>Yoshie Furuhashi said on Wed Dec 06 2000:
>
>> Weber committed an irredeemable intellectual crime of putting the cart
>> before the horse: he essentially argued that capitalist rationality
>> caused capitalism.
>
>No. Weber argued the opposite, that cultural rationalism did not cause
>capitalism. If it did, he argued, it would have broken out first in
>Renaissance Italy or France, both far more rational as cultures than
>Reformation England.
Weber was indeed a much subtler thinker than his second-rate followers who merely make use of the most indefensibly racist part of his assumptions to explain the so-called "European miracle":
***** It might thus seem that the development of the spirit of capitalism is best understood as part of the development of rationalism as a whole, and could be deduced from the fundamental position of rationalism on the basic problems of life. In the process Protestantism would only have to be considered in so far as it had formed a stage prior to the development of a purely rationalistic philosophy. But any serious attempt to carry this thesis through makes it evident that such a simple way of putting the question will not work, simply because of the fact that the history of rationalism shows a development which by no means follows parallel lines in the various departments of life. The rationalization of private law, for instance, if it is thought of as a logical simplification and rearrangement of the content of the law, was achieved in the highest hitherto known degree in the Roman law of late antiquity. But it remained most backward in some of the countries with the highest degree of economic rationalization, notably in England, where the Renaissance of Roman Law was overcome by the power of the great legal corporations, while it has always retained its supremacy in the Catholic countries of Southern Europe. The worldly rational philosophy of the eighteenth century did not find favour alone or even principally in the countries of highest capitalistic development. The doctrines of Voltaire are even to-day the common property of broad upper, and what is practically more important, middle-class groups in the Romance Catholic countries. Finally, if under practical rationalism is understood the type of attitude which sees and judges the world consciously in terms of the worldly interests of the individual ego, then this view of life was and is the special peculiarity of the peoples of the liberal arbitration, such as the Italians and the French are in very flesh and blood. But we have already convinced ourselves that this is by no means the soil in which that relationship of a man to his calling as a task, which is necessary to capitalism, has preeminently grown. In fact, one may -- this simple proposition, which is often forgotten, should be placed at the beginning of every study which essays to deal with rationalism -- rationalize life from fundamentally different basic points of view and in very different directions. Rationalism is an historical concept which covers a whole world of different things. It will be our task to find out whose intellectual child the particular concrete form of rational thought was, from which the idea of a calling and the devotion to labour in the calling has grown, which is, as we have seen, so irrational from the standpoint of purely eudamonistic self-interest, but which has been and still is one of the most characteristic elements of our capitalistic culture. We are here particularly interested in the origin of precisely the irrational element which lies in this, as in every conception of a calling. (_The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism_) *****
Weber wanted, through the clarification of "a calling," to explain the "irrational element" that drives M-C-M', accumulation for the sake of accumulation: "In fact, the superior good of this ethic, the earning of more and more money, combined with the strict avoidance of all spontaneous enjoyment of life, is above all completely devoid of any eudaemonistic, not to say hedonistic, admixture. It is thought of so purely as an end in itself, that from the point of view of the happiness of, or utility to, the single individual, it appears entirely transcendental and absolutely irrational. Man is dominated by the making of money, by acquisition as the ultimate purpose of his life. Economic acquisition is no longer subordinated to man as the means for the satisfaction of his material needs. This reversal of what we should call the natural relationship, so irrational from a naive point of view, is evidently as definitely a leading principle of capitalism as it is foreign to all peoples not under capitalistic influence" (_The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism_).
I do not disagree with Weber on _this_ part of his thought at all. However, he made the above distinction _within_ "Europe" while at the same time making an _ahistorical_ distinction between "West" & "non-West" -- the former cast as "rational" & the latter "irrational" or "less rational" -- in such a way that he assimilated "societies before capitalism" to the capitalist world. Hence his erroneous assimilation of Thucydides to the "West" -- the same error that Edward Said commits later -- that I mentioned in an earlier post. That Weber's false abstraction "Western Civilization" appears plausible to many of us owes itself to not only the rise of capitalism but also to the nineteenth-century revisionist thought on ancient Greece (until then, it was commonly accepted that the origins of Greek civilization lied in Egypt & Phoenicia, or so Martin Bernal argues; in contrast, Andre Gunder Frank says that "the roots of Athens were much more in Asia Minor, Persia, Central Asia and other parts of Asia than in Egypt and Nubia" [at <http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Frank.A_Gunder/reorient-intro.html>]).
> > Capitalist rationality was, of course, a _result_ of capitalism
>
>Weber completely agrees.
Not quite. As Frank Parkin argues below, Weber oscillates between the strong and the weak thesis:
***** Parkin suggests that Weber has two thesis which he never clearly distinguishes, what Parkin calls the 'strong' and the 'weak' thesis. The 'strong' thesis is that Calvinism caused capitalism, the weak thesis is that Calvinism did not (like other religions) obstruct the development of capitalism. The strong thesis is that when a certain change occurred in the realm of religious thought, that brought into being the capitalist economic system. The weak thesis is that there were already causes at work which did in the end produce capitalism, but that they were obstructed by certain religious ideas, until the change in religious thinking removed the obstacle.
There is another possible interpretation of his thesis: that while capitalism was not brought into being by religious ideas but by other causes that were present already, Calvinism did provide a legitimation for this development (see Parkin, p.59). On this interpretation Calvinism was not just religion getting out of the way, but religion helping a development it had not originated, by 'legitimating' the work of the other causes. Admittedly, 'legitimation' is the removal of an obstacle, namely of objections that the thing is not legitimate; but it can go beyond that, to call for an attitude of positive approval and assistance.
There is also another distinction to be made: between a 'one-phase' causal relationship, and feedback. (These are not technical terms -- I'm inventing them now!) By a 'one-phase' relationship I mean that A causes B, or B causes A, and that is it. Sometimes it is said that 'each reciprocally causes the other', but this is what I call feedback: A > B > A' > B' >A" > B". In the second phase B reacts on A to transform it into something rather different, A', which in the third phase transforms B into B', and so on. Perhaps this is the interaction of capitalism and religion: it may be difficult to know on which side the process began, but each progressively transformed the other: perhaps the transformation was the reinforcement or strengthening of capitalism and the corruption or weakening of Protestantism. Indeed by the 19th century Protestantism in Germany had become a convenient support for other social institutions, not a critic or a threat, a shadow of its former self.
If the relationship was one of mutual or reciprocal influence, or feedback, then neither the 'superstructure' nor the 'base' was the originator of social change. We have rather the sort of thing Mill envisages, 'consensus', but apparently without any 'central chain'.
<http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/politics/y64l10.html> *****
Naturally, I do not accept Weber's strong thesis. Is the weak thesis then compatible with Marx's account? It may appear so to some, but as I have explained in the following post, I do not subscribe to the notion that capitalism was _bound_ to arise _once obstacles (in the case of Weber's theory, cultural obstacles) were removed_. Nor do I find "interactionism" attractive.
***** Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 04:35:49 -0500 To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> Subject: Capitalism = Fetters on "Growth"? (was Re: Beyond the Summary of Nader analysis)
From James Heartfield to John Gulick:
><jlgulick at sfo.com> writes
>>How about a program of zero economic growth ?
>
>With a considerable part of the world mired in poverty, zero economic
>growth seems like a convenient way for the affluent West to secure its
>own economic advantage for all time.
That is true, James, to the extent that neoliberalism has been a program of slow growth for all (with a possible exception of some sectors of rich nations, esp. the USA) and de-industrialization & de-modernization for many (especially for many ex-socialist citizens as well as those under the harshest regimens of the SAPs).
>The problem with capitalism is not that it grows too fast, but that it
>puts chains on the further development of the forces of production.
Does capitalism put "chains on the further development of the forces of production"? In what sense?
Some thoughts on so-called "fetters":
1. One might argue, as Ellen Wood (drawing on Robert Brenner, Karl Polanyi, etc.) does, that the dialectic of forces of production and relations of production (with the latter acting as fetters for the former) is one unique to the capitalist mode of production, with its logic of M-C-M' which entails market compulsion to innovation (do or die, prosper or go bankrupt) & creative destruction; this dialectic is not useful for explaining, for instance, the transition from feudalism to capitalism -- nor should it predominate an emancipated future under socialism.
2. Does "the further development of the forces of production" equal "economic growth"? The former must be equated with the latter only under capitalism, it seems to me. For instance, under capitalism, rates of productivity growth have to outpace rises in wages, in order for capitalists to make profits while buying off an important section of the international working class. Such concerns will be meaningless under socialism. If we get to abolish capitalism, I think we'll be able to rethink "the further development of the forces of production" in qualitative, not quantitative, terms. Instead of being slaves to "more" in the abstract, we'll know the meanings of "enough," "different," "beautiful," etc. in the "fullness of time." If we want "more" of some (though not all) goods & services under socialism, it will be because of _our conscious & collective decision_, not because of subjection to M-C-M'.
3. Under capitalism, there will always be a relative surplus population (not surplus to the mythical "carrying capacity" of the earth, but surplus to the requirements of capitalist production). Under capitalism, the majority of women in the world cannot emancipate themselves, facing, among others, barriers against achieving full control of their reproductive destiny. Hence the sterile debate between heirs of Malthus & Condorcet. Hence the so-called "population" problems. Hence the need for constant & compulsive growth. Under socialism, we can move beyond the Malthus-Condorcet debate, so no need for compulsion to grow, grow, grow.
Workers of the world, unite, & take it easy....
Yoshie *****
For further elaboration of the above, please read Ellen Wood, _The Origin of Capitalism_, NY: Monthly Review Press, 1999.
>He argued that race was
>entirely socially constructed. He defined it as "a politically effective
>belief in a common ancestry" and maintained that no such division had ever
>been made where one could not find people outside the group who had more
>of the ancestry in question than people inside the group. And he argued
>that race was fundamentally political and historical, because there was no
>ethnic division that did not originate in a political event, such as a
>tribal division, a war of conquest or a large-scale emmigration.
>
>See Economy and Society, Vol. 1, p. 385, "V. Ethnic Groups."
Yes, but here lies the difference between "social constructionism" and historical materialism. What the former thinks of as "historical," the latter see as ahistorical. One of the problems of "social constructionists" is that they can't see the difference. Please read (or reread) the _Grundrisse_ & _Capital_, paying attention to Marx's explanation of "rational abstraction."
Yoshie