Stages of transition

from peasant societies to market societies

Vectoral Chronosophy

Werner Sombart 1863-1941

• Modern Capitalism, 3 vols, 1902-27 • Compares demand oriented and acquisition

oritented types of economies3 stages of economic systems

1. Individual Economies: total demand of an economic entity is produced within this entity

2. Transition Economies: partial demand of an economic entity is provided from other economic entities (partial acquisition)

3. Capitalist Economies: productive societies are differentiated on a world scale level and depend totally on each others

Walt Whitman Rostow, 1916-

• 1960 Stages of Economic Growth

5 development stages of societies

1. Traditional societies

2. Transition societies

3. Period of economic take-off

4. Industrial stage

5. Mass consumers societies

Karl Polanyi 1886-1964

• 1944 The GREAT TRANSFORMATION– CRITIQUE on the idea of the self regulating

market (=SRM) by Adam Smith (1723-1790)– The SRM was „the fount and matrix of the

system,“ the „innovation which gave rise to a specific civilization.“

• Karl Polanyi 1944: The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of our Time. (Boston: Beacon Press 1957: p3)

Transformation

• humans• land/ nature

• human labour force• means of production

Market organization of economic activity is thenatural state of human affairs

CREATION OF LATE 18th AND EARLY 19th century BRITISH THOUGHT

The idea of the dominance of markets

The market organiszation is the very organization of human life

At markets • capital • goods • labour forces

are visible as well as paid services

Activities of Subsistence Commodities

• Eating • Healing• Learning• Housing

• ACITIVITIES

• Nutrition• Medicine• Schools• Accommodation

• NEEDS

Unpaid reproductive activites?

• informal work

• child work

• illegal work

• homework

• subsistence work = peasant‘s work

Market Societies

• Originated from the practice of the ENCLOSURE OF THE COMMONS

• The market economy has expanded primarily by enabling state and commercial interests to gain control of territory that has traditionally used and cherished by others, and by transforming that territory – together with the people themselves – into expandable RESOURCES OF EXPLOTATION

Establishment of the Global Economy Establishment of the Global Economy

Global Economy had to Global Economy had to established simoultaneouslyestablished simoultaneously

• In the

CENTERS

• In the

PERIPHERIES

COMMODIFICATION COLONIALIZATION

Target of this new global Economy (= World System)

Continued Accumulation of Capital

All results of human work are converted into commodities

= COMMODIFICATION

Continued submission of all life spheres to the the new order of production of commodities

COMMODIFICATION (Karl Marx)

• Definition – „In Marxist political economy, commodification

takes place when economic value is assigned to something that traditionally would not be considered in economic terms, for example, an idea, identity, gender.“ (wikipedia)

Before 1400 land and work were not considered to be commodities.

Process of Enclosure in the Center (Britain)

1235 Statute of MertonNecessity „to approve“ (=improve) landIn order to increase the profit share of land lords

• system of „open-field“ = communally managed strips of arable land

• Commons: pastures, heathland (Heide), swamp (Moore), forests •Nutzungs-Rechte: estovers (fuelwood)

turbary (peat cutting = Torfstechen) pannage (turning pigs into the wood)

Development as Enclosuresin the Center -- accelerating in the

19th century

land-lords engaged and gained importance in the expansion processesPrivatization of land, commons and rights of use

Modernization of Agriculture

PEASANTS day-laborer in extending farms day-laborer in the manufactures migration into zones of capitalist production

(mirgartion into cities)

SEMIPROLETARIZATIONSEMIPROLETARIZATION

Development as Enclosuresat the Periphery

• Dispossession: standard practice was to declare all “uncultivated” land to be the property of the colonial administration

• Forced Labor: In the early years of colonial rule, indigenous labor could only be recruited by force.

• Taxed into the market by building up a cash economy: To meet their tax obligations, rural people had to sell their labor or to grow crops for sale

Center

Periphery

Periphery

Periphery

Center

Periphery within the Centers

Periphery within the Centers

Periphery is a social category

e.g. all people who cannot effort a living wage partly excluded from the market

Sugar boiling-house in the 19th century capitalist mode of production

The iceberg-model of formal economy

Market oriented activities: capital and wage labor

Informal work and services

Subsistence work by peasants

Household work Colonies

Nature

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