Sociology theory paper (literature review and compare different theorist)

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Course Number: SOC 421

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Extracted from (source citation): Modern sociological theory / George Ritzer, Douglas

J. Goodman. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004

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4 VARIETIES OF NEO-MARXIAN THEORY

ECONOMIC DETERMINISM HEGELIAN MARXISM

Georg Lukacs Antonio Gramsci

CRITICAL THEORY The Major Critiques o f Social and Intellectual L ife The Major Contributions Criticisms o f Critical Theory The Ideas o f Jurgen Habermas Critical Theory Today

NEO-MARXIAN ECONOMIC SO CIOLOG Y Capital and Labor Fordism and Post-Fordism

HISTORICALLY ORIENTED M A R X ISM The Modem World-Systern

NEO-MARXIAN SPATIAL A NA LY SIS The Production o f Space Trialectics Spaces o f Hope

POST-MARXIST THEORY Analytical Marxism Postmodern Marxian Theory After Marxism Criticisms o f Post-Marxism

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In this chapter we deal with a variety of theories that are better reflections o f M arx’s ideas than are the conflict theories discussed at the close of the preceding chapter. Al­ though each of the theories discussed here is derived from Marx’s theory, there are many important differences among them.

ECONOMIC DETERMINISM Marx often sounded like an economic determinist; that is, he seemed to consider the economic system of paramount importance and to argue that it determined all other sec­ tors of society—politics, religion, idea systems, and so forth. Although Marx did see the economic sector as preeminent, at least in capitalist society, as a dialectician he could not have taken a deterministic position, because the dialectic is characterized by the no­ tion that there is continual feedback and mutual interaction among the various sectors of society. Politics, religion, and so on, cannot be reduced to epiphenomena determined by the economy, because they affect the economy just as they are affected by it. Despite the nature of the dialectic, Marx still is interpreted as an economic determinist. Although some aspects of Marx’s work would lead to this conclusion, adopting it means ignoring the overall dialectical thrust of his theory.

Agger (1978) argued that economic determinism reached its peak as an interpretation of Marxian theory during the period of the Second Communist International, b etw een 1889 and 1914. This historical period often is seen as the apex of early market capital. ism, and its booms and busts led to many predictions about its imminent dem ise. Those Marxists who believed in economic determinism saw the breakdown o f capitalism as inevitable. In their view, Marxism was capable of producing a scientific theory o f this breakdown (as well as other aspects of capitalist society) with the predictive reliability of the physical and natural sciences. All an analyst had to do was examine the structures of capitalism, especially the economic structures. Built into those structures was a series of processes that inevitably would bring down capitalism, and so it was up to the e c o ­ nomic determinist to discover how these processes worked.

Friedrich Engels, Marx’s collaborator and benefactor, led the way in this interpreta­ tion of Marxian theory, as did Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein. Kautsky, for e x a m ­ ple, discussed the inevitable decline of capitalism as

unavoidable in the sense that the inventors improve technic and the capitalists in their desire for profit revolutionize the whole economic life, as it is also inevitable that the workers aim for shorter hours of labor and higher wages, that they organize themselves, that they fight the cap­ italist class and its state, as it is inevitable that they aim for the conquest of political pow er and the overthrow of capitalist rule. Socialism is inevitable because the class struggle and the vic­ tory of the proletariat is inevitable.

(Kautsky, cited in Agger, 1978:94)

The imagery here is of actors impelled by the structures of capitalism into taking a series of actions.

It was this imagery that led to the major criticism of scientifically oriented economic determinism—that it was untrue to the dialectical thrust of Marx's theory. Specifically, the theory seemed to short-circuit the dialectic by making individual thought and action

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insignificant. The economic structures o f capitalism that determined individual thought and action were the crucial element. This interpretation also led to political quietism and therefore was inconsistent with Marx’s thinking (Guilhot. 2002). Why should individu­ als act if the capitalist system was going to crumble under its own structural contradic­ tions? Clearly, given Marx's desire to integrate theory and practice, a perspective that omits action and even reduces it to insignificance would not be in the tradition o f his thinking.

HEGELIAN MARXISM

As a result o f the criticisms just discussed, economic determinism began to fade in im­ portance, and a number o f theorists developed other varieties of Marxian theory. One group o f Marxists returned to the Hegelian roots of Marx’s theory in search o f a subjec­ tive orientation to complement the strength of the early Marxists at the objective, mate­ rial level. The early Hegelian Marxists sought to restore the dialectic between the subjective and the objective aspects of social life. Their interest in subjective factors laid the basis for the later development of critical theory, which came to focus almost exclu­ sively on subjective factors. A number of thinkers (for example, Karl Korsch) could be taken as illustrative of Hegelian Marxism, but we will focus on the work of one who has gained great prominence. Georg Lukacs. especially his book History and Class Con­ sciousness (1922/1968). We also pay brief attention to the ideas of Antonio Gramsci.

Georg Lukacs The attention of Marxian scholars of the early twentieth century was limited mainly to Marx’s later, largely economic works, such as Capital (1867/1967). The early work, es­ pecially The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts o f 1844 (1932/1964). which was more heavily influenced by Hegelian subjectivism, was largely unknown to Marxian thinkers. The rediscovery of the Manuscripts and their publication in 1932 was a major turning point. However, by the 1920s Lukacs already had written his major work, in which he emphasized the subjective side of Marxian theory. As Martin Jay puts it. ‘'‘His­ tory and Class Consciousness anticipated in several fundamental ways the philosophi­ cal implications of Marx’s 1844 Manuscripts, whose publication it antedated by almost a decade” (1984:102). Lukacs's major contribution to Marxian theory lies in his work on two major ideas—reification (Dahms, 1998) and class consciousness.

Reification Lukacs made it clear from the beginning that he was not totally reject­ ing the work of the economic Marxists on reification, but simply seeking to broaden and extend their ideas. Lukacs commenced with the Marxian concept of commodities, which he characterized as “the central, structural problem of capitalist society” (1922/1968:83). A commodity is at base a relation among people that, they come to be­ lieve, takes on the character of a thing and develops an objective form. People in their interaction with nature in capitalist society produce various products, or commodities (for example, bread, automobiles, motion pictures). However, people tend to lose sight of the fact that they produce these commodities and give them their value. Value comes to be seen as being produced by a market that is independent of the actors. The fetishism

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o f commodities is the process by which commodities and the market for them are granted independent objective existence by the actors in capitalist society. Marx’s con­ cept of the fetishism of commodities was the basis for Lukacs’s concept o f reification.

The crucial difference between the fetishism o f commodities and reification lies in the extensiveness of the two concepts. Whereas the former is restricted to the economic institution, the latter is applied by Lukacs to all o f society—the state, the law, and the economic sector. The same dynamic applies in all sectors of capitalist society: people come to believe that social structures have a life of their own, and as a result those struc­ tures do come to have an objective character. Lukacs delineated this process:

Man in capitalist society confronts a reality "made" by himself (as a class) which appears to him to be a natural phenomenon alien to himself; he is wholly at the mercy o f its “laws": his activity is confined to the exploitation of the inexorable fulfillment of certain individual laws for his own (egoistic) interests. But even while “acting” he remains, in the nature of the case, the object and not the subject of events.

(Lukacs, 1922/1968:135)

In developing his ideas on reification, Lukacs integrated insights from Weber and Sim­ mel. However, because reification was embedded in Marxian theory, it was seen as a problem limited to capitalism and not, as it was to Weber and Simmel, the inevitable fate of humankind.

Class and False Consciousness Class consciousness refers to the belief system s shared by those who occupy the same class position within society. Lukacs made it clear that class consciousness is neither the sum nor the average of individual con sciou s­ nesses; rather, it is a property of a group of people who share a similar place in the pro­ ductive system. This view leads to a focus on the class consciousness of the bourgeoisie and especially of the proletariat. In Lukacs’s work, there is a clear link between objec­ tive economic position, class consciousness, and the “real, psychological thoughts of men about their lives” (1922/1968:51).

The concept of class consciousness necessarily implies, at least in capitalism, the prior state of false consciousness. That is, classes in capitalism generally do not have a clear sense of their true class interests. For example, until the revolutionary stage, mem­ bers of the proletariat do not fully realize the nature and extent of their exploitation in capitalism. The falsity of class consciousness is derived from the class’s position within the economic structure of society: ’’Class consciousness implies a class-conditioned un­ consciousness of one’s own socio-historical and economic condition.. . . The ‘false­ ness,’ the illusion implicit in this situation, is in no sense arbitrary” (L u k acs, 1922/1968:52). Most social classes throughout history have been unable to o v e r c o m e false consciousness and thereby achieve class consciousness. The structural position of the proletariat within capitalism, however, gives it the unique ability to achieve class consciousness.

The ability to achieve class consciousness is peculiar t o capitalist societies. In pre- capitalist societies, a variety of factors prevented the development of class c o n s c i o u s ­ ness. For one thing, the state, independent of the economy, affected social strata; for

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another, status (prestige) consciousness tended to mask class (economic) consciousness. As a result. Lukacs concluded, “There is therefore no possible position within such a so­ ciety from which the economic basis o f all social relations could be made conscious” (1922/1968:57). In contrast, the economic base o f capitalism is clearer and simpler. Peo­ ple may not be conscious o f its effects, but they arc at least unconsciously aware o f them. As a result, “class consciousness arrived at the point where it could become con­ scious" (Lukacs, 1922/1968:59). At this stage, society turns into an ideological battle­ ground in which those who seek to conceal the class character o f society are pitted against those who seek to expose it.

Lukacs compared the various classes in capitalism on the issue o f class conscious­ ness. He argued that the petty bourgeoisie and the peasants cannot develop class con­ sciousness because o f the ambiguity o f their structural position within capitalism. Because these two classes represent vestiges o f society in the feudal era, they are not able to develop a clear sense o f the nature of capitalism. The bourgeoisie can develop class consciousness, but at best it understands the development o f capitalism as some­ thing external, subject to objective laws, that it can experience only passively.

The proletariat has the capacity to develop true class consciousness, and as it does, the bourgeoisie is thrown on the defensive. Lukacs refused to see the proletariat as sim­ ply driven by external forces but viewed it instead as an active creator of its own fate. In the confrontation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the former class has all the intellectual and organizational weapons, whereas all the latter has, at least at first, is the ability to see society for what it is. As the battle proceeds, the proletariat moves from being a “class in itself,” that is, a structurally created entity, to a “class for itself,” a class conscious o f its position and mission. In other words, “the class struggle must be raised from the level o f economic necessity to the level of conscious aim and effective class consciousness” (Lukacs, 1922/1968:76). When the struggle reaches this point, the pro­ letariat is capable o f the action that can overthrow the capitalist system.

Lukacs had a rich sociological theory, although it is embedded in Marxian terms. He was concerned with the dialectical relationship among the structures (primarily eco­ nomic) o f capitalism, the idea systems (especially class consciousness), individual thought, and, ultimately, individual action. His theoretical perspective provides an im­ portant bridge between the economic determinists and more modem Marxists.

Antonio Gramsci The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci also played a key role in the transition from eco­ nomic determinism to more modem Marxian positions (Salamini, 198 1). Gramsci was critical o f Marxists who are “deterministic, fatalistic and mechanistic" (1971:336). In fact, he wrote an essay entitled “The Revolution against ‘Capital'" (Gramsci, 1917/1977) in which he celebrated “the resurrection of political will against the eco­ nomic determinism of those who reduced Marxism to the historical laws of Marx’s best- known work [Capital]” (Jay, 1984:155). Although he recognized that there were historical regularities, he rejected the idea of automatic or inevitable historical develop­ ments. Thus, the masses had to act in order to bring about a social revolution. But to act,

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the masses had to become conscious of their situation and the nature o f the system in which they lived. Thus, although Gramsci recognized the importance o f structural factors, especially the economy, he did not believe that these structural factors led the masses to revolt. The masses needed to develop a revolutionary ideology, but they could not do that on their own. Gramsci operated with a rather elitist conception in which ideas were generated by intellectuals and then extended to the masses and put into prac­ tice by them. The masses could not generate such ideas, and they could exp erience them, once in existence, only on faith. The masses could not become self-conscious on their own; they needed the help of social elites. However, once the masses had been influenced by these ideas, they would take the actions that lead to social revolution. Gramsci, like Lukacs, focused on collective ideas rather than on social structures like the economy, and both operated within traditional Marxian theory.

Gramsci’s central concept, one that reflects his Hegelianism, is hegemony (for a con­ temporary use of the concept of hegemony, see the discussion o f the work o f Laclau and Mouffe later in this chapter; Abrahamsen, 1997). According to Gramsci. “the e s s e n t i a l ingredient of the most modem philosophy of praxis [the linking o f thought and action] is the historical-philosophical concept of ‘hegemony'" (1932/1975:235). Hegemony is defined by Gramsci as cultural leadership exercised by the ruling class. H e c o n t r a s t s hegemony to coercion that is “exercised by legislative or executive powers, o r e x p r e s s e d through police intervention" (Gramsci, 1932/1975:235). Whereas economic M a rx ists tended to emphasize the economy and the coercive aspects of state domination, Grarn­ sci emphasized "'hegemony' and cultural leadership” (1932/1975:235). I n an analysis of capitalism, Gramsci wanted to know how some intellectuals, working on behalf of the capitalists, achieved cultural leadership and the assent of the masses.

Not only does the concept of hegemony help us understand domination within capi­ talism, it also serves to orient Gramsci’s thoughts on revolution. That is, through revo­ lution, it is not enough to gain control of the economy and the state apparatus; it is also necessary to gain cultural leadership over the rest of society. It is here that Gramsci sees a key role for communist intellectuals and a communist party.

We turn now to critical theory, which grew out of the work of Hegelian M arx ists such as Lukacs and Gramsci, and which has moved even further from the traditional Marx­ ian roots of economic determinism.

C R IT IC A L THEORY Critical theory is the product of a group of German neo-Marxists who were d i s s a t i s f i e d with the state of Marxian theory (Bernstein, 1995; Kellner, 1993; for a broader v i e w of critical theory, see Agger, 1998), particularly Us tendency toward economic d e t e r m i n ­ ism. The organization associated with critical theory, the Institute o f Social R e s e a r c h , was officially founded in Frankfurt, Germany, on February 23, 1923 ( W i g g e r s h a u s , 1994). Critical theory has spread beyond the confines of the Frankfurt school (Calhoun and Karaganis, 2001; Telos, 1989-90). Critical theory was and is largely a E u ro p e an ori­ entation, although its influence in American sociology has grown (Marcus. 1999; van den Berg, 1980).

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The Major Critiques of Social and Intellectual Life

Critical theory is composed largely o f criticisms o f various aspects o f social and intel­ lectual life, but its ultimate goal is to reveal more accurately the nature o f society (Bleich. 1977).

C riticism s o f M arx ian T heory Critical theory takes as its starting point a critique o f Marxian theories. The critical theorists are most disturbed by the economic determinists—-the mechanistic, or mechanical, Marxists (Antonio. 1981: Schroyer, 1973; Sewart, 1978). Some (for example. Habermas. 1971) criticize the determinism implicit in parts o f M arx's original work, but most focus their criticisms on the neo- Marxists. primarily because they had interpreted Marx's work too mechanistically. The critical theorists do not say that economic determinists were wrong in focusing on the economic realm but that they should have been concerned with other aspects of social life as well. As we will see, the critical school seeks to rectify this imbalance by focus­ ing its attention on the cultural realm (Fuery. 2000; Schroyer, 1973:33). In addition to attacking other Marxian theories, the critical school critiqued societies, such as the for­ mer Soviet Union, built ostensibly on Marxian theory (Marcuse. 1958).

C riticism s o f Positivism Critical theorists also focus on the philosophical under­ pinnings of scientific inquiry, especially positivism (Bottomore. 1984; Halfpenny, 2001: Morrow, 1994). The criticism of positivism is related, at least in part, to the criticism of economic determinism, because some of those who were determinists accepted part or all o f the positivistic theory o f knowledge. Positivism is depicted as accepting the idea that a single scientific method is applicable to all fields of study. It takes the physical sciences as the standard of certainty and exactness for all disciplines. Positivists believe that knowledge is inherently neutral. They feel that they can keep human values out of their work. This belief, in turn, leads to the view that science is not in the position of advocat­ ing any specific form o f social action. (See Chapter 1 for more discussion of positivism.)

Positivism is opposed by the critical school on various grounds (Sewart, 1978). For one thing, positivism tends to reify the social world and see it as a natural process. The critical theorists prefer to focus on human activity as well as on the ways in which such activity affects larger social structures. In short, positivism loses sight of the actors (Habermas. 1971). reducing them to passive entities determined by “natural forces." Given their belief in the distinctiveness o f the actor, the critical theorists would not ac­ cept the idea that the general laws of science can be applied without question to human action. Positivism is assailed for being content to judge the adequacy of means toward given ends and for not making a similar judgment about ends. This critique leads to the view that positivism is inherently conservative, incapable of challenging the existing system. As Martin Jay says o f positivism. “The result was the absolutizing of 'facts’ and the reification o f the existing order” (1973:62). Positivism leads the actor and the social scientist to passivity. Few Marxists o f any type would support a perspective that does not relate theory and practice. Despite these criticisms of positivism, some Marxists (for example, some structuralists, analytic Marxists) espouse positivism, and Marx himself was guilty of being overly positivistic (Habermas, 1971).

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Criticism of Sociology Sociology is attacked for its “scientism," that is. for mak­ ing the scientific method an end in itself. In addition, sociology is accused o f accepting the status quo. The critical school maintains that sociology does not seriously criticize society or seek to transcend the contemporary social structure. Sociology, the critical school contends, has surrendered its obligation to help people oppressed by contem p o­ rary society.

Members of this school are critical of sociologists’ focus on society as a w h ole rather than on individuals in society; sociologists are accused o f ignoring the interaction o f the individual and society. Although most sociological perspectives are nor guilty o f ignor­ ing this interaction, this view is a cornerstone o f the critical school’s attacks on so c io lo ­ gists. Because they ignore the individual, sociologists are seen as being unable to say anything meaningful about political changes that could lead to a “just and humane so c i­ ety” (Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, 1973:46). As Zoltan Tar put it. so cio lo g y becomes “an integral part of the existing society instead of being a means o f critique and a ferment of renewal” ( 1977:x).

1This is made abundantly clear by Trent Schroyer (1973), who entitled his b o o k on th e critical s c h o o l The Critique o f Domination.

Critique of Modern Society Most of the critical school’s work is aimed at a cri­ tique of modern society and a variety of its components. Whereas much o f early Marx­ ian theory aimed specifically at the economy, the critical school shifted its orientation to the cultural level in light of what it considers the realities of modem capitalist society. That is, the locus of domination in the modem world shifted from the economy to the cultural realm. Still, the critical school retains its interest in domination,1 although in the modern world it is likely to be domination by cultural rather than economic elem en ts. The critical school thus seeks to focus on the cultural repression o f the individual in modern society.

The critical thinkers have been shaped not only by Marxian theory but also by We­ berian theory, as reflected in their focus on rationality as the dominant d e v e l o p m e n t i n the modem world. In fact, supporters of this approach often are labeled “Weberian Marxists” (Dahms, 1997; Lowy, 1996). As Trent Schroyer (1970) made clear, the view of the critical school is that in modem society the repression produced by rationality has replaced economic exploitation as the dominant social problem. The critical school clearly has adopted Weber’s differentiation between formal rationality and substantive rationality, or what the critical theorists think of as reason. To the critical theorists, for­ mal rationality is concerned unreflectively with the question of the most effective means for achieving any given purpose (Tar, 1977). This is viewed as “technocratic thinking," in which the objective is to serve the forces of domination, not to em ancipate people from domination. The goal is simply to find the most efficient means to whatever e nds are defined as important by those in power. Technocratic thinking is contrasted to rea­ son, which is, in the minds of critical theorists, the hope for society. Reason involves the assessment of means in terms of the ultimate human values of justice, peace, and hap­ piness. Critical theorists identified Nazism in general, and its concentration camps specifically, as examples of formal rationality in mortal combat with reason. Thus, as

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George Friedman puts it, “Auschwitz was a rational place, but it was not a reasonable one” ( 1981:15; see also Chapter 12 and the discussion o f Bauman, 1989).

Despite the seeming rationality o f modem life, the critical school views the modern world as rife with irrationality (Crook. 1995). This idea can be labeled the “irrationality o f rationality” or. more specifically, the irrationality o f formal rationality. In Herbert Marcuse's view, although it appears to be the embodiment o f rationality, "this society is irrational as a whole” ( 1964:ix; see also Farganis, 1975). It is irrational that the rational world is destructive o f individuals and their needs and abilities, that peace is maintained through a constant threat o f war, and that despite the existence o f sufficient means, peo­ ple remain impoverished, repressed, exploited, and unable to fulfill themselves.

The critical school focuses primarily on one form of formal rationality—modem technology (Feenberg, 1996). Marcuse ( 1964). for example, was a severe critic o f mod­ em technology, at least as it is employed in capitalism. He saw technology in modern capitalist society as leading to totalitarianism. In fact, he viewed it as leading to new, more effective, and even more “pleasant" methods o f external control over individuals. The prime example is the use o f television to socialize and pacify the population (other examples are mass sports and pervasive exploitation o f sex). Marcuse rejected the idea that technology is neutral in the modem world and saw it instead as a means to domi­ nate people. It is effective because it is made to seem neutral when it is in fact enslav­ ing. It serves to suppress individuality. The actor’s inner freedom has been “invaded and whittled down" by modem technology. The result is what Marcuse called “one­ dimensional society.” in which individuals lose the ability to think critically and nega­ tively about society. Marcuse did not see technology per se as the enemy, but rather technology as it is employed in modem capitalist society; "Technology, no matter how ‘pure,’ sustains and streamlines the continuum o f domination. This fatal link can be cut only by a revolution which makes technology and technique subservient to the needs and goals of free men” (1969:56). Marcuse retained Marx’s original view that technol­ ogy is not inherently a problem and that it can be used to develop a “better” society.

C ritiq u e o f C u ltu re The critical theorists level significant criticisms at what they call the “culture industry.” the rationalized, bureaucratized structures (for example, the television networks) that control modem culture. Interest in the culture industry reflects their concern with the Marxian concept o f “superstructure” rather than with the eco­ nomic base. The culture industry, producing what is conventionally called “mass cul­ ture,” is defined as the “adm inistered. . . nonspontaneous. reified, phony culture rather than the real thing” (Jay, 1973:216). Two things worry the critical thinkers most about this industry. First, they are concerned about its falseness. They think of it as a prepack­ aged set of ideas mass-produced and disseminated to the masses by the media. Second, the critical theorists are disturbed by its pacifying, repressive, and stupefying effect on People (D. Cook, 1996; Friedman. 19 8 1; Tar, 1977:83; Zipes, 1994).

Douglas Kellner (1990) has self-consciously offered a critical theory of television. While he embeds his work in the cultural concerns of the Frankfurt school. Kellner draws on other Marxian traditions to present a more rounded conception o f the televi­ sion industry. He critiques the critical school because it “neglects detailed analysis of the political economy o f the media, conceptualizing mass culture merely as an instrument

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of capitalist ideology” (Kellner, 1990:14). Thus, in addition to looking at television as part of the culture industry, Kellner connects it to both corporate capitalism and the po­ litick system. Furthermore, Kellner does not see television as monolithic o r as con­ trolled by coherent corporate forces but rather as a “highly conflictual mass medium in which competing economic, political, social and cultural forces intersect" (1990:14). Thus, while working within the tradition of critical theory, Kellner rejects the view that capitalism is a totally administered world. Nevertheless, Kellner sees television as a threat to democracy, individuality, and freedom and offers suggestions (for example, more democratic accountability, greater citizen access and participation, greater diver­ sity on television) to deal with the threat. Thus, Kellner goes beyond a mere critique to offer proposals for dealing with the dangers posed by television.

The critical school is also interested in and critical of what it calls the “knowledge in­ dustry,” which refers to entities concerned with knowledge production (for exam ple, universities and research institutes) that have become autonomous structures in our so­ ciety. Their autonomy has allowed them to extend themselves beyond their original mandate (Schroyer, 1970). They have become oppressive structures interested i n ex­ panding their influence throughout society.

Marx’s critical analysis of capitalism led him to have hope for the future, but many critical theorists have come to a position of despair and hopelessness. They see the prob­ lems of the modern world not as specific to capitalism but as endemic to a rationalized world. They see the future, in Weberian terms, as an “iron cage” of increasingly rational structures from which hope for escape lessens all the time.

Much of critical theory (like the bulk of Marx's original formulation) is in the form of critical analyses. Even though the critical theorists also have a number o f p o sitiv e in­ terests, one of the basic criticisms made of critical theory is that it offers more criticisms than it does positive contributions. This incessant negativity galls many scholars, and for this reason they feel that critical theory has little to offer to sociological theory.

The Major Contributions

Subjectivity The great contribution of the critical school has been its effort t o re­ orient Marxian theory in a subjective direction. Although this constitutes a critique of Marx’s materialism and his dogged focus on economic structures, it also represents strong contribution to our understanding of the subjective elements of social life at both the individual and the cultural levels.

The Hegelian roots of Marxian theory are the major source o f interest in subjectiv­ ity. Many of the critical thinkers see themselves as returning to those roots, as ex­ pressed in Marx’s early works. In doing so, they are following up on the work of early twentieth-century Marxian revisionists, such as Georg Lukacs. who sought not to focus on subjectivity but simply to integrate such an interest with the traditional Marx­ ian concern with objective structures (Agger, 1978). Lukacs did not seek a fundamen­ tal restructuring of Marxian theory, although the later critical theorists do have this broader and more ambitious objective.

We begin with the critical school’s interest in culture. As pointed out above, the crit­ ical school has shifted to a concern with the cultural “superstructure” rather than with

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the economic base. One factor motivating this shift is that the critical school feels that Marxists have overemphasized economic structures and that this emphasis has served to overwhelm their interest in the other aspects o f social reality, especially the culture. In addition to this factor. a series o f external changes in society point to such a shift (Ag­ ger, 1978). In particular, the prosperity o f the post-W orld War II period in America seems to have led to a disappearance o f internal economic contradictions in general and class conflict in particular. False consciousness seems to be nearly universal: all social classes, including the working class, appear to be beneficiaries and ardent supporters o f the capitalist system. In addition, the former Soviet Union, despite its socialist economy, was at least as oppressive as capitalist society. Because the two societies had different economies, the critical thinkers had to look elsewhere for the major source o f oppres­ sion. What they looked toward initially was culture.

To the previously discussed aspects o f the Frankfurt school's concerns— rationality, the culture industry, and the knowledge industry—can be added another set o f concerns, the most notable o f which is an interest in ideology. By ideology the critical theorists mean the idea systems, often false and obfuscating, produced by societal elites. All these specific aspects o f the superstructure and the critical school’s orientation to them can be subsumed under the heading “critique o f domination" (Agger, 1978; Schroyer. 1973). This interest in domination was at first stimulated by fascism in the 1930s and 1940s. but it has shifted to a concern with domination in capitalist society. The modem world has reached a stage o f unsurpassed domination o f individuals. In fact, the control is so complete that it no longer requires deliberate actions on the part o f the leaders. The con­ trol pervades all aspects o f the cultural world and, more important, is internalized in the actor. In effect, actors have come to dominate themselves in the name o f the larger so­ cial structure. D o m in atio n has reached a complete stage where it no longer appears to be domination at all. Because domination is no longer perceived as personally damaging and alienating, it often seems as if the world is the way it is supposed to be. It is no longer clear to actors what the world ought to be like. Thus, the pessimism of the criti­ cal thinkers is buttressed, because they no longer can see how rational analysis can help alter the situation.

One o f the critical school’s concerns at the cultural level is with what Habermas (1975) called legitim ations. These can be defined as systems o f ideas generated by the political system, and theoretically by any other system, to support the existence o f the system. They are designed to "mystify" the political system, to make it unclear exactly what is happening.

In addition to such cultural interests, the critical school is concerned with actors and their consciousness and what happens to them in the modem world. The consciousness of the masses came to be controlled by external forces (such as the culture industry). As a result, the masses failed to develop a revolutionary consciousness. Unfortunately, the critical theorists, like most Marxists and most sociologists, often fail to differentiate clearly between individual consciousness and culture or specify the many links between them. In much of their work, they move freely back and forth between consciousness and culture with little or no sense that they are changing levels.

O f great importance here is the effort by critical theorists, most notably Marcuse (1969). to integrate Freud s insights at the level of consciousness (and unconsciousness)

into the critical theorists' interpretation of the culture. Critical theorists derive three

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things from Freud’s work: (1) a psychological structure to work with in developing their theories, (2) a sense of psychopathology that allows them to understand both the nega­ tive impact of modem society and the failure to develop revolutionary con sciou sness, and (3) the possibilities of psychic liberation (Friedman, 1981). One o f the benefits of this interest in individual consciousness is that it offers a useful corrective to the pes­ simism of the critical school and its focus on cultural constraints. Although people are controlled, imbued with false needs, and anesthetized, in Freudian terms they also are endowed with a libido (broadly conceived as sexual energy), which provides the basic source of energy for creative action oriented toward the overthrow of the major forms of domination.

Dialectics The second main positive focus of critical theory is an interest in di­ alectics (this idea is critiqued from the viewpoint of analytical Marxism later in this chapter). At the most general level, a dialectical approach means a focus on the social totality.2 “No partial aspect of social life and no isolated phenomenon may be com pre­ hended unless it is related to the historical whole, to the social structure con ceived as a global entity” (Connerton, 1976:12). This approach involves rejection o f a focus on any specific aspect of social life, especially the economic system, outside of its broader con­ text. This approach also entails a concern with the interrelation of the various levels o f social reality - most important, individual consciousness, the cultural superstructure, and the economic structure. Dialectics also carries with it a methodological prescription: One component of social life cannot be studied in isolation from the rest.

2 Jay (1984) sees "totality” as the heart of Marxian theory in general, not just o f critical theory. However, this idea is rejected by postmodern Marxists (see the discussion later in this chapter).

This idea has both diachronic and synchronic components. A synchronic view leads us to be concerned with the interrelationship of components of society within a contem ­ porary totality. A diachronic view carries with it a concern for the historical roots o f to­ day’s society as well as for where it might be going in the future (Bauman, 1976). The domination of people by social and cultural structures—the “one-dimensional” society. to use Marcuse’s phrase—is the result of a specific historical development and is not a universal characteristic of humankind. This historical perspective counteracts the common-sense view that emerges in capitalism that the system is a natural and in­ evitable phenomenon. In the view of the critical theorists (and other Marxists), people have come to see society as “second nature”; it is “perceived by com mon-sensical wis­ dom as an alien, uncompromising, demanding and high-handed power—exactly like non-human nature. To abide by the rules of reason, to behave rationally, to achieve success, to be free, man now had to accommodate himself to the ‘second nature’ (Bauman, 1976:6).

The critical theorists also are oriented to thinking about the future, but follow in g Marx’s lead, they refuse to be utopian; rather, they focus on criticizing and changing contemporary society (Alway, 1995). However, instead o f directing their attention to so­ ciety’s economic structure as Marx had done, they concentrate on its cultural super­ structure. Their dialectical approach commits them to work in the real world. They are not satisfied with seeking truth in scientific laboratories. The ultimate test of their ideas

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is the degree to which they are accepted and used in practice. This process they call au­ thentication. which occurs when the people who have been the victims o f distorted com­ munication take up the ideas o f critical theory and use them to free themselves from that system (Bauman. 1976:104). Thus we arrive at another aspect o f the concerns of the critical thinkers— the liberation o f humankind (Marcuse. 1964:222).

In more abstract terms, critical thinkers can be said to be preoccupied with the inter­ play and relationship between theory and practice. The view o f the Frankfurt school was that the two have been severed in capitalist society (Schroyer, 1973:28). That is, theo­ rizing is done by one group, which is delegated, or more likely takes, that right, whereas practice is relegated to another, less powerful group. In many cases, the theorist’s work is uninformed by what went on in the real world, leading to an impoverished and largely irrelevant body o f Marxian and sociological theory. The point is to unify theory and practice so as to restore the relationship between them. Theory thus would be informed by practice, whereas practice would be shaped by theory. In the process, both theory and practice would be enriched.

Despite this avowed goal, most of critical theory has failed abysmally to integrate theory and practice. In fact, one of the most often voiced criticisms of critical theory is that it usually is written in such a way that it is totally inaccessible to the mass of peo­ ple. Furthermore, in its commitment to studying culture and superstructure, critical the­ ory addresses a number o f very esoteric topics and has little to say about the pragmatic, day-to-day concerns o f most people.

Knowledge a n d H um an Interests One o f the best-known dialectical concerns of the critical school is Jurgen Habermas's (1970, 1971) interest in the relationship be­ tween knowledge and human interests—an example o f a broader dialectical concern with the relationship between subjective and objective factors. But Habermas has been careful to point out that subjective and objective factors cannot be dealt with in isolation from one another. To him. knowledge systems exist at the objective level whereas hu­ man interests are more subjective phenomena.

Habermas differentiated among three knowledge systems and their corresponding interests. The interests that lie behind and guide each system of knowledge are gener­ ally unknown to laypeople. and it is the task of the critical theorists to uncover them. The first type o f knowledge is analytic science, or classical positivistic scientific sys­ tems. In Habermas's view, the underlying interest of such a knowledge system is tech­ nical prediction and control, which can be applied to the environment, other societies, or people within society. In Habermas's view, analytic science lends itself quite easily to enhancing oppressive control. The second type of knowledge system is humanistic knowledge, and its interest lies in understanding the world. It operates from the general view that understanding our past generally helps us understand what is transpiring to­ day. It has a practical interest in mutual and self-understanding. It is neither oppressive nor liberating. The third type is critical knowledge, which Habermas, and the Frankfurt school in general, espoused. The interest attached to this type of knowledge is human emancipation, it was hoped that the critical knowledge generated by Habermas and others would raise the self-consciousness of the masses (through mechanisms articu­ lated by the Freudians) and lead to a social movement that would result in the hoped- for emancipation.

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Criticisms of Critical Theory

A number of criticisms have been leveled at critical theory (Bottomore. 1984). First, critical theory has been accused of being largely ahistorical, of examining a variety of events without paying much attention to their historical and comparative contexts (for example, Nazism in the 1930s, anti-Semitism in the 1940s, student revolts in the 1960s). This is a damning criticism of any Marxian theory, which should be inherently histori­ cal and comparative. Second, the critical school, as we have seen already, generally has ignored the economy. Finally, and relatedly, critical theorists have tended to argue that the working class has disappeared as a revolutionary force, a position decidedly in opposition to traditional Marxian analysis.

Criticisms such as these led traditional Marxists such as Bottomore to conclude, “The Frankfurt School, in its original form, and as a school of Marxism or sociology, is dead (1984:76). Similar sentiments have been expressed by Greisman, who labels critical the­ ory “the paradigm that failed” (1986:273). If it is dead as a distinctive school, that is because many of its basic ideas have found their way into Marxism, neo-Marxian soci­ ology, and even mainstream sociology. Thus, as Bottomore himself concludes in the case of Habermas, the critical school has undergone a rapprochement with Marxism and sociology, and “at the same time some of the distinctive ideas of the Frankfurt School are conserved and developed” (1984:76).

The Ideas of Jurgen Habermas

Although critical theory may be on the decline, Jurgen Habermas3 and his theories are very much alive (Bernstein, 1995; Brown and Goodman, 2001; Outhwaite, 1994). We touched on a few of his ideas earlier in this chapter, but we close this section on critical theory with a more detailed look at his theory (still other aspects o f his thinking will be covered in Chapters 11 and 12).

3Habermas began as Theodor Adorno 's research assistant in 1955 (Wiggershaus, 1994:537).

Differences with Marx Habermas contends that his goal has been “to develop a theoretical program that I understand as a reconstruction o f historical m a t e r i a l i s m " (1979:95). Habermas takes Marx’s starting point (human potential, species-being, “sen­ suous human activity") as his own. However, Habermas (1971) argues that Marx failed to distinguish between two analytically distinct components of species-being— work (or labor, purposive-rational action) and social (or symbolic) interaction (or c o m m u n i c a t i v e action). In Habermas’s view, Marx tended to ignore the latter and to reduce it to w o r k . As Habermas put it, the problem in Marx’s work is the “reduction o f the self-generative act o f the human species to labor” (1971:42). Thus, Habermas says: “I take as my start­ ing point the fundamental distinction between work and interaction” (1970:91). Throughout his writings, Habermas’s work is informed by this distinction, although he is most prone to use the terms purposive-rational action (work) and c o m m u n i c a t i v e action (interaction).

Under the heading “purposive-rational action," Habermas distinguishes b e t w e e n instrumental action and strategic action. Both involve the calculated pursuit o f self-

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interest. Instrumental action involves a single actor rationally calculating the best means to a given goal. Strategic action involves two or more individuals coordinating purpo­ sive-rational action in the pursuit of a goal. The objective of both instrumental and strategic action is instrumental mastery.

Habermas is most interested in communicative action, in which

the actions o f the agents involved are coordinated not through egocentric calculations of suc­ cess but through acts o f reaching understanding. In communicative action participants are not primarily oriented to their own successes: they pursue their individual goals under the condi­ tion that they can harmonize their plans of action on the basis of common situation definitions.

(Habermas, 1984:286; italics added)

Whereas the end o f purposive-rational action is to achieve a goal, the objective of com­ municative action is to achieve communicative understanding (Stryker. 1998).

Clearly, there is an important speech component in communicative action. However, such action is broader than that encompassing “speech acts or equivalent nonverbal ex­ pressions" (Habermas, 1984:278).

Habermas's key point of departure from Marx is to argue that communicative action, not purposive-rational action (work), is the most distinctive and most pervasive human phenomenon. It (not work) is the foundation o f all sociocultural life as well as all the hu­ man sciences. Whereas Marx was led to focus on work. Habermas is led to focus on communication.

Not only did Marx focus on work, he took free and creative work (species-being) as his baseline for critically analyzing work in various historical epochs, especially capi­ talism. Habermas, too. adopts a baseline, but in the realm of communicative rather than in that o f purposive-rational action. Habermas's baseline is undistorted communication, communication without compulsion. With this baseline. Habermas is able to critically analyze distorted communication. Habermas is concerned with those social structures that distort communication, just as Marx examined the structural sources of the distor­ tion o f work. Although they have different baselines, both Habermas and Marx have baselines, and these permit them to escape relativism and render judgments about vari­ ous historical phenomena. Habermas is critical of those theorists, especially Weber and previous critical theorists, for their lack of such a baseline and their lapse into relativism.

There is still another parallel between Marx and Habermas and their baselines. For both, these baselines represent not only their analytical starting points but also their po­ litical objectives. That is, whereas for Marx the goal was a communist society in which undistorted work (species-being) would exist for the first time, for Habermas the polit­ ical goal is a society o f undistorted communication (communicative action). In terms of immediate goals, Marx seeks the elimination o f (capitalist) barriers to undistorted work and Habermas is interested in the elimination of barriers to free communication.

Here Habermas, (1973: see also. Habermas, 1994:101), like other critical theorists, draws on Freud and sees many parallels between what psychoanalysts do at the individ­ ual level and what he thinks needs to be done at the societal level. Habermas sees psy­ choanalysis as a theory o f distorted communication and as being preoccupied with allowing individuals to communicate in an undistorted way. The psychoanalyst seeks to find the sources o f distortions in individual communication, that is. repressed blocks to

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communication. Through reflection, the psychoanalyst attempts to help the individual overcome these blocks. Similarly, through therapeutic critique, “a form o f argum enta­ tion that serves to clarify systematic self-deception” (Habermas, 1984:21). the critical theorist attempts to aid people in general to overcome social barriers to undistorted com ­ munication. There is, then, an analogy (many critics think an illegitimate analogy) b e ­ tween psychoanalysis and critical theory. The psychoanalyst aids the patient in much the same way that the social critic helps those unable to communicate adequately to b eco m e “undisabled” (Habermas, 1994:112).

As for Marx, the basis o f Habermas’s ideal future society exists in the contem porary world. That is, for Marx elements of species-being are found in work in capitalist s o c i­ ety. For Habermas, elements o f undistorted communication are found in every act o f contemporary communication.

Rationalization This brings us to the central issue o f rationalization in H a b e r m a s 's work. Here Habermas is influenced not only by M arx’s work but by W eber’s as w ell. Most prior work, in Habermas’s view, has focused on the rationalization o f p u rp o s iv e - rational action, which has led to a growth of productive forces and an increase in tech­ nological control over life (Habermas, 1970). This form o f rationalization, as it was to Weber and Marx, is a major, perhaps the major, problem in the modem world. H o w e v e r, the problem is rationalization of purposive-rational action, not rationalization in g e n e r a l. In fact, for Habermas, the antidote to the problem o f the rationalization o f p u r p o s iv e - rational action lies in the rationalization of communicative action. The ra tio n a liz a tio n o f communicative action leads to communication free from domination, free and open communication. Rationalization here involves emancipation, “removing re stric tio n s on communication” (Habermas, 1970:118; see also Habermas, 1979). This is w h e re Habermas’s previously mentioned work on legitimations and, more generally, ideology fits in. That is, these are two of the main causes o f distorted communication, causes that must be eliminated if we are to have free and open communication.

At the level of social norms, such rationalization would involve decreases in n o rm a ­ tive repressiveness and rigidity leading to increases in individual flexibility and re fle c ­ tivity. The development of this new, less-restrictive or nonrestrictive norm ative s y s te m lies at the heart of Habermas’s theory of social evolution. Instead o f a new p r o d u c t i v e system, rationalization for Habermas (1979) leads to a new, less-distorting n o r m a t i v e system. Although he regards it as a misunderstanding o f his position, many have ac­ cused Habermas of cutting his Marxian roots in this shift from the material level to the normative level.

The end point of this evolution for Habermas is a rational society (Delanty, 1997). Rationality here means removal of the barriers that distort com m unication, b ut m o re generally it means a communication system in which ideas are openly presented and de­ fended against criticism; unconstrained agreement develops during a r g u m e n ta tio n . To understand this better, we need more details o f Habermas’s communication theory.

Com m unication Habermas distinguishes between the previously discussed com ­ municative action and discourse. Whereas communicative action occurs in e v e ry d a y life, discourse is

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that form o f com m unication that is removed from contexts o f experience and action and whose structure assures us: that the bracketed validity claims o f assertions, recommendations, o r warnings arc the exclusive object o f discussion: that participants, themes, and contributions are not restricted except with reference to the goal o f testing the validity claims in questions; that no force except that o f the better argument is exercised: and that all motives except that of the cooperative search for truth are excluded.

(Habermas, 1975:107-108)

In the theoretical w orld o f discourse, but also hidden and underlying the world of com­ municative actions, is the “ ideal speech situation," in which force or power does not determ ine which argum ents win out: instead the better argument emerges victorious. The weight o f evidence and argumentation determine what is considered valid or true. The argum ents that em erge from such a discourse (and that the participants agree on) are true (H esse, 1995). Thus Habermas adopts a consensus theory of truth (rather than a copy (or “reality” | theory o f truth [Outhwaite, 1994:41]). This truth is part of all com­ m unication. and its full expression is the goal o f Habermas’s evolutionary theory. As Thom as M cC arthy says. "T he idea o f truth points ultimately to a form of interaction that is free from all distorting influences. The ‘good and true life’ that is the goal of critical theory is inherent in the notion o f truth: it is anticipated in every act of speech” (1982:308).

C onsensus arises theoretically in discourse (and pretheoretically in communicative action) w hen four types o f validity claims are raised and recognized by interactants. First, the sp eak e r’s utterances are seen as understandable, comprehensible. Second, the propositions offered by the speaker are true; that is, the speaker is offering reliable knowledge. T hird, the speaker is being truthful (veracious) and sincere in offering the propositions; the speaker is reliable. Fourth, it is right and proper for the speaker to ut­ ter such propositions; he o r she has the normative basis to do so. Consensus arises when all these validity claim s are raised and accepted; it breaks down when one or more are questioned. R eturning to an earlier point, there are forces in the modem world that dis­ tort this process, prevent the emergence o f a consensus, and would have to be overcome for H aberm as’s ideal society to com e about (Morris, 2001).

Critical Theory Today

W hile H aberm as is the most prominent o f today's social thinkers, he is not alone in struggling to develop a critical theory that is better adapted to contemporary realities (see, for exam ple, the various essays in Wexler, 1991; Antonio and Kellner, 1994). Castells (1996) has made the case for the need for a critical theory of the new “infor­ mation society.” To illustrate these continuing efforts, a brief discussion follows o f Kell­ ner’s ( 1989c) effort to develop a critical theory of what he labels “techno-capitalism.”

T e c h n o -C a p ita lis m K ellner's theory is based on the premise that we have not moved into a p o s tm o d e r n , or postindustrial, age, but rather that capitalism continues to reign supreme, as it did in the heyday o f critical theory. Thus, he feels that the basic con­ cepts developed to analyze capitalism (for example, reification, alienation) continue to

relevant in the analysis o f techno-capitalism. Kellner defines techno-capitalism as

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a configuration of capitalist society in which technical and scientific knowledge, automation, computers and advanced technology play a role in the process of production parallel to the role of human labor power, mechanization and machines in earlier eras of capitalism, while pro­ ducin g as well new modes of societal organization and forms o f culture and everyday life.

(Kellner, 1989c: 178) In technical Marxian terms, in techno-capitalism “constant capital progressively comes to replace variable capital, as the ratio between technology and labor increases at the ex­ pense of the input of human labor power” (Kellner, 1989c: 179). Yet we should not lose sight of the fact that techno-capitalism remains a form o f capitalism, albeit one in which technology is of far greater importance than ever before.

Kellner has learned from the failures of other Marxists. Thus, for example, he resists the idea that technology determines the “superstructure” o f society. The stale and cul­ ture are seen as at least partially autonomous in techno-capitalism. He also refuses to see techno-capitalism as a new stage in history, but views it as a new configuration, or con­ stellation, within capitalism. Kellner does not simply focus on the problems caused by techno-capitalism, but also sees in it new possibilities for social progress and the eman­ cipation of society. In fact, a key role for critical theory, in Kellner’s view, is not just to criticize it, but to “attempt to analyze the emancipatory possibilities unleashed by techno-capitalism” ( 1989c:215). Kellner also refuses to return to the old class politics, but sees great potential in the various social movements (women, the environment) that have arisen in the last few decades.

Kellner does not endeavor to develop a full-scale theory of techno-capitalism. His main point is that although it has changed dramatically, capitalism remains predominant in the contemporary world. Thus, the tools provided by the critical school, and M arxian theory more generally, continue to be relevant in today’s world. We close this sec tio n with Kellner’s description of “techno-culture,” since a concern with culture was so cen­ tral to critical theory in its prime:

Techno-culture represents a configuration of mass culture and the consumer society in which consumer goods, film, television, mass images and computerized information become a dom­ inant form of culture throughout the developed world [and] which increasingly penetrate de­ veloping countries as well. In this techno-culture, image, spectacle, and a e s t h e t i c i z e d commodification, or “commodity aesthetics,” come to constitute new forms of culture which colonize everyday life and transform politics, economics and social relations. In all these do­ mains, technology plays an increasingly fundamental role.

(Kellner, 1989c: 181)

There is much here to be explored by future critical theorists, such as the nature of techno-culture itself, its commodification, its colonization of the life-world, and its di­ alectical impact on the economy and other sectors of society. There is much that is new here, but there is also much that is based on the fundamental ideas of critical theory.

NEO-MARXIAN ec o n o m ic s o c io lo g y

Many neo-Marxists (for example, critical theorists) have m ade relatively few co m m en ts on the economic institution, at least in part as a reaction against th e e x c esses o f the

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economic determinists. However, these reactions have set in motion a series o f counter­ reactions. In this section we will deal with the work o f some of the Marxists who have returned to a focus on the economic realm. Their work constitutes an effort to adapt Marxian theory to the realities o f modem capitalist society (Lash and Urry, 1987; Me szaros, 1995).

We will deal with two bodies o f work in this section. The first focuses on the broad issue o f capital and labor. The second comprises the narrower, and more contemporary, work on the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism.

Capital and Labor

Marx’s original insights into economic structures and processes were based on his analysis o f the capitalism o f his time—what we can think of as competitive capitalism. Capitalist industries were comparatively small, with the result that no single industry, or small group o f industries, could gain complete and uncontested control over a market. Much o f M arx's economic work was based on the premise, accurate for his time, that capitalism is a competitive system. To be sure, Marx foresaw the possibility of future monopolies, but he commented only briefly on them. Many later Marxian theorists con­ tinued to operate as if capitalism remained much as it had been in Marx’s time.

M onopoly C a p ita l It is in this context that we must examine the work o f Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy (1966). They began with a criticism o f Marxian social science for repeating familiar formulations and failing to explain important recent developments in capitalistic society. They accused Marxian theory o f stagnating because it continued to rest on the assumption o f a competitive economy. A modem Marxian theory must, in their view, recognize that competitive capitalism largely has been replaced by monop­ oly capitalism.

In monopoly capitalism one or a few capitalists control a given sector of the econ­ omy. Clearly, there is far less competition in monopoly capitalism than in competitive capitalism. In competitive capitalism, organizations competed on a price basis; that is, capitalists tried to sell more goods by offering lower prices. In monopoly capitalism, firms no longer have to compete in this way because one or a few firms control a mar­ ket; competition shifts to the sales domain. Advertising, packaging, and other methods of appealing to potential consumers are the main areas of competition.

The movement from price to sales competition is part of another process characteris­ tic o f monopoly capitalism— progressive rationalization. Price competition comes to be seen as highly irrational. That is, from the monopoly capitalist’s point of view, offering lower and lower prices can lead only to chaos in the marketplace, to say nothing of lower profits and perhaps even bankruptcy. Sales competition, in contrast, is not a cut­ throat system; in fact, it even provides work for the advertising industry. Furthermore. Prices can be kept high, with the costs o f the sales and promotion simply added to the price. Thus sales competition is also far less risky than price competition.

Another crucial aspect of monopoly capitalism is the rise of the giant corporation. With a few large corporations controlling most sectors of the economy. In competitive capitalism, the organization was controlled almost single-handedly by an entrepreneur.

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The modern corporation is owned by a large number o f stockholders, but a few large stockholders own most of the slock. Although stockholders “own" the corporation, managers exercise the actual day-to-day control. The managers are crucial in monopoly capitalism, whereas the entrepreneurs were central in competitive capitalism. Managers have considerable power, which they seek to maintain. They even seek financial inde­ pendence for their firms by trying, as much as possible, to generate whatever funds they need internally rather than relying on external sources of funding.

Baran and Sweezy commented extensively on the central position o f the corporate manager in modem capitalist society. Managers are viewed as a highly rational group oriented to maximizing the profits of the organization. Therefore, they are not inclined to take the risks that were characteristic of the early entrepreneurs. They have a longer time perspective than the entrepreneurs did. Whereas the early capitalist was interested in maximizing profits in the short run, modem managers are aware that such efforts may well lead to chaotic price competition that might adversely affect the long-term prof­ itability of the firm. The manager will thus forgo some profits in the short run to maxi­ mize long-term profitability.

Baran and Sweezy have been criticized on various grounds. For example, they overemphasize the rationality of managers. Herbert Simon (1957). for example, would argue that managers are more interested in finding (and are only able to find) minimally satisfactory solutions than they are in finding the most rational and most profitable so­ lutions. Another issue is whether managers are, in fact, the pivotal figures in modern capitalism. Many would argue that it is the large stockholders who really control the capitalistic system.

Labor and Monopoly Capital Harry Braverman (1974) considered the labor process and the exploitation of the worker the heart o f Marxian theory. He intended not only to update Marx’s interest in manual workers but also to examine what has hap­ pened to white-collar and service workers.

Toward the goal of extending Marx's analysis, Braverman argued that the concept "working class” does not describe a specific group o f people or occupations but is rather an expression of a process of buying and selling labor power. In modem capitalism, vir­ tually no one owns the means of production; therefore, the many, including most white- collar and service workers, are forced to sell their labor power to the few who do. In his view, capitalist control and exploitation, as well as the derivative processes o f m echa­ nization and rationalization, are being extended to white-collar and service o cc u p atio n s.

Managerial Control Braverman recognized economic exploitation, which was Marx’s focus, but concentrated on the issue of control. He asked the question: How do the capitalists control the labor power they employ? One answer is that they exercise such control through managers. In fact, Braverman defined management as “a labor process conducted fo r the purpose o f control within the corporation" ( 1974:267).

Braverman concentrated on the more impersonal means employed by managers to control workers. One of his central concerns was the utilization of specialization to con­ trol workers. Here he carefully differentiated between the division o f labor in society as a whole and specialization o f work within the organization. All known societies have had a division o f labor (for example, between men and women, farmers and artisans.

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and so forth), but the specialization of work within the organization is a special devel­ opment o f capitalism. Braverman believed that the division of labor at the societal level may enhance the individual, whereas specialization in the workplace has the disastrous effect of subdividing human capabilities: “The subdivision of the individual, when car­ ried on without regard to human capabilities and needs, is a crime against the person and against humanity" (1974:73).

Specialization in the workplace involves the continual division and subdivision of tasks or operations into minute and highly specialized activities, each o f which is then likely to be assigned to a different worker. This process constitutes the creation o f what Braverman calls “detail workers.” Out of the range of abilities any individual possesses, capitalists select a small number that the worker is to use on the job. As Braverman put it, the capitalist first breaks down the work process and then “dismembers the worker as well” (1974:78) by requiring the worker to use only a small proportion of his or her skills and abilities. In Braverman's terms, the worker "never voluntarily converts him­ self into a lifelong detail worker. This is the contribution of the capitalist" (1974:78).

Why does the capitalist do this? First, it increases the control of management. It is easier to control a worker doing a specified task than it is to control one employing a wide range o f skills. Second, it increases productivity. That is. a group of workers per­ forming highly specialized tasks can produce more than can the same number of crafts­ people, each o f whom has all the skills and performs all the production activities. For instance, workers on an automobile assembly line produce more cars than would a cor­ responding number o f skilled craftspeople, each of whom produces his or her own car. Third, specialization allows the capitalist to pay the least for the labor power needed. In­ stead of highly paid, skilled craftspeople, the capitalist can employ lower-paid, unskilled workers. Following the logic of capitalism, employers seek to progressively cheapen the labor o f workers, and this results in a virtually undifferentiated mass of what Braverman called “simple labor."

Specialization is not a sufficient means of control for capitalists and the managers in their employ. Another important means is scientific technique, including such efforts as scientific management, which is an attempt to apply science to the control of labor on the behalf o f management. To Braverman. scientific management is the science of “how best to control alienated labor" (1974:90). Scientific management is found in a series of stages aimed at the control o f labor— gathering many workers in one workshop, dictat­ ing the length o f the workday, supervising workers directly to ensure diligence, enforc­ ing rules against distractions (for example, talking), and setting minimum acceptable Production levels. Overall scientific management contributed to control through “the dictation to the worker o f the precise manner in which work is to be performed" (Braverman, 1974:90). For example. Braverman discussed F. W. Taylor’s (Kanigel, 1997) early work on the shoveling o f coal, which led him to develop rules about the kind o f shovel to use. the way to stand, the angle at which the shovel should enter the coal pile, and how much coal to pick up in each motion. In other words, Taylor devel­ oped methods that ensured almost total control over the labor process. Workers were to be left with as few independent decisions as possible; thus, a separation o f the mental

and the manual was accomplished. Management used its monopoly over work-related knowledge to control each step o f the labor process. In the end, the work itself was left

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without any meaningful skill, content, or knowledge. Craftsmanship was utterly destroyed.

Braverman also saw machinery as a means of control over workers. Modern ma­ chinery comes into existence “when the tool and/or the work are given a fixed motion path by the structure of the machine itself" (Braverman. 1974:188). The skill is built into the machine rather than being left for the worker to acquire. Instead o f controlling the work process, workers come to be controlled by the machine. Furthermore, it is far eas­ ier for management to control machines than to control workers.

Braverman argued that through mechanisms such as the specialization o f work, sci­ entific management, and machines, management has been able to extend its control over its manual workers. Although this is a useful insight, especially the emphasis on control. Braverman’s distinctive contribution has been his effort to extend this kind o f analysis to sectors of the labor force that were not included in Marx’s original analysis o f the labor process. Braverman argued that white-collar and service workers are now being subjected to the same processes of control that were used on manual workers in the nineteenth century (Schmutz, 1996).

One of Braverman’s examples is white-collar clerical workers. At one time such workers were considered to be a group distinguished from manual workers by such things as their dress, skills, training, and career prospects (Lockwood, 1956). However, today both groups are being subjected to the same means of control. Thus it has become more difficult to differentiate between the factory and the modem factorylike office, as the workers in the latter are progressively proletarianized. For one thing, the work o f the clerical worker has grown more and more specialized. This means, among other things, that the mental and manual aspects of office work have been separated. Office man­ agers, engineers, and technicians now perform the mental work, whereas the “line” cler­ ical workers do little more than manual tasks such as keypunching. As a result, the level of skills needed for these jobs has been lowered, and the jobs require little or no special training.

Scientific management also is seen as invading the office. Clerical tasks have been scientifically studied and, as a result of that research, have been simplified, routinized. and standardized. Finally, mechanization has made significant inroads into the office, primarily through the computer and computer-related equipment.

By applying these mechanisms to clerical work, managers find it much easier to con­ trol such workers. It is unlikely that such control mechanisms are as strong and effective in the office as they are in the factory; still, the trend is toward the development o f the white-collar “factory.”4

Several obvious criticisms can be leveled at Braverman. For one thing, he probably has overestimated the degree of similarity between manual work and clerical work. For another, his preoccupation with control has led him to devote relatively little attention to the dynamics of economic exploitation in capitalism. Nonetheless, he has e n r i c h e d our understanding of the labor process in modern capitalist society (Foster, 1994; Meiksins, 1994).

4 It is important to note that Brave rm an's book was written before the boom in computer technology i n the office, especially the widespread use o f the word processor. It may be that such technology, requiring greater

skill and training than do older office technologies, will increase worker autonomy (Zuhoff, 1988).

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O th e r W ork on L a b o r a n d C apital The issue o f control is even more central to Richard Edwards (1979). To Edwards, control lies at the heart o f the twentieth-century transformation o f the workplace. Following Marx. Edwards sees the workplace, both past and present, as an arena o f class conflict, in his terms a "contested terrain.” Within this arena, dramatic changes have taken place in the way in which those at the top con­ trol those at the bottom. In nineteenth-century competitive capitalism, “simple" control was used, in which ‘‘bosses exercised power personally, intervening in the labor process often to exhort workers, bully and threaten them, reward good performance, hire and fire on the spot, favor loyal employees, and generally act as despots, benevolent or oth­ erwise” (Edwards, 1979:19). Although this system o f control continues in many small businesses, it has proved too crude for modem, large-scale organizations. In such orga­ nizations, simple control has tended to be replaced by impersonal and more sophisti­ cated technical and bureaucratic control. Modern workers can be controlled by the technologies with which they work. The classic example of this is the automobile as­ sembly line, in which the workers' actions are determined by the incessant demands of the line. Another example is the modern computer, which can keep careful track of how much work an employee does and how many mistakes he or she makes. Modem work­ ers also arc controlled by the impersonal ru les o f bureaucracies rather than the personal control o f supervisors. Capitalism is changing constantly, and with it the means by which workers are controlled.

Also o f note is the work o f Michael Burawoy (1979) and its interest in why workers in a capitalist system work so hard. He rejects Marx’s explanation that such hard work is a result o f coercion. The advent o f labor unions and other changes largely eliminated the arbitrary power o f management. “Coercion alone could no longer explain what workers did once they arrived on the shop floor” (Burawoy. 1979:xii). To Burawoy, workers, at least in part, consent to work hard in the capitalist system, and at least part of that consent is produced in the workplace.

We can illustrate Burawoy's approach with one aspect of his research, the games that workers play on the job and, more generally, the informal practices that they develop. Most analysts see these as workers' efforts to reduce alienation and other job-related dis­ content. In addition, they usually have been seen as social mechanisms that workers de­ velop to oppose management. In contrast, Burawoy concludes that these games “are usually neither independent nor in opposition to management" (1979:80). In fact, “man­ agement, at least at the lower levels, actually participates not only in the organization of the game but in the enforcement of its rules” (1979:80). Rather than challenging man­ agement. the organization, or, ultimately, the capitalist system, these games actually support them. For one thing, playing the game creates consent among the workers about th e rules on which the game is based and. more generally, about the system of social re­ lations (owner-manager-worker) that defines the rules of the game. For another, because managers and workers both are involved in the game, the system of antagonistic social relations to which the game was supposed to respond is obscured.

Burawoy argues that such methods of generating active cooperation and consent are far more effective in getting workers to cooperate in the pursuit of profit than is coercion (such as firing those who do not cooperate). In the end, Burawoy believes that games and other informal practices are all methods of getting workers to accept the system and

eliciting their contributions to ever higher profits.

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Fordism and Post-Fordism

One of the most recent concerns of economically oriented Marxists is the issue of whether we have witnessed, or are witnessing, a transition from "Fordism” to "post- Fordism” (Amin, 1994; Kiely, 1998). This concern is related to the broader issue of whether we have undergone a transition from a modem to a postmodern society (Gart­ man, 1998). We will discuss this larger issue in general (Chapter 13), as well a s the way in which it is addressed by contemporary Marxian theorists (later in this chapter). In general, Fordism is associated with the modem era, while post-Fordism is linked to the more recent, postmodern epoch. (The Marxian interest in Fordism is not new; G ra m sci [1971] published an essay on it in 1931.)

Fordism, of course, refers to the ideas, principles, and systems spawned by Henry Ford. Ford generally is credited with the development of the modem m a s s - p r o d u c t i o n system, primarily through the creation of the automobile assembly line. The fo llo w in g characteristics may be associated with Fordism;

• The mass production of homogeneous products. • The use of inflexible technologies such as the assembly line. • The adoption of standardized work routines (Taylorism). • Increases in productivity derived from “economies of scale as well as th e

deskilling, intensification and homogenization of labor” (Clarke, 1990:73). • The resulting rise of the mass worker and bureaucratized unions. • The negotiation by unions of uniform wages tied to increases in profits and

productivity. • The growth of a market for the homogenized products of mass-production indus­

tries and the resulting homogenization of consumption patterns. • A rise in wages, caused by unionization, leading to a growing demand for the in­

creasing supply of mass-produced products. • A market for products that is governed by Keynesian macroeconomic policies and

a market for labor that is handled by collective bargaining overseen by the state. • Mass educational institutions providing the mass workers required by industry

(Clarke, 1990:73).

While Fordism grew throughout the twentieth century, especially in the United States, it reached its peak and began to decline in the 1970s, especially after the oil cri­ sis of 1973 and the subsequent decline of the American automobile industry and the rise of its Japanese counterpart. As a result, it is argued that we are witnessing the decline o Fordism and the rise of post-Fordism, characterized by the following:

• A decline of interest in mass products is accompanied by a growth o f interest in more specialized products, especially those high in style and quality.

• More specialized products require shorter production runs, resulting in s m a lle r and more productive systems.

• More flexible production is made profitable by the advent o f new technologies. • New technologies require that workers, in turn, have more diverse skills and

ter training, more responsibility and greater autonomy. Production must be controlled through more flexible systems.

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Huge, inflexible bureaucracies need to be altered dramatically in order to operate more flexibly. Bureaucratized unions (and political parties) no longer adequately represent the in­ terests o f the new. highly differentiated labor force. Decentralized collective bargaining replaces centralized negotiations. The workers become more differentiated as people and require more differentiated commodities, lifestyles, and cultural outlets.

* The centralized welfare slate no longer can meet the needs (for example, health, welfare, education) of a diverse population, and differentiated, more flexible insti­ tutions are required (Clarke, 1990:73-74).

If one needed to sum up the shift from Fordism to post-Fordism, it would be de­ scribed as the transition from homogeneity to heterogeneity. There are two general is­ sues involved here. First, has a transition from Fordism to post-Fordism actually occurred (Pelaez and Holloway. 1990)? Second, does post-Fordism hold out the hope of solving the problems associated with Fordism?

First, o f course, there has been no clear historical break between Fordism and post- Fordism (S. Hall, 1988). Even if we are willing to acknowledge that elements of post- Fordism have emerged in the modern world, it is equally clear that elements of Fordism persist and show no signs of disappearing. For example, something we might call “Mc­ Donaldism,” a phenomenon that has many things in common with Fordism, is growing at an astounding pace in contemporary society. On the basis o f the model of the fast- food restaurant, more and more sectors of society are coming to utilize the principles of McDonaldism (Ritze r. 2000a). McDonaldism shares many characteristics with Fordism— homogeneous products, rigid technologies, standardized work routines, deskilling, homogenization of labor (and customer), the mass worker, homogenization of consumption, and so on. Thus, Fordism is alive and well in the modem world, al­ though it has been transmogrified into McDonaldism. Furthermore, classic Fordism— for example, in the form o f the assembly line—retains a significant presence in the American economy.

Second, even if we accept the idea that post-Fordism is with us, does it represent a solution to the problems of modern capitalist society? Some neo-Marxists (and many supporters of the capitalist system |Womack, Jones, and Roos, 1990]) hold out great hope for it: "Post-Fordism is mainly an expression of hope that future capitalist devel­ opment will be the salvation of social democracy" (Clarke, 1990:75). However, this is merely a hope, and in any case, there is already evidence that post-Fordism may not be the nirvana hoped for by some observers.

The Japanese model (tarnished by the precipitous decline of Japanese industry in the 1990s) is widely believed to be the basis o f post-Fordism. However, research on Japan­ ese industry (Satoshi, 1982) and on American industries utilizing Japanese management techniques (Parker and Slaughter, 1990) indicates that there are great problems with these systems and that they may even serve to heighten the level of exploitation o f the worker. Parker and Slaughter label the Japanese system as it is employed in the United States (and it is probably worse in Japan) “management by stress”: “The goal is to stretch the system like a rubber band on the point o f breaking (1990:33). Among other

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things, work is speeded up even further than on traditional American assembly lines, putting enormous strain on the workers, who need to labor heroically just to keep up with the line. More generally, Levidow describes the new, post-Fordist workers as " relent­ lessly pressurized to increase their productivity, often in return for lower real wages— be they factory workers, homeworkers in the rag trade, privatized service workers or even polytechnic lecturers” (1990:59). Thus, it may well be that rather than representing a so­ lution to the problems of capitalism, post-Fordism may simply be merely a new. more in­ sidious phase in the heightening of the exploitation of workers by capitalists.

HISTORICALLY ORIENTED MARXISM

Marxists oriented toward historical research argue that they are being true to the M arx­ ian concern for historicity. The most notable of Marx’s historical research was his study of precapitalist economic formations (1857-58/1964). There has been a good deal o f subsequent historical work from a Marxian perspective (for example, Amin. 1977; Dobb, 1964; Hobsbawm, 1965). In this section, we deal with a body o f work that re­ flects a historical orientation—Immanuel Wallerstein’s ( 1974. 1980. 1989. 1992. 1995: Chase-Dunn, 2001) research on the modem world-system.

The Modem World-System Wallerstein chose a unit of analysis unlike those used by most Marxian thinkers. He did not look at workers, classes, or even states, because he found most o f these to o n a r r o w for his purposes. Instead, he looked at a broad economic entity with a division o f labor that is not circumscribed by political or cultural boundaries. He found that unit in h is concept of the worl d-system, which is a largely self-contained social sy ste m w ith a set of boundaries and a definable life span; that is, it does not last forever. It is c o m p o s e d internally of a variety of social structures and member groups. However, W a lle rste in was not inclined to define the system in terms o f a consensus that holds it to g e th e r. Rather, he saw the system as held together by a variety o f forces that are in in h e re n t ten­ sion. These forces always have the potential for tearing the system apart.

Wallerstein argued that thus far we have had only two types o f world-systems. O n e is the world empire, of which ancient Rome is an example. The other is the modern cap­ italist world-economy. A world empire is based on political (and military) d o m in a tio n , whereas a capitalist world-economy relies on economic domination. A capitalist world- economy is seen as more stable than a world empire for several reasons. For one thing, it has a broader base, because it encompasses many states. For another, it has a built-in process o f economic stabilization. The separate political entities within the c a p ita lis t world-economy absorb whatever losses occur, while economic gain is distributed to pri­ vate hands. Wallerstein foresaw the possibility o f still a third world-system, a s o c ia list world government. Whereas the capitalist world-economy separates the political s e c to r from the economic sector, a socialist world-economy would reintegrate them.

The core geographical area dominates the capitalist world-economy and exploits the rest o f the system. The periphery consists of those areas that provide raw materials to the core and are heavily exploited by it. The semiperiphery is a residual category that

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encompasses a set o f regions somewhere between the exploiting and the exploited. The key point is that to Wallerstein the international division of exploitation is defined not by state borders but by the economic division o f labor in the world.

In the first volume on the world-system, Wallerstein (1974) dealt with the origin o f the world-system roughly between the years 1450 and 1640. The significance of this de­ velopment was the shift from political (and thus military) to economic dominance.

IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN: A B iographical S ketch

Although Immanuel Wallerstein achieved recognition in the 1960s a s an expert on Africa, his most important contribution to sociology is his book The Modem World- System (1974). That book was a n instant success. It h as received worldwide recogni­ tion and h a s been translated into ten lan­ guages and Braille.

Born on S eptem ber 28, 1930. Waller­ stein received all his degrees from Columbia University, including a doctorate in 1959. He next assum ed a position on the faculty at Columbia; after many years there and a five- year stint at McGill University in Montreal, Wallerstein becam e, in 1976, distinguished professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton.

Wallerstein w as awarded the prestigious Sorokin Award for the first volume of The Modem World-System in 1975. Since that time, he h a s continued to work on the topic and h a s produced a number of articles as well a s two additional volumes, in which he takes his analysis of the world-system up to

the 1840s. We can anticipate more work from Wallerstein on this issue in the coming years. He is in the process of producing a body of work that will attract attention for years to come.

In fact, in many ways the attention it al­ ready h as attracted and will continue to at­ tract is more important than the body of work itself. The concept of the world-system has become the focus of thought and research in sociology, an accomplishment to which few scholars can lay claim. Many of the sociolo­ gists now doing research and theorizing about the world-system are critical of Waller­ stein in one way or another, but they alt clearly recognize the important role he played in the genesis of their ideas.

Although the concept of the world- system is an important contribution, at least a s significant has been the role Wallerstein played in the revival of theoretically informed

t historical research. The most important work in the early years of sociology, by people such a s Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, was largely of this variety. However, in more re­ cent years, most sociologists have turned away from doing this kind of research and toward using ahistorical methods such as questionnaires and interviews. These meth­ ods are quicker and easier to use than his­ torical methods, and the data produced are easier to analyze with a computer. Use of such methods tends to require a narrow range of technical knowledge rather than a wide range of historically oriented knowl­ edge. Furthermore, theory plays a compara­ tively minor role in research utilizing questionnaires and interviews. Wallerstein has been in the forefront of those involved in a revival of interest in historical research with a strong theoretical base.

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Wallerstein saw economics as a far more efficient and less primitive means o f domina­ tion than politics. Political structures are very cumbersome, whereas economic ex­ ploitation “makes it possible to increase the flow o f the surplus from the lower strata to the upper strata, from the periphery to the center, from the majority to the minority” (Wallerstein, 1974:15). In the modern era, capitalism provided a basis for the growth and development of a world-economy; this has been accomplished without the aid o f a unified political structure. Capitalism can be seen as an economic alternative to politi­ cal domination. It is better able to produce economic surpluses than are the more prim­ itive techniques employed in political exploitation.

Wallerstein argued that three things were necessary for the rise o f the c a p ita list world-economy out of the “ruins” of feudalism; geographical expansion through e x p lo ­ ration and colonization, development of different methods of labor control for zones (for example, core, periphery) of the world-economy, and the development o f strong states that were to become the core states of the emerging capitalist world-economy. Let us look at each of these in turn.

Geographical Expansion Wallerstein argued that geographical expansion by na­ tions is a prerequisite for the other two stages. Portugal took the lead in overseas e x p lo ­ ration, and other European nations followed. Wallerstein was wary o f talking ab o u t specific countries or about Europe in general terms. He preferred to see o v e rse a s ex­ pansion as caused by a group of people acting in their immediate interests. Elite groups, such as nobles, needed overseas expansion for various reasons. For one thing, they w ere confronted with a nascent class war brought on by the crumbling o f the feudal economy. The slave trade provided them with a tractable labor force on which to build the capi­ talist economy. The expansion also provided them with various commodities needed to develop it—gold bullion, food, and raw materials of various types.

Worldwide Division of Labor Once the world had undergone geographical ex­ pansion, it was prepared for the next stage, the development o f a worldwide d iv isio n of labor. In the sixteenth century, capitalism replaced statism as the major mode o f domi­ nating the world, but capitalism did not develop uniformly around the world. In fact. Wallerstein argued, the solidarity of the capitalist system ultimately was based on its un­ equal development. Given his Marxian orientation, Wallerstein did not think o f this as a consensual equilibrium but rather as one that was laden with conflict from the begin­ ning. Different parts of the capitalist world-system came to specialize in specific functions—breeding labor power, growing food, providing raw materials, and organiz­ ing industry. Furthermore, different areas came to specialize in producing particular types of workers. For example, Africa produced slaves; western and southern E u ro p e had many peasant tenant-farmers; western Europe was also the center of wage workers, the ruling classes, and other skilled and supervisory personnel.

More generally, each of the three parts of the international division of labor tended to differ in terms of mode of labor control. The core had free labor, the periphery was char­ acterized by forced labor, and the semiperiphery was the heart of sharecropping. In fact, Wallerstein argued that the key to capitalism lies in a core dominated by a free labor market for skilled workers and a coercive labor market for less skilled w o rk e rs in

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peripheral areas. Such a combination is the essence o f capitalism. If a free labor market should develop throughout the world, we would have socialism.

Some regions o f the world begin with small initial advantages, which are used as the basis for developing greater advantages later on. The core area in the sixteenth century, primarily western Europe, rapidly extended its advantages as towns flourished, indus­ tries developed, and merchants became important, it also moved to extend its domain by developing a wider variety o f activities. At the same time, each o f its activities became more specialized in order to produce more efficiently. In contrast, the periphery stag­ nated and moved more toward what Wallerstein called a "monoculture,” or an undiffer­ entiated, single-focus society.

Development o f C ore States The third stage o f the development o f the world- system involved the political sector and how various economic groups used state struc­ tures to protect and advance their interests. Absolute monarchies arose in western Europe at about the same time that capitalism developed. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the states were the central economic actors in Europe, although the center later shifted to economic enterprises. The strong states in the core areas played a key role in the development o f capitalism and ultimately provided the economic base for their own demise. The European states strengthened themselves in the sixteenth century by. among other things, developing and enlarging bureaucratic systems and creating a monopoly of force in society, primarily by developing armies and legitimizing their activities so that they were assured o f internal stability. Whereas the states of the core zone developed strong political systems, the periphery developed correspondingly weak states.

L ater D evelopm ents In The Modern World-System II, Wallerstein (1980) picked up the story o f the consolidation of the world-economy between 1600 and 1750. This was not a period o f a significant expansion of the European world-economy, but there were a number o f significant changes within that system. For example, Wallerstein dis­ cussed the rise and subsequent decline in the core of the Netherlands. Later, he analyzed the conflict between two core states. England and France, as well as the ultimate victory of England. In the periphery, Wallerstein's detailed descriptions include the cyclical for­ tunes of Hispanic America. In the semiperiphery we witness, among other things, the decline o f Spain and the rise of Sweden. Wallerstein continued his historical analysis from a Marxian viewpoint of the various roles played by different societies within the division of tabor o f the world-economy. Although Wallerstein paid close attention to po­ litical and social factors, his main focus remained the role of economic factors in world history.

In a later work, Wallerstein (1989) brings his historical analysis up to the 1840s. Wallerstein looks at three great developments during the period from 1730 to the 1840s— the Industrial Revolution (primarily in England), the French Revolution, and the independence o f the once-European colonies in America. In his view, none of these were fundamental challenges to the world capitalist system; instead, they represented its further consolidation and entrenchment" (Wallerstein, 1989:256).

Wallerstein continues the story o f the struggle between England and France for dom­ inance o f the core. Whereas the world-economy had been stagnant during the prior

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period of analysis, it was now expanding, and Great Britain was able to industrialize more rapidly and come to dominate large-scale industries. This shift in domination to England occurred in spite of the fact that in the eighteenth century France had domi­ nated in the industrial realm. The French Revolution played an important role in the de­ velopment of the world capitalist system, especially by helping to bring the lingering cultural vestiges of feudalism to an end and by aligning the cultural-ideological system with economic and political realities. However, the revolution served to inhibit the in­ dustrial development of France, as did the ensuing Napoleonic rules and wars. By the end of this period, “Britain was finally truly hegemonic in the world-system” ( Waller­ stein, 1989:122).

The period between 1750 and 1850 was marked by the incorporation o f vast new zones (the subcontinent of India, the Ottoman and Russian empires, and West Africa) into the periphery of the world-economy. These zones had been part of what W allerstein calls the “external area” of the world-system and thus had been linked to, but were not in, that system. External zones are those from which the capitalist w o rld -e c o n o m y wanted goods but which were able to resist the reciprocal importation o f manufactured goods from the core nations. As a result of the incorporation of these external zo n es, countries adjacent to the once-external nations also were drawn into the w o rld -sy ste m . Thus, the incorporation of India contributed to China’s becoming part o f the periphery. By the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, the pace o f in­ corporation had quickened, and “the entire globe, even those regions that had n e v e r been part even of the external area of the capitalist world-economy were pulled inside (Wallerstein, 1989:129).

The pressure for incorporation into the world-economy comes not from the nations being incorporated but “rather from the need of the world-economy to expand its bound­ aries, a need which was itself the outcome of pressures internal to the world-economy (Wallerstein, 1989:129). Furthermore, the process of incorporation is not an abrupt process but one which occurs gradually.

Reflecting his Marxian focus on economics, Wallerstein (1989:170) argues that b e­ coming part of the world-economy “necessarily” means that the political structures of the involved nations must become part o f the interstate system. Thus, states in incorpo­ rated zones must transform themselves into part of that interstate political system, b e re­ placed by new political forms willing to accept this role, or be taken over by states that already are part of that political system. The states that emerge at the end of the process of incorporation not only must be part of the interstate system but also must be strong enough to protect their economies from external interference. However, they must not be too strong; that is, they must not become powerful enough to be able to refuse to act in accord with the dictates of the capitalist world-economy.

Finally, Wallerstein examines the decolonization of the Americas between 1750 an d 1850. That is, he details the fact that the Americas freed themselves from the control o f Great Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal. That decolonization, especially in the U nited States, was, of course, to have great consequences for later developments in the world capitalist system.

W orld-System Theory Today Marxists have criticized the world-system p e rsp e c ­ tive for its failure to emphasize relations between social classes adequately (B erg eso n ,

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1984). From their point o f view. Wallerstein focuses on the wrong issue. To Marxists the key is not the core-periphery international division of labor but rather class relationships within given societies. Bergeson seeks to reconcile these positions by arguing that there are strengths and weaknesses on both sides. His middle-ground position is that core- periphery relations are not only unequal exchange relations but also global class rela­ tions. His key point is that core-periphery relations are important, not only as exchange relations, as Wallerstein argues, but also, and more importantly, as power-dependence relationships, that is. class relationships. More recently, world-system theorists have pushed the theory forward to deal with the world today and in the coming years (Chase- Dunn. 2001; Wallerstein. 1992; Wallerstein. 1999) as well as backward to before the modern era (Chase-Dunn and Hall, 1994).

NEO-MARXIAN SPATIAL ANALYSIS

Categorization o f neo-Marxian theories, indeed ail theories, is somewhat arbitrary. That is made clear here by the fact that the work on world systems discussed in the previous section under the heading "Neo-Marxian Economic Sociology" also could be discussed in this section. For example, the idea o f the world system is. among other things, inher­ ently spatial, concerned with the global differentiation of the world economy. Work on the world-system is part o f a broader body of work that involves a number of notable contributions by neo-Marxian theorists to our understanding o f space and its role in the social world. And this is only part o f a broader resurgence o f interest in space in sociol­ ogy (Gieryn, 2000) and social theory. In this section we will deal with several of the leading contributions to this area in which neo-Marxists have been in the forefront.5

A starting point for the growth in interest in space in neo-Marxian theory (and else­ where) is the work o f Michel Foucault (see Chapter 13). who pointed out that many the­ ories, but especially Marxian theories, had privileged time over space: "This devaluation of space that has prevailed for generations . . . . Space was treated as the dead, the fixed, the undialectical, the immobile. Time, on the contrary, was richness, fecundity, life, di­ alectic” (Foucault, 1980b:70). The implication is that space should, along with time, be given its due and treated as rich, fecund, alive, and dialectical. While the focus may have been on time (and history) in the past. Foucault (1986:22) contends. “The present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space." In fact, as we will see in Chapter 13, Fou­ cault offers a number of important insights into space in his discussion of such topics as the “carceral archipelago” and the Panopticon.

Re flective o f categorization problems is the fact that at least one major contribution to the theory of space that can be seen as neo-M arxian— Fredric Jam eson's (1984. 1994) work on “hyperspace"— is discussed else­

where in this book under the heading o f postmodern theory (see Chapter 13). Furthermore, additional impor­ tant contributions on space have em anated from still other theoretical roots and will be discussed at yet other points in this book. For exam ple. Anthony Giddens's very important ideas on space (and time), distanciation,

and so on, will be discussed in C hapter 12.