Culture, Capitalism and Globalization
Course Instructor: Dr. Geoff Kennedy Email: [email protected] Office: PLC 347 Phone: (541) 346-2544
Course Description
Over the last several centuries a specific culture or "way of life" centering on the expansion of trade and markets, the escalation of mass consumption and the growing belief that material features are the key indicators of wellbeing has emerged in the West and spread wildly across the globe. As is widely acknowledged and celebrated, this "culture of capitalism" has seen a great many successes and witnessed scores of amazing achievements. Tremendous technological advances have been made, exceptional riches have been acquired, and breakthroughs in science and the arts have been truly remarkable. At the same time, however, the growth of the culture of capitalism has been accompanied by the appearance and expansion of some of the most disturbing problems facing the global community. Alongside its many accomplishments, the culture of capitalism has been associated with unprecedented scales of social and economic inequality, environmental degradation, human rights abuses, deadly disease, poverty and conflict. However, as insiders within this "way of life," we typically have a hard time seeing and appreciating the significance of these less successful elements of our shared culture.
In this class we will draw on key lessons of the anthropological tradition in order to develop an outsider's perspective on the culture of capitalism. Using a combined cultural and historical approach this course explores the development of the culture of capitalism and explores the connections between this culture and a suite of contemporary global problems. By adopting a critical perspective that approaches capitalism as a cultural phenomenon with a particular place in the span of human history we will be better able to appreciate its uniqueness.
Learning Outcomes
- A historical understanding of the unique nature of capitalism as a socio- economic form of organization in economic, social and cultural terms - A historical and empirically based understanding of the mutual interaction between culture and capitalism - An understanding of key concepts pertaining to the understanding of the dynamics of capitalist development
Course Requirements TBA
Readings and Texts There are no textbooks for this course. Readings will be made available either on blackboard or at the reserve desk at the library.
Course Website: The course site will provide you with copies of an assortment of course documents, including a copy of this syllabus, lecture notes, and readings. Phones and Laptops: While in class, it is expected that all students will turn off their phones. While laptops can be used, current academic research has demonstrated that students who rely on laptops in class do not retain as much information as students who do not use laptops. In other words, contrary to what you may have been told in high school, laptops are NOT a helpful pedagogical tool. Given that all lectures will be posted on the blackboard, it is strongly recommended that students refrain from using their laptops as much as possible.
Cheating and Academic Dishonesty All assignments in this class are designed to assess your individual knowledge and understanding of the material covered in the course. Thus, cheating or plagiarism - in any form - will not be tolerated. The work you present must be entirely your own. All individuals involved in an act of academic dishonesty will fail the course.
Discrimination The University of Oregon is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity institution. Discrimination on the basis of any of the categories covered in the University's anti- discrimination policy will not be tolerated in this class. If you have a concern in this regard, please contact the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity at 346- 3123. Special Needs If you have a condition that inhibits learning or evaluation under customary circumstances, please request a letter from Disability Services that verifies your situation and states the accommodations that can be made to improve your learning environment.
Lecture Schedule
1. Introduction: Themes and requirements of the course
I. The Making of Capitalism
Week 1: Conceptualizing the Market This lecture will focus on three issues. First, it will introduce students to the themes and requirements of the course. Secondly, it will begin by examining some of the key concepts that will be explored throughout the course: namely, culture, globalization and capitalism. Lastly, it will conclude by insisting on the importance of historicizing our understanding of capitalism in order to understand the uniqueness of capitalist ‘culture’ in an era of globalization.
Essential Readings: Ellen Meiksins Wood, ‘From Opportunity to Imperative: The History of the Market,’ Monthly Review 1994. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, chapters 4 and 5
Week 2: Embedded Markets and Social Relations This lecture will continue to examine the relationship between markets as spheres of economic production and exchange, and the broader context of social relations in which they have historically developed. This includes understanding the ways in which processes of production and exchange were ‘embedded’ within social and moral relationships that were oriented to communal and ‘non-economic’ ends.
Essential Readings: Ellen Meiksins Wood, ‘Commerce or Capitalism?’ in The Origin of Capitalism Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, chapters 4 and 5
Week 3: The Culture of Accumulation: ‘Improvement’ and the ‘Spirit’ of Capitalism This lecture will discuss the culture of ‘accumulation’ that is specific to capitalism. Situating this cultural change within a broader historical context, we will look at the changing attitudes towards property and wealth acquisition characteristic of capitalist development. Emphasis will be placed on the competing characterizations put forward by Marx and Weber.
Essential Readings Aristotle, Politics, 1256a1-1258a18 (excerpt on property and wealth acquisition) Karl Marx, Capital, pp. 725-746. Max Weber, ‘The Spirit of Capitalism,’ in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Supplementary Readings: John Locke, ‘On Property,’ in part two of the Two Treatises of Government Benjamin Franklin, Advice to a Young Tradesman Written by an Old One
Week 4: Time, Labour and Work Discipline The development of capitalism has fundamentally changed human attitudes towards time and labor. This lecture will explore changing views on labor – with an emphasis on the historical evolution of attitudes towards ‘free’ and ‘unfree’ labor – and examine the struggles over the organization of the labor process that shaped our current views on the workday.
Essential Readings: Richard Robbins, ‘The Laborer in the Culture of Capitalism,’ in Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism 6/e Frederick Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (first 21 pages of chapter 2)
Week 5: From Citizen to Consumer: Capitalism, Rationality, and the Making of Homo Economicus This lecture examines the historically unique character of ‘consumer’ society by juxtaposing the fundamental attitudes of modern, consumer society with attitudes prevalent in pre-capitalist societies. Emphasis will be placed on the historical evolution of ancient notions of the citizen (man as a ‘political animal’) to the modern construction of man as an ‘economic animal’ (homo economicus). Lastly, this lecture will look at the deliberate creation of a consumer creation as both a means of social control as well as a means of stimulating capital accumulation.
Essential Readings: Stuart Ewen, Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of Consumer Culture, part I, chs. 1-3 (on reserve at the library).
II. The Era of Globalization
Week 6: Global Capitalism and the Culture of Work By 2007, for the first time in human history, over half of the world’s population are now living in cities. This represents a significant and sustained increase in the non- agricultural workforce worldwide. This increase in ‘proletarianization’ has not, however, merely resulted in a replication of patterns of work and forms of employment characteristic of the ‘advanced’ capitalist countries of the post-war period. Rather, it has been characterized by a number of different phenomena: the persistence of informal labor in the Global South; the rise of ‘casual’ labor in the ‘advanced’ capitalist world; and the proliferation of unfree labor (slave, indentured and sweated labor) across the globe. This lecture will examine the changing culture of work in the context of globalizing capitalism in the 21st century.
Essential Readings: Ronaldo Munck, Globalization and Labour: The New Great Transformation, chapters 4 and 5. Guy Standing, The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, chapter 1.
Week 7: Financialization: Wealth, Value, Risk and … Debt This lecture examines the changing position of finance in Western societies. From pariah to pillar of the community, the money-lender or banker has come to occupy a position of increasing dominance in modern capitalism. This rehabilitation required a significant change in cultural attitudes towards usury and debt, as well as changing attitudes towards an understanding of how wealth and prosperity is created in society.
Essential Readings: David McNally, ‘Financial Chaos: Money, Credit and Instability in Late Capitalism,’ in Global Slump (2010). Paul Dembinski, ‘The Financial Worldview,’ in Finance: Servant or Deceiver? Financialization at the Crossroads (2009).
Week 8: The Nature of Commodification and the Commodification of Nature This lecture explores the relationship between the growth dynamic of capitalism and the development of a modern attitude towards the ‘domination’ of nature. Emphasis will be placed on distinguishing between Enlightenment attitudes that empower man to control his environment and a capitalist mentality that views nature as a source of profit.
Essential Readings: John Barry, ‘The Role of the environment historically within social theory,’ in Environment and Social Theory, 2/e. David Harvey, ‘The Domination of Nature and its Discontents,’ in Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference.
Week 9: The Political Economy and Culture of Food The origins of capitalism lay not in commerce, but in the agricultural production of food. While on the one hand, this agricultural revolution entailed the production of an increasing surplus of food, over the course of the past century, food has become subjected to a process of increasing industrialization. This lecture explores the evolution of food production (and consumption) under modern capitalism and touches upon a number of issues including the rise of the fast food industry, GMOs and land dispossession in the Global South.
Essential Readings: Robert Albritton, Let them Eat Junk, chapters 4 & 6.
Week 10: Review