We may be getting into a matter of semantics, but I do not know of any theorist of capitalism who defines it in a way that would include Babylonian city-states, or the Roman Empire. Moreover, there is the opposite of a significant relationship between the Feudal aristocracy and the capitalist elite -- the bourgeois supported the French revolution, initially, and the rise of the House of Commons (along with the decline of the power of the monarchy and the House of Lords) is another example -- in the 18th century the bourgeoisie and the nobility were antagonistic classes. The rise of European capitalism involved a real break from feudal legal and political structures too.
One could -- indeed, I think one should say that all states, including ancient Mesopotamian states, the Greek city-states, and Rome, as well as all current nation-states, are "stratified," that is, divided into unequal socio-economic classes. In this context, you could say that the Feudal aristocracy and the Capitalist elite are similar in that they are at the top of their repsective societies. But how they got to the top, what it means to be at the top, what their values and behaviors are, are quite different. This, at least, is what I have gathered from most of the scholarly works I have read -- if there is a body of scholarship you know of that makes a different article, it should by all means by summarized in the article, Slrubenstein
Instead of defining capitalism as "The economic policies institutionalized during such and such a period", perhaps it would be best to use some more informative definition of capitalism? My understand of capitalism involves some economic system involving private property, wages, corporate merchant groups, banks and interest rates, foreign trade and balances of trade, surplus and defecits, stocks and insurance, marketplaces and markets, etc.
The second part of the article notes how there is much debate as to what the definition of capitalism is. Perhaps we should use something like that as the beginning of the article, rather than immediately declaring that capitalism first appeared around the 1500s. Susan Mason
quoting from above from Susan
I would be interested in any references to the economy of the ancient Babylonian and related societies if you have any. You can just enter them here.
I am aware of descriptions of these societies that include strict social stratification based on things other than wealth (including very extensive slavery), and fixed pricing laws for the majoirty of key items involved in the economy - such as land rent, labour, oxen, wheat, etc. I am not aware of any corporate groupings like publicly traded companies. A corporate body that functions like a guild is not the same thing, and a group of merchants along the lines of a modern day partnership is not a coporate body.
All of these things mean that these ancient societies were not capitalist - although they did have some, even many, aspects in common with capitalism. I would be happy to see any references to some part of the ancient Babylonian societies that was more capitalist than what I have seen so far. The capitalist aspects might appear to be more important if you focus on the international (or inter-city-state) aspects of trade, rather than the way most of the people in these societies existed.
Indeed! It was just as capitalist as you describe! Susan Mason
I agree with Susan that it would be nice to have a more descriptive definition of capitalism at the start rather than just saying when and where it happened, but I can see the problems with previous attempts (including my own ones). But here's another try.
Capitalism is the use of, or belief in, economic systems in which monetary valuations of products, factors of production, and ownership of productive organisations have a predominant influence over the organisation of production.
It seems to me that this definition works for all the various uses of the word that I can think of at the moment. If nobody points out anything wrong with it, then I might put it in the article.
It doesn't say that production influences production, it says that monetary valuations influence the organisation of production - I suppose I had the profit motive in mind here. But I take your point about money - I guess I can imagine capitalism in which all transactions are bartered, although it would be paralysingly inefficient without some type of "credit points" system very similar to money. Anyway, here's the same thing with money removed.
Capitalism is the use of, or belief in, economic systems in which the exchange values of products, factors of production, and ownership of productive organisations have a predominant influence over the organisation of production.
And maybe to make clearer the nature of the influence that these exchange values have, there should be some mention of profit incentives, as follows.
Capitalism is the use of, or belief in, economic systems in which the exchange values of products, factors of production, and ownership of productive organisations is encouraged or allowed to have a predominant influence over the organisation of production through an incentive to profit.
So what's wrong now?
I think that the current start of the article spends more time talking about the context of capitalism rather than capitalism - by context I mean, where it happened, when it happened, and what came before it, etc. These things should be mentioned somewhere near the start, but I think saying what it is should be the prime thing to say right off.
Then, the bits at the start that do say what it is are a particular point of view anyway. They are qualified by the word "especially", and the things mentioned are probably as good as most definitions I've seen, so on the whole compared to many sources it's not bad, quite good actually, but still there's no harm in trying for something better. One thing that I see as a small fault in the part that says what capitalism is, is the trade in ownership of companies. Trade in company ownership was important in the historical development of capitalism, and so given that the first sentence is an historical statement saying when capitalism developed, it is important to mention it there, and I think that as it stands in that sentence it is fine because it is talking about the economic systems that developed in the 16th to 19th centuries, and it wouldn't be right to simply remove it. But, there are types of capitalism that don't have trade in company ownership - I'm thinking here of Lenin's state capitalism, and perhaps more importantly post WWII European capitalism in which government ownership of major companies occured quite often. Government ownership didn't completely displace individual ownership, but the ideals behind it did allow for a form of capitalism in which companies weren't traded, but were still valued and managed with a profit motive and accounted for with a view to their capital worth. You can easily argue that the governments did a poor job in using their ownership rights, and that such practices were inefficient or whatever. You can also argue that much of it was motivated by socialist desires, but nevertheless many of the people doing it, and many comentators believed it was a form of capitalism, and that if government ownership did displace private ownership then it still would have been a form of capitalism - because it would ideally function the same, only without the unequal distribution of ownership - the only differnece in these people's minds was that the shareholder was the government, instead of a small number of rich people. So, in short, taking the historical route to introducing capitalism leads I think to too much emphasis on some of the early historical happenings, and this can lead to an inaccurate view of later widespread happenings in the world.
"While the revolution in Germany is slow in 'coming forth', our task is to study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it and not shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of it. Our task is to do this even more thoroughly than Peter the Great hastened the copying of Western culture by barbarian Russia, and he did not hesitate to use barbarous methods in fighting against barbarism."
"The real nature of the New Economic Policy is this -- firstly, the proletarian state has given small producers freedom to trade; and secondly, in respect to the means of production in large-scale industry, the proletarian state is applying a number of principles of what in capitalist economies is called 'state capitalism."
"Experience has proven that we were wrong. It appears that a number of transitional stages were necessary -- state capitalism and socialism -- in order to prepare -- to prepare by many years of effort -- for the transition to communism."
I took out the following bit
"Zero unemployment would indicate that workers never quit to look for a better job, or were laid off because advancing technology reduced demand for their current skill sets. This condition would only occur in a completely static, stagnant economoy."
I never heard of anyone who quit for the purpose of looking for another job - people quit AFTER they have found another job, or they might quit because of some dispute or dislike of their job, and then look for another job, but it would be rare for someone to quit for the purpose of looking for another job. Anyway, the point is that you CAN look for another job while in your current job, and so zero unemployment does not imply a stagnant economy. Secondly, the classical economist's opinion of what happens when demand for your labour is reduced by technology in a pure capitalist economy is that your wages will drop, not that you will be fired. You might then decide to start looking for a better paying job while still working in your current job, or you might just accept the lower wages. In fact the standard economist view is that unemployment is not possible in a sufficiently free market economy, since everyone will be able to find some sort of job if they only lower their wage requirement enough.
Search Encyclopedia
|
Featured Article
|