. ↑ Williams, Raymond (2000). "Advertising: The Magic System". In Marris, Paul; Thornham, Sue (eds.). Media Studies: A Reader - 2nd Edition. NYU Press. pp. 704–705. ISBN   9780814756478.
  9. ↑ Garner, Roberta; Hancock, Black Hawk (2014). Social Theory, Volume II: From Modern to Contemporary Theory, Third Edition. University of Toronto Press. pp. 573–578. ISBN   9781442607408.
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  13. ↑ Bruchac, Margaret M. (2018). Savage Kin: Indigenous Informants and American Anthropologists. University of Arizona Press. p. 68. ISBN   9780816538300.
  14. ↑ Comninel, George C. (2003). Delanty, Gerard; Isin, Engin F. (eds.). Handbook of Historical Sociology . SAGE Publications. pp.  87. ISBN   0761971734.
  15. ↑ Pauer-Studer, Herlinde (2007). Peter, Fabienne; Schmid, Hans Bernhard (eds.). Rationality and Commitment. OUP Oxford. p. 80. ISBN   9780199287260.
  16. ↑ Sharrock, Wes W.; John A., Hughes; Peter J., Martin (2003). Understanding Modern Sociology . SAGE Publications. pp.  78. ISBN   0761957065.
  17. ↑ Thornhill, Chris (2013). "Max Weber". Political Theory in Modern Germany: An Introduction. Wiley. ISBN   9780745668789.
  18. 1 2 Roach, Steven (2006). Politicizing the International Criminal Court: The Convergence of Politics, Ethics, and Law. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 91. ISBN   9780742541047.
  19. ↑ TenHouten, Warren D. (2014). Emotion and Reason: Mind, Brain, and the Social Domains of Work and Love. Taylor & Francis. p. 99. ISBN   9781317580614.
  20. ↑ Danzinger, Danny; Gillingham, John (2004). 1215: The Year of Magna Carta. Hodder Paperbacks. p. 280. ISBN   978-0340824757.
  21. ↑ Breay, Claire (2010). Magna Carta: Manuscripts and Myths. The British Library. p. 46. ISBN   978-0-7123-5833-0.
  22. ↑ "Magna Carta and Its American Legacy". National Archives and Records Administration . Retrieved 19 May 2020.
  23. ↑ "The Magna Carta". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
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