How to study contemporary societies andthe crisis: decommodification and socialinnovation.
September 5th, 2015. Expo Graduate Seminar onsustainable development
Enzo Mingione,
Università di Milano-Bicocca
Selected bibliographical references (*= highly recommended;
° = digital Pdf copies available):
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Arrighi, G. 1994. The long twentieth century: Money, power and the origins of our times. London: Verso.
*°Arrighi, G. 2009, Postscript to the second edition of The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and theOrigins of Our Times London: Verso.
*°Boyer R, 2011, Are there Laws of Motion of Capitalism? Socio-Economic Review, 9: 59-81.
°Burawoy, M. (2010) From Polanyi to Pollyanna: The False Optimism of Global Labor
Studies, Global Labour Journal: Vol. 1: Issue 2, p. 301-313.
°Crouch, C. 2009, Privatised Keynesianism. An unacknowledged policy regime. British Journal of Politicsand International Relations, 11: 382-399.
Crouch, C. 2011, The Strange Non-death of Neoliberalism, Cambridge: Polity Press. Trad. It: Il Potere deiGiganti, Laterza: Bari e Roma, 2012.
Crouch, C. 2013, Making Capitalism Fit for Society, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Della Porta, D. 2015, Social Movements in Times of Austerity, Cambridge; Polity Press.
Emmenegger P. et al., eds, 2012, The Age of Dualization. The Changing Face of Inequalities inDeindustrializing Countries, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Esping-Andersen G. 1990, The Three Word of Welfare Capitalism, Cambridge Polity Press.
Evers, A. and Guillemard A.M., 2013, Introduction: Marshall’s Concept of Citizenship and ContemporaryWelfare Reconfiguration, in Evers, A. and Guillemard A.M. (eds) Social Policy and Citizenship, Oxford,Oxford University Press, pp. 3-34.
*Fraser, N, 2014, Can society be commodities all the way down? Post-Polanyian reflections on capitalistcrisis, Economy and Society, Volume 43 Number 4: 541–558.
Gallie D. 2013, ed., Economic Crisis, Quality of Work, & Social Integration. The European Experience,Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harvey D. 2014, The Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, London: Profile Books.
Krippner G. R. 2011, Capitalizing on Crisis. The political Origin s of the Rise of Finance, Cambridge (Ma):Harvard University Press.
La Touche S., 2009, Farewell to Growth, Bristol: Polity Press.
Selected references 2
Mahoney J. and Theleen K. eds, 2010, Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency and Power,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mazzucato M., 2013, The Entrepreneurial State. Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths, London andNew York: Anthem Press.
Mingione E. 1998 Sociologia della vita economica, Roma: Carocci.
Moretti E., 2012, The New Geography of Jobs, New York: Houghton Mufflin Harcour. Italian edition: 2013,La nuova geografia del lavoro, Milano: Mondadori.
Morgan G. & Whitley R., eds, 2012, Capitalisms and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century, Oxford:Oxford University Press.
Piketty, T., 2013, Le capital au XXIe siècle, Paris : Seuil. (English version): 2014, Capital in the Twenty-firstCentury, Harvard: Belknap.
*Polanyi, K. 1944 The great transformation: The political and economic origins of our times. Boston:Beacon Press.
*Polanyi, K. 1957 The economy as instituted process. K. Polanyi, C.M. Arensberg and H.W. Pearson (eds),Trade and market in the early empires: Economies in history and theory, New York: Free Press. 243-70.
Selected References 3
Selected References 4
Sassen, S. (2014) Expulsions. Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy, Cambridge Mass. andLondon: Harvard University Press.
Stiglitz, J., 2012, The Price of Inequality, London: Allen Lane.
Streeck, W. (2011), “Taking Capitalism Seriously: Towards an Institutional Approach to ContemporaryPolitical Economy”, Socio-Economic Review, 9 (1), pp. 137-167
*Streeck, W. (2012), “How to Study Contemporary Capitalism?”, Archives Européennes de Sociologie, LIII,1 , pp. 1–28.
*Streeck, W. (2014), “How Will Capitalism End?”, New Left Review 87, pp. 35-64.
Streeck, W. (2014), Buying Time. The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, London and New York:Verso.
Tilly C and L.J. Wood (2009), Social Movements, 1768-2008, New York: Paradigm.
Thomasberger C., (2014): Europe at a Crossroads: Failed Ideas, Fictional Facts, and Fatal Consequences,Forum for Social Economics, London: Routledge: 1-22.
Welzel C. 2013, Freedom Rising: Human Empowerment and the Quest for Emancipation, New York:Cambridge University Press.
Important recommendations to interpretcontemporary social questions
1.Take into account the dynamic aspects of societies.
2.Take into account the global frame: the diversity between the North and theSouth and the dynamic interconnections between the two.
3.Market diffusion is an emancipation process (from traditional forms of domination:kinship, community, clan, tribe, religious groups) but opens new tensions (deficit ofsocial protection). And not in all cases (see the following point).
4.Commodification without emancipation has been typical of capitalist colonizationand post-colonization. The traditional oppressive institutions have been used bycolonizers and by global capitalism to maintain control.
5.The institutional redistributive responses to modernization are featured by tensionsdue to bureaucratization, political domination, waste of resources, discriminationand exclusion processes.
6.The combination between the diversity of commodification pressures and thedifferences in the institutional transformation make the specific case diversified(variety of capitalisms and more).
1. An interpretation frame centred on the double movement: thedestruction disembedding) and reconstruction (riembedding) of socialbonds produced by commodification as the dynamic of capitalism.
2. The emancipation impact of commodification and the role of theemancipation movements in the industrializing countries.
3. The apparent disappearance of the double movement in the GoldenAge of welfare capitalism: high growth and expansion of socialprotection at the expenses of unequal exchange and the oppression ofunderdeveloped countries (commodification without emancipationand colonial or imperial violence).
4. The present age of the double movement: commodification withoutemancipation, decommodification, social inequalities and the declineof social protection and Marshallian rights. Globalization andeconomic crisis: the debate on the end of capitalism (doublemovement).
The logical itinerary of the presentation.
Towards a long period of uncertain, caotic,controversial decay of capitalism
Streeck 2014 “How Will Capitalism End?” NLR 87:
“The demise of capitalism … is unlikely to followanyone’s blueprint. As the decay progresses, it isbound to provoke political protests and manifoldattempts at collective intervention. But for a long time,these are likely to remain of the Luddite sort: local,dispersed, uncoordinated, ‘primitive’—adding to thedisorder while unable to create a new order, at bestunintentionally helping it to come about.”
The contemporary profile of global financial capitalism:commodification without emancipation?
The progressive weakening and exhaustion of emancipation potentials creates tensionsbut we have to consider the remaining emancipation attraction of capitalism.
The interconnection between financialization and bureaucratic/ political oppression isenforcing economic and social inequalities and giving rise to conflicts, resilience andopposition (the impact of mass communication techniques on mobilization andorganization of populist and anticapitalist movements)
A very uncertain period dominated by a combination of the decline of the doublemovement (see later) and other contrasting dynamics (social movements, innovationexperiences, new forms of solidarity and community organizations, commons, thereinforcement of indigenous modernized organizations, etc.).
The controversial impact of decommodification processes.
Diverging trends in the global south (see the case studies proposed by PavelLopez) and in the global north (social innovation, the commons, etc.) in term ofcommodification and decommodification, resistance and opposition,emancipation and oppression.
Methodological frame of analysis based on capitalism as acommodification force: the process of destruction andreconstruction of social bonds and social relations.
Long and short
termpath-dependency
features usedin
adaptation
Social
institutions
transformations
and persistence
Impact of the
marketizationwave
at particular
points in history
The 3 areas of
institution building:
Reciprocity
Redistribution
Market cooperation
Great regimetransformations
versus
Continuous moreor less importantadaptations
Mobilization ofemancipationmovements
Non istantaneous
istantaneous
The main points of the double movementinterpretation
1.Give the priority to the understanding of the dynamic aspects over the diversityof capitalism.
2.Commodification as a process that dismantle the traditional social bonds(disembedding). From this point of view it may be a powerful form ofemancipation from traditional institutions and forms of oppression.
3.The process of reconstructing social bonds – riembedding as a simultaneouscounter trend – is important in order to explain social change and behaviour interms of agency.
4.The institutional building is creating new forms of domination: the political andbureaucratic traps (Weber) are particularly evident now.
5.The commodification process producing new levels of individualism in theindustrializing countries is favoring the formation of emancipation anddemocratization movements (Nancy Fraser but not a third part of the doublemovement because it is not simultaneous).
6.Commodification without emancipation (in the colonial and underdevelopedcountries) is imposed and supported by high levels of domination violence.
Why and how we use the concept of capitalism toexplain contemporary global situation and crisis.
1.Capitalism is a social historical system dynamic and centred oncommodification/ individualization processes.
2.The crisis is endemic in capitalism for reasons centred on the doublemovement of change: disembeddedness versus ri-embeddedness. Thetensions between the promotion/diffusion of markets and the necessity toregulate markets (protect people, environnment, social bonds frommarkets).
3.The over-production and under-consumption internal tensions of capitalism.The new dangers of the finantialization responses to capitalist difficulties.
4.The use of the double movement to understand historical dynamism and thediversity of capitalism.
5.The question of nation state and democracy in the construction of modernitybeyond the western experience.
The economic crisis and the debate on the end ofcapitalism / end of the double movement
1)Commodification without emancipation (or even better againstemancipation) is problematic if it is not accompanied by a very highdegree of violence and oppression (colonialism, slavery, imperialism).
2)The re-embeddedness process are becoming extremely problematic interms of producing protection and defending public interests ascontrasted by austerity policies, bureaucratic, political and financialappropriation of resources.
3)The countertendencies of decommodification are weakening thedouble movement in its very disembedding capacities.
4)The emancipation and democratization movements are becoming lessand less compatible with the commodification part of the doublemovement.
The trends of change towardsfragmented individualized societies
Tendences
1.Individualization
2.Destandardization
3.Fragmentation of thewelfare risks.
1.Innovations of welfare in order to produce morearticulated and more efficient protections: local,active, social investments. Empowering initiativesand solidarity forms of decommodification.
2.Decline of public responsibility. Austerity, cuts in thepublic expenses and services, privatization,competition, new management.
Increase in the social andterritorial inequalities. Deficit inthe social citizenship rights.Discriminations against weak orless mobilized groups.
Tensionsbetweenprotectionrights andcuts/austerity
The tensions of the double movement in theindustrialized countries
Alter the impact of commodification:
Social responsibility of firms
Direct relations between consumption and production
Time banks and solidarity exchanges
Social economies
Empower disadvantaged unrepresented populations:
Communication and information networks
Representation and participation initiatives
Social mobilization against bureaucratization andfincialization