Capitalism

For example, in formulating the protestant ethic thesis (often read as an alternative to Marxist accounts of the rise of capitalism ), Weber was explicitly building upon earlier theories of capitalism and of money propounded by Werner Sombart and Georg Simmel.

Next Bell turned his attention to the unresolved tension between capitalism and morality.

Looking at the intersection of race, class, and gender, Ortner's recent research has focused not only on the question of the attainability of the so-called American dream, but how patriarchy and racism intersect with capitalism, and how these intersections are both experienced and represented.

Streeck posits that the 2008 crisis marked the victory of the Marktvolk, leading to the emergence of the "Consolidation State", prioritized with austerity and shielding the economy from mass democratic demands.

Instead of seeing capitalism as a liberatory defeat of feudalism, Federici interprets the ascent of capitalism as a reactionary move to subvert the rising tide of communalism and to retain the basic social contract.

Her central thesis was that capitalism, as a closed system, could not realise the surplus value it generated and was therefore dependent on a constant expansion into non-capitalist economies and social strata for its survival and accumulation.

For Proudhon, as he wrote in the sixth study of his General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, the capitalist's employee was "subordinated, exploited: his permanent condition is one of obedience".

In his 1885 book Our Differences, Plekhanov elaborated on these ideas, presenting a detailed Marxist analysis of Russian social and economic conditions and a critique of the populist program, asserting that Russia had already entered the path of capitalist development.

He argued that the development of the credit system, cartels, and an improved world market had given capitalism greater adaptability and flexibility, making general crises "less and less probable".

Rather, Bookchin felt that our environmental predicament is the result of the cancerous logic of capitalism, a system aimed at maximizing profit instead of enriching human lives: "By the very logic of its grow-or-die imperative, capitalism may well be producing ecological crises that gravely imperil the integrity of life on this planet.

In Jameson's view, postmodernity's merging of all discourse into an undifferentiated whole was the result of the colonization of the cultural sphere-which had retained at least partial autonomy during the prior modernist era-by a newly organized corporate capitalism.

It makes a contribution to Marxist theory by arguing that capitalism annihilates space to ensure its own reproduction.

Bordiga's writings on the perceived capitalist nature of the Soviet economy in contrast to those produced by the Trotskyists also focused on the agrarian sector.

While privately acknowledging the need for practical reforms, he insisted that the party's revolutionary goal-the Kladderadatsch, or great collapse of capitalism-was essential for its identity and unity.

He held to his concept of a "workers' democracy" as a modified phase of capitalist development, arguing that Russia was not yet ripe for socialism.

Writing in the context of the highly cartelized economy of late Austria-Hungary, Hilferding contrasted monopolistic finance capitalism to the earlier, "competitive" and "buccaneering" capitalism of the earlier liberal era.

His late capitalism was late in the sense of delayed rather than near-death.

Her simultaneous study of the Russian economy and of Marx's early writings (later known as the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844), led to her theory that not only was the USSR a "state capitalist" society, but that "state capitalism" was a new world stage.

He came to see the historical workers' movement as inherently reformist, arguing that the working class's struggles had only served to further its integration into the capitalist community.

Arguing that Nazi Germany was like the Soviet Union a command economy based on technological rationality, he advanced the view that state capitalism had emerged as a stable, efficient, politically neutral solution to the crises of monopoly capitalism.

Without revolutionizing everyday life, capitalism would continue to diminish the quality of everyday life, and inhibit real self-expression.

He defended the principles of revolutionary spontaneity, autonomy, diversity, self-determination and direct action, and advocated for the violent overthrow of the state and capitalism through propaganda of the deed.

Mattick engaged in debates with Max Nomad over the role of intellectuals and the nature of state capitalism in Russia and fascist Germany.

Additionally, Foster has worked to expand Sweezy and Baran's theory of monopoly capital in light of the current financially led phase of capitalism, which he terms "monopoly-finance Capital.

This position also includes a sharp criticism of the international role of the Soviet Union whose politics of development Bettelheim saw as just another variant of capitalist accumulation models.

While class conflict is integral to capitalist society, there is no teleology that guarantees the emergence of the working class as the universal class and no ontology that justifies denial of the multiple bases of modern society represented by capitalism, industrialism, bureaucratisation, surveillance and industrialisation of warfare.

Weber saw capitalism as a result of the Protestant secularization of work ethic and morality in amassing wealth, which Berger integrates into his analysis about the effects of losing the non-secular foundations for belief about life's ultimate meaning.

Contrary to affirmative theories of modernization and capitalism, Wallerstein did not conceive of these differences as mere residues or irregularities that can and will be overcome as the system evolves.

When using a Marxist analysis of capitalism within this sex/gender system, the exclusion of women from the system of exchange establishes men as the capitalists and women as their commodities fit for exchange.

His major works include On Justification: Economies of Worth (1991), co-authored with Thévenot, and The New Spirit of Capitalism (1999), co-authored with sociologist Ève Chiapello, which examines changes in capitalist management and ideology from the 1960s onward.

Ève Chiapello (born 1965) is professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), Paris, where she holds a chair in the "sociology of the transformation of capitalism".

In his book Antagonistics: Capitalism and Power in an Age of War (2009), Balakrishnan analyzed the global political economy and the geopolitical dynamics of contemporary capitalism.

Michael Burawoy (; 15 June 1947-3 February 2025) was an American sociologist who worked within Marxist social theory, best known as the leading proponent of public sociology and the author of Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process Under Monopoly Capitalism-a study on the sociology of industry that has been translated into a number of languages.

In a 1972 book, Strukturprobleme des kapitalistischen Staates, he analysed the structural problems caused by the internal contradictions of the capitalist state, keeping an intellectual independence from Marxist dogmas.

While a member of the Frankfurt School, Marcuse developed a model for critical social theory, created a theory of the new stage of state and monopoly capitalism, described the relationships between philosophy, social theory, and cultural criticism, and provided an analysis and critique of German Nazism.

His work in political economy examines changing varieties of capitalism, emerging economies, and global power shifts.

Unlike orthodox Marxists, Berardi's autonomist theories draw on psychoanalysis, schizoanalysis and communication theory to show how subjectivity and desire are bound up with the functioning of the capitalist system, rather than portraying events such as the 2008 financial crisis merely as an example of the inherently contradictory logic of capitalist accumulation.

Among Kidron's many writings were Western Capitalism Since the War and Capitalism and Theory (1968).

Tsing follows its international journey in order to give the reader insight into the mushroom's complex commodity chain connecting to meditations on capitalism.

His trilogy on the origins and transformations of global capitalism began in 1994 with a book that reinterpreted the evolution of capitalism, The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times.

Perhaps his most notable work is Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America.

Adorno argued that capitalism had become more entrenched by attacking the objective basis of revolutionary consciousness and liquidating the individualism that had underpinned critical consciousness.

In other words, Fraser asserts that too much of a focus on identity politics diverts attention from the deleterious effects of neoliberal capitalism and the growing wealth inequality that characterizes many societies.

He criticized both the capitalism of the West and the dictatorial communism of the Eastern Bloc for the lack of autonomy allowed to individuals by both types of governmental structure.

He is widely known as a critic of capitalism and imperialism.

He also writes that capitalism tends to make people self-centered and focus on profits, rather than work on the scientific and civilizational progress of mankind.

He applies this model to human history, analyzing the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and modern capitalist society, and to the history of the socialist movement.

He has made contributions in the areas of modern French labor, social, cultural and political history, the history of capitalism, and social and cultural theory.

Today, "Capitalism needs us to keep on spending at ever-increasing levels to be and remain capitalism." As with several of Ritzer's other principal works, many are translated into languages as diverse as Chinese, Russian, Persian, Hebrew and Portuguese.

Callinicos was a critic of the humanitarian interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, arguing that they were conducted solely to promote the global capitalist expansion.

Gill argued that US hegemony was reasserted during the 1980s, paving the way for neoliberal capitalism to expand globally in the 1990s under US leadership.

Described as "one of the foremost political philosophers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries" by Monthly Review, Mészáros wrote mainly about the possibility of a transition from capitalism to socialism.

Lenin, Antonio Gramsci, and Frantz Fanon, Azfar Hussain in his interdisciplinary work examines how such global systems as capitalism, imperialism/colonialism, racism, and patriarchy work in their interconnections, and how they affect the practice of everyday life both locally and globally, both economically and culturally, and he focuses on the ideas of revolutionary politics and radical social transformation.

Laclau's early work was influenced by Althusserian Marxism and focused on issues debated within Neo-Marxist circles in the 1970s, such as the role of the state, the dynamics of capitalism, the importance of building popular movements, and the possibility of revolution.

Castoriadis was particularly influential in the turn of the intellectual left during the 1950s against the Soviet Union, because he argued that the Soviet Union was not a communist but rather a bureaucratic capitalist state, which contrasted with Western powers mostly by virtue of its centralized power apparatus.

The manifesto is also an important feminist critique of capitalism by revealing how men have exploited women's reproduction labor, providing a barrier for women to reach full equality in the labor market.

His experiences and studying of Marxism-Leninism led him to posit that the Third World's underdevelopment and dependence was an intrinsic result of imperialism, neocolonialism, and monopoly capitalism, with the only remedies being proletarian internationalism and world revolution.

Fromm's critique of the modern political order and capitalist system led him to seek insights from medieval feudalism.

He thus predicted that even after the war, the new system of state capitalism would replace that of finance capitalism even though the destruction of the forces of production would cease.

Advancing a materialist theory of reason and society, Horkheimer analyzed the rise of instrumental reason, the erosion of the concept of truth, the decline of individual autonomy, the social-psychological roots of authoritarianism, and the reproduction of domination under modern capitalism.