57 Varieties of Capitalism

Last October I developed a table in what was probably the most important post of the year – one in a series about capitalism. The table listed 11 academic disciplines; showed how 3 “schools” of thinking could be discerned in each discipline; and how they tended to treat the subject.

The key variable distinguishing these schools was the extent to which they recognised the realities of power. I named them “market theoreticians”; “mixed” and “critical-realist” respectively.

The subsequent matrix produced 33 different “lens” with which to try to understand the system which rules over us with Minotaur-like voraciousness. I was proud of the result – I had never seen it done before. Of course there was a school of political economists which developed in the 1980s and 90s called the Varieties of Capitalism approach – but this focused on essentially two basic models. 

My matrix is distinctive in 3 ways – first that so many academic fields are listed. At best people will mention economics, sociology and political science – with little recognition that economics has several very different sub-fields. And I might have added “complexity science” which has rapidly developed its own specialism.

The second original aspect of the table is the recognition of three very different “schools” or approaches…Most economists, of course, still adhere to highly theoretical and unrealistic assumptions which were explored (and exploded) in this recent post

But political and behavioural economists – let alone the sociologists, geographers and even psychologists have been muscling in….Indeed I have had to add the psychologists to the table…giving 36 "lens" or squares

And the final distinctive aspect of the table is the identification of so many books – almost 50 covering most of squares…
I have selected the books which appear in the table according to whether they portray a world of “perfect competition” in which, according to the theory, no one has any power or, at the other extreme, a world of large companies and groups exercising power (legal and illegal). 

We are prone these days to use ideological labels too easily – so I want to avoid that by using less obvious labels.

- “Market theoreticians” (column 3) are those whose writing is based on the totally unrealistic assumptions of perfect competition

“Mixed economy” therefore covers those who clearly argue for what used to be called “the mixed economy” and are quite clear that they wish a better, more balanced capitalism;

- The “critical-realist” label covers those who go further in their critical approach, extending their analysis to the role exercised by dubious and illegitimate power players who try to buy democracy and whose activities threaten the planet’s very survival.

Some academic disciplines, of course, like economics, are almost exclusively associated with one school (market) whereas others are more pluralist 

Needless to say, the allocation to one particular column is arbitrary and could be disputed – as can the choice of illustrative authors and books (not all of which I have actually read)

The table is, however, a rather superb example of what post-modernism has done to us – which I will explore in a subsequent post   

The table is, however, a good example of what post-modernism has done to us

 Key Texts about the future of capitalism – by academic discipline and “approach”

 

Academic Discipline	1. Critical-Realist	2. Mixed approach	3. “market theoreticians”
Economics	Debt and Neo-Feudalism; Michael Hudson (2012)  Credo – economic beliefs in a world of crisis; Brian Davey (2015). Davey is not a career or conventional economist!   23 Things they didn’t tell you about capitalism; Ha Joon-Chang (2010)	People, Power and Profits – progressive capitalism for an age of discontent; Joseph Stiglitz (2019) The Future of Capitalism – facing new anxieties; Paul Collier (2018) Shifts and Shocks – what we’ve learned, and still have to, from the financial crisis; Martin Wolf (2014) Conceptualising Capitalism – institutions, evolution, future; Geoff Hodgson (2015)	Why Globalisation Works; Martin Wolf (2004)     most of the discipline
Economic history	Capitalism and its Economics – a critical History; Douglas Dowd (2000) Never Let a Good Crisis go to waste; Philip Mirowski  (2013)	Crashed – how a decade of financial crises changed the world Adam Tooze (2018)	Economic historians by definition have a strong sense of political and other institutions
Political economy	Inside Capitalism – an intro to political economy; Paul Phillips (2003) Susan Strange - States and Markets (1988) - Casino Capitalism ; (1986) - The Retreat of the State (1994)	Austerity – the history of a dangerous idea; Mark Blyth (2013) Yanis Varoufakis - And the Weak Suffer what they must – Europe, austerity and the threat to global stability (2016) - The Global Minotaur (2012)	The discipline still rediscovering itself but, again, by definition, has a strong sense of the importance of institutions
Political Science	Crisis without End - the unravelling of western prosperity: A Gamble (2014)  Democracy Incorporated – managed democracy and the spectre of inverted totalitarianism; Sheldon Wolin (2008)	Paul Hirst eg Revisiting Associative Democracy; ed Westall (2011).  The Great Disruption – human nature and the reconstitution of social order; Francis Fukuyama (1999)  Mammon’s Kingdom – an essay on Britain, Now; David Marquand (2015)	Only a few brave pol scientists trespass into the economic field – although it is becoming more fashionable
Policy analysis/Think Tanks		“The Locust and the Bee – predators and creators in capitalism’s future”; G Mulgan (2015)	An Intro to Capitalism (IEA 2018)
Sociology	Wolfgang Streeck. - How will Capitalism End?; (2016) - Buying Time – the delayed crisis of democratic capitalism (2013) End of capitalism? Michael Mann (2013) Capitalism; Geoff Ingham (2008)	Vampire Capitalism – fractured societies and alternative futures; Paul Kennedy (2017)	The sociological voice is still inspired by C Wright Mills, Veblen, Weber and Durkheim
Geography	David Harvey - Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism (2014) - The Enigma of Capital (2010) - A Brief History of Neo-Liberalism (2005).	Danny Dorling - A Better Politics – how government can make us happier (2016 - Injustice (2014)	The geographers are a bolshie lot - with a strong sense of geo-politics
Environment	Come On! Capitalism, short-termism, population and the destruction of the planet; (Club of Rome 2018).	Why we can’t agree about Climate Change; Mike Hulme (2009) Natural Capitalism – the next industrial revolution; Paul Hawken (1999)	they pride themselves on their technocracy
Management and man’t studies	“The Dictionary of Alternatives – utopianism and organisation”; M Parker (2007)	Rebalancing Society; Henry Mintzberg (2014) Peter Senge Charles Handy	Most mant writers are apologists – apart from the critical mant theorists
Religious studies	Laudato-Si – Pope Francis’ Encyclical (2015). Accessible in its entirety here	The Crisis of global capitalism – Pope Benedict XVI’s social encyclical and the future of political economy; ed A Pabst (2011)	Questions of Business Life; Higginson (2002)
Psychology	Herbert Marcuse What about me – the struggle for identity in a market based society?; Paul Verhaeghe (2014)
Journalism	Post Capitalism – a guide to our Future; Paul Mason (2015) ….  The Capitalism Papers – Fatal Flaws of an Obsolete System; Jerry Mander (2012).	How Good Can we be – ending the mercenary society Will Hutton (2015)  Capitalism 3.0 Peter Barnes (2006)	They don’t enjoy the tenure of the academics (altho Hutton is a college Director)

Time of year

I don’t normally like this time of year. It is, bluntly, when I am at risk (if in Christendom) of dipping (like a lot of others) into the depression zone – so much emphasis on families (difficult when you have made a mess of that), bright lights and selling. Twenty years ago I could put some of this down to the darkness (in north Europe they invented a useful term - sensory affective disorder (S.A.D. to explain how dreich some of us felt) And, certainly for most of the past 20 years, the exotic locations in which I have often passed this time of year have kept my spirits high – particularly when there were no celebrations taking place (Central Asia). But a small flat in Bucharest can get a bit claustrophobic – and some downs have been experienced during this artificial season. But not now that I am in semi-retirement; financially secure (absent bank meltdowns); and pursuing my own intellectual agenda, I can better enjoy the excuse the period offers to be in relaxed mode. This afternoon a visit to the Carteresti bookshop netted a wonderful new book on the Wooden Churches of Northern Olteniei; and JM Coetze’s Inner Workings – literary essay 200-2006. The latter has quite a few reviews of central European writers of the first part of the 20th century – and confirmed my fascination for this general part of the world – what was the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
In the past couple of days my glossary (including introduction) is now 10 pages – and boasts the title Just Words? Reclaiming the language of social purpose. At the moment I am wrestling with post-modernism. I suppose if post-modernists have done anything, they have made us more aware of language. After all, they spend their time deconstructing texts! And they have been active in the field of public administration – Postmodern Public Administration (2007), is one taken at random. The trouble is that they play so many word games amongst themselves that what they produce is generally incomprehensible to the outsider. Despite their critiques and claims, therefore, I do not consider them helpful companions.
Before the post-modernists came along, M Edelman’s book The Symbolic Use of Politics was published in 1964 but then ignored – not least by myself. I have never found Chomsky an easy companion – but clearly books like his Language and politics (1988) are highly relevant to this theme. One of the most insightful texts for me, however, is Gareth Morgan’s Images of Organisation - a fascinating treatment of the writing about organisations which demonstrates that many of our ideas about them are metaphorical : he suggests the literature uses eight "images" viz organisations as "political systems", as "instruments of domination", as "cultures", as "machines", as "organisms", as "brains", as "psychic prisons", as "flux and transformation" and as "instruments of domination".