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Book Review: the Capitalist Revolution: Fifty Propositions About Prosperity, Equality, and Liberty

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Book Review: the Capitalist Revolution: Fifty Propositions About Prosperity, Equality, and Liberty Craig Calhoun Book review: the capitalist revolution: fifty propositions about prosperity, equality, and liberty. by Peter Berger Article (Published version) (Refereed) Original citation: Calhoun, Craig (1988) Book review: the capitalist revolution: fifty propositions about prosperity, equality, and liberty. by Peter Berger. American journal of sociology, 94 (3). pp. 666-669. ISSN 0002-9602 © 1988 University of Chicago Press This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/42196/ Available in LSE Research Online: November 2012 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. The Capitalist Revolution: Fifty Propositions About Prosperity, Equality, and Liberty. by Peter Berger Review by: Craig Calhoun American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 94, No. 3 (Nov., 1988), pp. 666-669 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2780265 . Accessed: 23/11/2012 11:57 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Journal of Sociology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.66 on Fri, 23 Nov 2012 11:57:29 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions AmericanJournal of Sociology The CapitalistRevolution: Fifty Propositions about Prosperity, Equality, and Liberty. By Peter Berger. New York: Basic, 1986. Pp. v+272. $17.95. Craig Calhoun Universityof North Carolina-Chapel Hill My departmentchairman is a greatbeliever in Churchill'snotion that not to be a socialistwhen one is youngshows lack of heartbut stillto be one in middleage showslack ofbrain. He sees thisvindicated in thecareers of neoconservativessuch as Daniel Bell and SeymourMartin Lipset and looks eagerlyfor signs that I may soon followtheir lead. When Robert Heilbronner'sfavorable review of The CapitalistRevolution appeared in ContemporarySociology, he quicklysought me out to show me (as he believed) that anotherleftist had come to his senses. Only a few days later,I acceptedthis review assignment. I am pleased to reportthat one does not have to be conservativeto findmerit in eitherPeter Berger's book or capitalismitself. Karl Marx, of course,considered capitalism the mostadvanced, pro- gressiveeconomic system the world had ever seen (and managed to re- main both brilliantand a socialistwell past middle age). Peter Berger does not attemptto constructa theoryas completeas Marx's. Rather,he proposesto "adumbrate"an eventualtheory of capitalismby layingout and clarifying50 propositionsthat he believesare supportedby empirical work. Perhaps a thirdof Berger'spropositions need neithersurprise nor troublea Marxist:that industrialcapitalism has generatedthe greatest productivepower in human history(PROPOSITION 1) is bothwhat Marx claimed and what mostWestern Marxists would grant,I think,after 70 yearsof putativesocialism in the SovietUnion, EasternEurope, and the Third World. About anotherthird of Berger'spropositions cause more troubleto Marxistanalyses, though Marxists differ in the subtletyand success of theirresponses to these difficulties.Berger is rightthat ad- vanced industrialcapitalism has generated,and continuesto generate, the highestmaterial standard of living for large masses of people in humanhistory (PROPOSITION 5). Moreover,there has notappeared so far any clear trendtoward eitherrelative or absolute immiserationof the workingclass in capitalistsocieties, though levels of inequalityare cer- tainlyhigh. Some Marxists(and othercritics of capitalism)ignore the evidenceof this;others incorporate it intoconvoluted efforts to maintain orthodoxy;still othersrecognize that historyhas dealt tellingblows to certainof Marx's politicaland economicpredictions but has hardlyin- validated all of his criticaltheory of capitalism. Remarkably,Peter Bergershows littleawareness in this book of the wide rangeof analyseson the Left;Marxism is trivializedas a foilfor his procapitalistarguments. To exemplify"neo-Marxist" sociological studies of stratification,Berger uses a book by Cromptonand Gubbay, with a 666 This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.66 on Fri, 23 Nov 2012 11:57:29 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Book Reviews singlepassing reference to Poulantzasand no mentionof Wright.Ernest Mandel and ImmanuelWallerstein are not giventhe opportunityto in- formBerger's chapter devoted to demolishingdependency theory (though Wallersteinrates a citationless,substanceless mention; the omission is all the more remarkablegiven that Berger makes directclaims that anti- capitalisttheorists have ignoredthe success of East Asian capitalism, which both Mandel and Wallersteinhave addressed). Habermas is granteda footnoteof joint dismissalwith Daniel Bell as a sponsorof the idea (a myth,says Berger)of a legitimationcrisis in moderncapitalism. In general,Berger offers very weak citationsin supportof verystrong claims. It is pointlessto dwell on his arbitraryuse of the scholarlylitera- ture,however, for this book is not mainlyintended for scholars. Rather, it is the effortof a public intellectual(something I do in factthink it is good to be) to put forwardan essentiallypolitical argument that draws support(intellectual as well as rhetorical)from more genuinely scholarly work (includingsome of Berger'sown). It is morestylish and generally betterthan most of its socialist counterparts; intellectually serious Marxist theoryis veryseldom presented in any formother than the most academ- ically arcane. As a socialist,this book gives me a good deal to think about, and in Berger the neoconservativemovement finds a far more intellectuallyworthy representative than George Gilder. But as a sociolo- gist,I learned a good deal less fromThe CapitalistRevolution (though considerablymore than nothing) and foundit disconcertinghow oftenthe politicalpurpose of the book dominatedthe analytic.Although Berger is a muchbetter writer and thinker,the ratio of scholarshipand analysisto ideologyis moretypical of Szymanskithan of Wallerstein; Berger is more comparableto Proudhonthan to Marx. This bringsup thefinal third of Berger's 50 propositions,the ones I find dubious. Most are not so much wrong as predicatedon arbitraryor prejudgmentaldefinitions. In what he presentsas a fairand balanced, descriptivebut not evaluative, empiricalcomparison of capitalismand socialism,the latter term is restrictedto self-proclaimedcommunist coun- tries. On this basis, comparisonof the policies and practicalresults of socialistand capitalistgovernments in WesternEurope is excluded,and PROPOSITION 43 finds"an intrinsiclinkage betweensocialism and au- thoritariangovernance." Berger takes stateplanning as so integralto the idea of socialismthat he assertsthat "the term'market socialism' is not meaningfultheoretically-a societydominated by marketmechanisms would not usefullybe called socialist" (p. 174). In general,socialism versuscapitalism is takento be a matterof categorical,either/or distinc- tion, not a continuum.The FrankfurtSchool analysisof Soviet "state capitalism"and otherMarxist critiquesof "actuallyexisting socialism" are neglected. There are some othersurprising assertions. For example,Berger ap- parentlyconsiders Latin Americato be partof the"non-Western world": "It is worthnoting that, following the end ofdictatorial regimes in Spain, 667 This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.66 on Fri, 23 Nov 2012 11:57:29 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions AmericanJournal of Sociology Portugal, and Greece, all the cases of non-democraticcapitalism are found (at the time of writing)in the non-Westernworld" (p. 82). Or, "capitalismis an economicsystem and nothingelse (bycontrast, socialism is a comprehensiveview of human society)"(p. 206). This quotationis part of Berger'seffort to explainwhy socialismis a powerfulmyth, while capitalismsuffers "mythic deprivation." Berger does not, however,consider the distinctionbetween mythic legitimation for the capitaliststatus quo (of which the contemporaryUnited States offersplenty of examples, starting with Horatio Alger stories) and mythic motivationfor adherence to a movementagainst the statusquo (where socialismmay indeedhave an edge). Similarly,Berger argues (familiarly) that"the socialist project in itselfcontains a totalitariantendency, since it necessarilyprecludes the autonomyof the economicsector of societyvis- a-vis the politicalstructure" (p. 84) but does notnote how the watersare muddiedby the tendencyof economicconsiderations to exertcontrolling
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