An inconvenient truth — history.
However, capitalism, alone or chiefly, cannot be blamed. Historical development is a dialectical process with many inputs and a variety of factors that "could have been different." But they weren't different for a variety of reasons, some economic, some social, and some political , that occurred with bourgeois liberalization. The transition away from monarchy and feudalism influenced historical events not only through individual choices but also shaped it through changes in culture, tradition and institutions, as well as habit structure. This process began in the Renaissance, and a great deal of path dependence was involved, bringing along much of the past while reshaping it.
A lot of the unforeseeable emergence was due to reflexivity, e. g., learning, and innovation, e.g., discovery and invention. Harnessing new forms of energy, first steam power driven by wood and coal and then the introduction of petroleum as a fuel wrought exponential change, as did the proliferation of electrical power. As the cost of energy decline and energy became more available and easily transportable, the industrial revolution was born and with it modern capitalism.
These factors and influences converged to produce the currently dominant regime of bourgeois liberalism. Capitalism is an economic manifestation; representative democracy, a political manifestation, and a ruling propertied class, a social one. These combined to create modernism and modern society. Yet, empire and colonialism persisted, and they continue as neo-imperialism and neocolonialism.
Just as the ancient world gave way to the medieval and the medieval to the modern; so too, modernity is in the process of undergoing the transition from modernity to postmodernity. What this transition will bring is still in process and cannot be foreseen other than dimly. Radicals cheer it on, while reactionaries are aghast.
Postmodernism involves deconstructing the narrative of the past that it deems to be skewed and attempts to expose as such The fact that a new history of capitalism lis being written laying bare the historical foundations rooted in violence and exploitation portends change in the economic sphere that will have far-reaching effects in the social and political spheres as well. As a consequence of recent events, Marxian socio-economic analysis is suddenly experiencing a resurgence only shortly after most considered his influence on the wane if not over with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transition of China to market-based economy. So is interest in Karl Polanyi and other non-Marxist critiques that challenge the dominant socio-economic paradigm based on bourgeois liberalism manifesting as modern capitalism and propertarianism.
Conversely, technological innovation is rendering dependence on violence and expropriation in the economic sphere less and less necessary as technology increasing has the potential to increase productivity exponentially, greatly reducing the need for human brawn. Just as animals were replaced by machine, whose capacity is still measured in horsepower as reminder; so too, humans are beginning to be replaced by "disruptive technology," in the form of automation and robotics, for example. The "relations of production appropriate to the material forces of production," as Marx put, are shifting with these new capabilities, making a new order possible and perhaps inevitable if Marx's analysis holds.
However, this drastic innovation also makes many humans dispensable. This increases the opportunity for leisure and extension of freedom, but it also raises the issue of whether further violence will be used to cull the population of useless mouths to feed, or whether a new era of ruling and servant class symbiosis will reappear.
Much to think about.
Occasional Links & Commentary
Economics and the new history of capitalism
David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame
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