In order to understand the resilience of capitalism as a mode of production, social organization, and an intellectual system, it is necessary to explore its intellectual development and underlying structure. A Historical Political Economy of Capitalism argues that capitalism is based on a dominant intellectuality: a metaphysics. It proposes the construction of a history-based 'critique of political economy', capable of revealing the poverty of capitalism's intellectual logic and of its application in practice. This involves a reconsideration of several classical thinkers, including Smith, Marx, Berkeley, Locke, Hobbes, Hume and Rousseau. It also sketches an emancipative methodology of analysis, aiming to expose any metaphysics, capitalist or none. In doing so, this book proposes a completely new approach in materialist philosophy. The new methodology in political economy that is proposed in this volume is an alternative way to organize a materialist approach. Some basic aspects of what is argued by the author can be found in Marx. This book is well suited for those who study political economy and economic theory and philosophy, as well as those who are interested in Marxism.

From the Introduction: This book challenges the conventional wisdom about classical political economy and the rise of capitalism. It is written in the conviction that modern interpretations of political economy have suffered terribly from acceptance of the prevailing liberal view of the origins and development of capitalist society. By the liberal account, capitalism emerged out of the centuries-old competitive activities of merchants and manufacturers in rational pursuit of their individual economic self-interest. Over time, this account claims, the persistent activity of these classes developed new forms of wealth and productive resources and new intellectual and cultural habits, which eroded the existing structure of society. The rise of capitalism is thus explained in terms of the rise to prominence of the most productive, rational, and progressive social groups—merchants and manufacturers. Not surprisingly, classical political economy came to be seen as an intellectual reflection of the ascendance of merchants and manufacturers and as a theoretical justification of their interests and activities. This book argues that capitalism was the product of an immense transformation in the social relationships of landed society and that this fact is crucial to understanding the development of classical political economy. Without a radical transformation of the agrarian economy, the activities of merchants and manufacturers would have remained strictly confined. By no inexorable logic of their own were mercantile and industrial activities capable of fundamentally transforming the essential relations of precapitalist society. Rather, the changes in agrarian economy, which drove rural producers from their land, forced them onto the labour market as wage labourers for their means of subsistence, and refashioned farming as an economic activity based upon the production of agricultural commodities for profit on the market, established the essential relations of modern capitalism. In what follows, these processes are described in terms of the emergence of agrarian capitalism. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988.

This volume examines questions concerning the nature and behaviour of capitalism and the development of economic thought and the relation between economic thought and practice in the early twentieth century.

This volume brings together original and timely writings by internationally renowned scholars that reflect on the current trajectories of global capitalism and, in the light of these, consider likely, possible or desirable futures. It offers theory-informed writing that contextualizes empirical research on current world-historic events and trends with an eye towards realizing a future of human, social and economic betterment.

Westra explores a nuanced literature on post-capitalism which claims that instead of constituting the end of history or ending in its supplanting by socialism, capitalism has transmuted into something else. Foci of this literature ranges from questions of financial system and technological change through evidence of shifting class contours metastasizing a more predatory constellation. In exposing the dire consequences for humanity of capitalist unravelling, Westra remedies the lacunae of current writings which leave fundamental questions of what precisely capitalism is or was and the historical delimitations of capitalism unanswered. He not only critically analyzes the arguments over capitalisms passing under key rubrics of financialization, globalization, intangible assets and social class, but grounds determinations over the existence of capitalism in a novel synthetic definition of it drawn from Marx. While capitalism has always been an exploitative, asymmetric wealth distributive, alienating, class divisive, crises ridden society, Westra explains how current economic transmutations undermine what coherence capitalism had historically maintained. This book, written in a clear and compelling fashion, is a clarion call for social change. It will be of interest to academics and students across fields of economics, political economy, economic history, political science and sociology as well as to progressive policymakers and social activists.

We are now witness to the waning years of the 1900s. Soon, we shall embark upon a bold journey into the uncharted territory of the twenty-first of various persuasions have speculated as to what the century. Futurists oncoming decades might bestow upon us. Not surprising, most predictions are closely tied to advances in technology, especially in astrophysiCS, biochemistry, electronics, and genetics. But what about the economic system? Whatever happens, forces have undoubtedly already been set in motion which will mold (or remold) the structure and character of American capitalism. American capitalism has been, is, and will undoubtedly continue to be a system in transition. Technology perennially changes, albeit at a faster or slower pace sometimes than others, and society's institutions continually adjust to these technological changes. Such adjustments alter the character of our politico-economic system when statutes are enacted, court decisions rendered, administrative agency rules promulgated, and cultural mores realigned to supplant old ones. Other adaptations are brought about when small-group collective action is successful in causing a special status of privilege to be conferred on some members of society, but restrictions to be levied on others.

Among the unintended and largely unforeseen consequences of globalization are the fundamental transformations of local relationships, both economic and cultural, that occur within communities drawn into the predominantly capitalist world economy. Democracy, once considered the essential political mode of regulation for successful capitalist economies, is being replaced by nondemocratic modes of social organization as localized responses to global forces, such as Maori tribalization in New Zealand, are subverted and transformed. A Political Economy of Neotribal Capitalism looks at the past three decades in New Zealand and the shifts in the relationship between the indigenous Maori people and the dominant Pakeha (white) society to illustrate these fundamental changes to national political, social, and economic structures. The book includes a case study of a Maori family, a theoretical exploration of the concept of "neotribal capitalism," and discussions of themes such as changing socioeconomic relations; new social movements; the indigenization of ethnicity; dominant group-ethnic group realignment; and the antidemocratic ideologies of late capitalism-themes of interest to students of world political economics, international relations, and anthropology.

Ever since Marx, the future of capitalism has been fiercely debated. Marx and his followers predicted capitalism will end by violent overthrow, while others prophesied its demise will be the result of collapsing under its own weight. Still others argue that capitalism will not only continue to exist but continue to expand globally. This book takes a distinctively different approach by presenting solid evidence that capitalism has already ended. The author argues that corporate statutory law, securities laws, and generally accepted accounting principles have combined to cause the extinction of capitalists. Without capitalists as owners of capital, there can be no capitalism. The book examines the factors that converged to contribute to and hasten the extinction of capitalists, and thus of capitalism as an economic system, in an ironic case of the law of unintended consequences. The very things that were intended to promote, protect, and sustain capitalism are the things that caused its death. It exposes the fallacy that capitalism as an economic system not only continues to exist but is expanding globally. Capitalism is extinct and the social system constructed on capitalism as an economic system cannot be sustained. This book will appeal to economists, accountants, historians, political scientists, lawyers and sociologists, as well as students of those disciplines.

For decades, Charles Lemert has been the leading voice in social theory. In Capitalism and its Uncertain Future he teams up with one of the most creative emerging social theorists, Kristin Plys, to examine how social theory imagines capitalism. This engaging and innovative book provides new perspectives on well known theorists from Adam Smith, and Frantz Fanon, to Gilles Deleuze, while also introducing readers to lesser known theorists such as Lucia Sanchez Saornil, Mohammad Ali El Hammi, and many more. The book examines theories of capitalism from four perspectives: macro-historical theories of the origins of capitalism; postcolonial theories of capitalism that situate capitalism as seen from the Global South; theories of capitalism from the perspective of labor; and prospective theories of capitalism’s uncertain future. This provocative and ambitious, yet accessible, perspective on theories of capitalism will be of interest to anyone who wants to explore where we’ve been and where we’re headed.

Through a careful analysis of the former Soviet Union and China, and South Asian societies of India and the Phillipines, this volume examines the creation of a state capitalism, its roll in economic development, and its impact on social change.