Capitalism After Postmodernism: Neo-Conservatism, Legitimacy and the Theory of Public Capital (International Comparative Social Studies)

323 Pages·2002·16.66 MB·English

by  Hugh T. Wilson

CAPITALISM AFTER POSTMODERNISM
INTERNATIONAL COMPARATIVE
SOCIAL STUDIES
EDITORIAL BOARD
DUANE ALWIN, Ann Arbor, USA - WIL ARTS, Tilburg, The Netherlands
MATTEI DOGAN, Paris, France - S.N. EISENSTADT, Jerusalem, Israel
JOHAN GALTUNG, Versonnex, France - LINDA HANTRAIS, Loughborough, UK
JIM KLUEGEL, Urbana-Champaign, USA
CHAN KWOK BUN, Hongkong, China - FRANK LECHNER, Atlanta, USA
RON LESTHAEGHE, Brussels, Belgium - OLA LISTHAUG, Trondheim, Norway
RUBIN PATTERSON, Toledo, USA - EUGENE ROOSENS, Leuven, Belgium
MASAMICHI SASAKI, Tokyo, Japan - SASKIA SASSEN, New York, USA
JOHN RUNDELL, Melbourne, Australia - Lrw VISANO, Toronto, Canada
BERND WEGENER, Berlin, Germany - JOCK YOUNG, London, UK
VOLUME V
CAPITALISM AFTER
POSTMODERNISM
Neo-conservatism, Legitimacy and the Theory of Public Capital
BY
H.T. WILSON
BRILL
LEIDEN • BOSTON • KOLN
2002
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wilson, H.T.
Capitalism after postmodernism : Neo-conservatism, Legitimacy and
the Theory of Public Capital / by H.T. Wilson.
p. cm. — (International comparative social studies, ISSN 1568-
4474; 5)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 9004124586 (alk. paper)
1. Capitalism. I. Title. II. Series.
HB501 .H567 2001
330.12'2—dc21 2002019573
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufhahme
Wilson, Hall T. :
Capitalism after postmodernism : Neo-conservatism, Legitimacy and the
Theory of Public Capital / by H. T. Wilson. - Leiden ; Boston; Koln :
Brill, 2002
(International comparative social studies ; Vol. 5)
ISBN 90-04-12458-6
ISSN 1568-4474
ISBN 9004124586
© Copyright 2002 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
Cover design by Thorsten's Celine Ostendorf
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
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PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS
For Rudolf Meidner
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CONTENTS
Preface xi
1 Introduction 1
2 Capitalism and Legitimacy 10
3 Legitimacy and Capitalism 25
4 Sovereignty and Legitimacy 43
5 Capitalism and Democracy 65
6 What the People Do for Capitalism 89
7 Property, Capital and Society 115
8 Public Capital and its Co-optation 140
9 The Public Debt: We Win, You Lose 166
10 Privatization: Hypocrisy Triumphant 195
11 Free Trade: The Supreme Illusion 224
12 Legitimation Crisis? 253
13 Capitalism after Postmodernism 273
Index of Names 293
Index of Subjects 299
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For the common people had believed that he would bring about a
complete redistribution of property, while the nobles had hoped he
would restore the old order or at least make only insignificant changes.
Solon, however, set himself against. . . both factions, while saving the
country and giving it the laws that were best for it, under the cir-
cumstances.
Aristotle, The Constitution of Athens
Where production is directly oriented toward use, and only the excess
product is exchanged, the costs of circulation appear only for the excess
product, not for the main product. The more production comes to
rest on exchange, the more important do the physical conditions of
exchange—the means of communication and transport—become for
the costs of circulation. Capital by its nature drives beyond every spa-
tial barrier. Thus the creation of the physical conditions of exchange—
of the means of communication and transport—the annihilation of
space by time—becomes an extraordinary necessity for it. Only in so
far as the direct product can be realized in distant markets in mass
quantities in proportion to reductions in the transport costs, and only
in so far as at the same time the means of communication and trans-
port themselves can yield spheres of realization for labor, driven by
capital; only in so far as commercial traffic takes place in massive vol-
ume—in which more than necessary labor is replaced—only to that
extent is the production of cheap means of communication and trans-
port a condition for production based on capital, and promoted by it
for that reason. All labor required in order to throw the finished prod-
uct into circulation—it is in economic circulation only when it is pre-
sent on the market—is from capital's viewpoint a barrier to be
overcome—as is all labor required as a condition for the production
process (thus e.g. expenses for the security of exchange etc.).
Karl Marx, Grundrisse
Co-opt: to elect into any body by the votes of its members.
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary
New Edition, 1983, p. 276