Criticism is hard work

How to Quiet the Inner Critic My teaching experience has taught me that if I say, "Try to refrain from thinking critically about your art," or suggest that students be more tolerant of themselves while they're learning, it doesn't work.

CRITIQUE OF HERZBERG'S THEORY Herzberg's two-factor model has been subjected to serious criticism. The research method was criticized as no attempt was made to determine the relationship between satisfaction and performance. It was assumed that the two-factor

2 Criticism of Monetarism The Mythology of Capital In general, the neoclassical school follows the tradition that prevailed in the period before the subjectivist revolution. In accordance with this tradition, the generating system was considered as one in which

Criticism is critical In order to survive in a multidimensional, rapidly changing world, not only people, but also organizations, need to constantly correct their mistakes. Self-correction is the need to recognize and be able to change everything that no longer works, no matter what.

For more than three weeks, the British newspaper The Financial Times, the herald of smart capitalism, has been holding a review of the state of the market economy. Columnists, economists, politicians and entrepreneurs from all over the world are arguing on its pages. The title of this long series of articles was as follows: "Capitalism in Crisis".

The same as if the Vatican newspaper l "Osservatore romano published criticism of the Catholic Church. Because the general opinion of experts sounds rather harsh, and it can be reduced to such an impartial conclusion: the formula of ultra-liberal and unregulated capitalism inherited from the 1980s no longer works These words are similar to the statements of François Hollande (François Hollande), but they appeared in one of the largest newspapers of the international business community.

Such publications are an important signal that sounds three years after the 2008 crisis and a few days before the opening of the economic summit in Davos, Switzerland. The economy, like any other field, has its own intellectual tendencies. They appear in the pages of newspapers such as The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal or The Economist and set the stage for profound change.

The transformations of the Reagan and Thatcher eras that turned the neck of moderate post-war capitalism were preceded in the late 1970s by a prolonged demonization of the state by thinkers of the so-called "conservative revolution." Together with the subsequent globalization of trade, it led to the birth of the current form of capitalism. And the emergence of the 2008 crisis.

The market economy in its modern version will have to be abandoned. “It turned out to be not only unstable, but also largely unfair,” reads the editorial that opened the series. As former US Treasurer Lawrence Summers says, in the United States, a country that is designed to embody the highest achievements of capitalism, he is losing public confidence: according to a recent poll, only 50% of the country's citizens still speak of him in in a positive way. Capitalism has become a symbol of inflated financier salaries, anemic economic growth and high structural unemployment.

The main point in the indictment of The Financial Times was the following conclusion: capitalism is in crisis, as it is the main source of inequality. It does not stand up for moral values, but, on the contrary, it represents the best known system for the production of wealth. And in his pre-1980s version, at least he was known for distributing that wealth in a relatively acceptable way. Economists would say that the market favors a prudent allocation of resources.

But that is in the past. Over the past 30 years, inequality in America and Europe has been increasingly felt. To such an extent, writes The Financial Times, that it begins to pose a threat to our democracy and a society built on consensus, which relies on the prevailing middle class. The US is currently experiencing the strongest income inequality in nearly a century. Political scientist Norman Ornstein, who was recently in Paris, noted that the current income structure in the United States is typical of third world countries. Since 1980, the wealth of the top 1% of Americans has increased by 300%.

At the same time, according to statistics from the Department of Labor, the average income of an American family grew by no more than 40%. Moreover, experts specify, this increase was achieved only because some women entered the labor market. If this second source of income for the American family is removed from the calculations, an even bleaker picture emerges: for 30 years, the average income of men in the United States has not increased at all. In Europe, there is a similar, albeit not so pronounced, trend.

For a clean analysis, the Ministry of Labor statistics need to be supplemented with data on changes in purchasing power: in some sectors, it has indeed increased as a result of the increasing pressure of globalization on prices. However, the relentless numbers lead us to a largely similar conclusion: “There are two lanes in today's economy, the freeway for the super-rich and the blocked-off lane for everyone else,” writes John Plender, a columnist for The Financial Times.

The main object of the anger caused by inequality became "financiers". Their undeserved wealth, as is often said, has nothing to do with the income of enterprises. These are the profits at the top of the financial sector, which is drugged with speculative amphetamines and has grown beyond measure. One of its main tasks is to finance the debt of the middle class, which in the current era of globalization can only maintain a standard of living with the help of loans. The villain is Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankstein, and the hero is Apple founder Steve Jobs.

The Financial Times series salutes entrepreneurs. And criticizes the way the boards of directors of large enterprises set the salaries of management, including in the financial sector. We live in an incredible time: CEO can earn 400 times more than lower-level employees. Until 1980, this ratio was no more than 40. Moral regression or the need to adapt to the practice of competition?

The petty-bourgeois character of Sismondi's criticism of capitalism should not be understood in a primitive way. Hardly a shopkeeper or a handicraftsman seemed to Sismondi the crown of creation. But he knew of no other class with whom he could pin his hopes for a better future for mankind. He saw the misery of the industrial proletariat and wrote a lot about its plight, but did not understand its historical role at all. Sismondi spoke in an era when the ideas of utopian and petty-bourgeois socialism were being formed. And although he was not a socialist, the era gave the Sismondist critique of capitalism a socialist character. Sismondi proved to be the founder of petty-bourgeois socialism, primarily in France, but to a certain extent in England as well. Marx and Engels noted this already in 1848, in the Communist Manifesto.

Sismondi put the problem of markets, realization and crises at the center of his theory and closely connected it with the development of the class structure of bourgeois society, with the tendency to transform the masses of working people into proletarians. Thus, he hit the nail on the head, seized the contradiction, which then turned into a dangerous disease. Sismondi did not solve the problem of crises. But by the very fact that he staged it, he made a big step forward in comparison with his contemporaries. Assessing Sismondi's contribution to science, V. I. Lenin wrote: "Historical merits are judged not by what historical figures did not give compared to modern requirements, but by what they gave new compared to their predecessors."

In contrast to the Smith-Ricardo school, which considered accumulation to be the key problem of capitalism and ignored the problem of realization, Sismondi brought to the fore the contradiction between production and consumption, and in connection with this, the problem of the market and realization. For Ricardo and his followers, the economic process was an endless series of states of equilibrium, and the transition from one such state to another was accomplished by automatic "adjustment." Sismondi, on the contrary, fixed his attention on these transitions, i.e., economic crises. As you know, the thesis about the automatic adaptation of demand to supply and the impossibility of general overproduction has received the name "Say's law of markets" or simply "Say's law" in the history of political economy. Sismondi was his determined opponent.

Sismondi's model of capitalism is as follows. Since the driving force and purpose of production is profit, capitalists strive to squeeze as much profit as possible out of their workers. Due to the natural laws of reproduction, the supply of labor chronically exceeds demand, which allows capitalists to keep wages at starvation levels. The purchasing power of these proletarians is extremely low and limited to small quantities of basic necessities. Meanwhile, their labor is capable of producing more and more goods. The introduction of machines only increases the disproportion: they increase labor productivity and at the same time displace workers. The result is inevitably that more and more social labor is occupied with the production of the luxuries of the rich. But the latter's demand for luxury goods is limited and unstable. From this, almost without intermediate links, Sismondi deduces the inevitability of crises of overproduction.

A society in which there is more or less "pure" capitalism and dominated by two classes - capitalists and wage workers - is doomed to severe crises. Sismondi is looking for salvation, like Malthus, in "third parties" - intermediate classes and layers. Only for Sismondi, unlike Malthus, these are primarily small commodity producers - peasants, handicraftsmen, artisans. In addition, Sismondi believed that the development of capitalist production is impossible without a vast external market, which he interpreted unilaterally: as the sale of goods from more developed countries to less developed ones. By the presence of foreign markets, he explained the fact that England had not yet suffocated under the burden of wealth.

Sismondi rejected A. Smith's position that the public interest would be best ensured if each member of society was given the opportunity to pursue his personal economic benefit as freely as possible. Free competition, Sismondi pointed out, has disastrous economic and social consequences: the impoverishment of the bulk of the population with the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, severe economic crises. In this regard, he came up with a program of social reforms, for the implementation of which, however, he demanded “only gradual and indirect measures on the part of the legislation, only the implementation of complete justice in relations between the owner and the worker, which would place on the former all responsibility for the evil that he inflicts on the second." The reforms recommended by Sismondi boil down to the introduction of social security at the expense of entrepreneurs, the limitation of the working day, and the establishment of a minimum wage. He also wrote about the desirability of workers' participation in the profits of the enterprise. For their time, these measures were progressive, and at times seemed dangerously socialist. As is well known, such reforms later turned out to be acceptable to the capitalists and by no means undermined their rule.

But in many ways Sismondi looked not forward, but backward. He sought salvation from the ills of capitalism in the artificial preservation of the old order, in preventing the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few individuals. Sismondi, of course, did not want a return to the Middle Ages, to feudalism. But he wanted the inhuman march of capitalism to be stopped by planting social institutions that, under the guise of a new one, would bring back the "good old days." To create security for the workers, he proposed to introduce a system reminiscent of the old craft workshops. He would like to revive small landed property in England. This economic romanticism was utopian and essentially reactionary, since it denied the progressive essence of the development of capitalism and drew its inspiration not from the future, but from the past.

In many ways, Sismondi was a cutting edge thinker. This is manifested primarily in his understanding of the historical process as a change from a less progressive social system to a more progressive one. Arguing with Ricardo and his followers, who did not see any other prospects for social development other than capitalism, Sismondi asked his opponents the question: based on the fact that capitalism is more progressive than the formations that he replaced, “is it possible to conclude that we have now reached the truth, that we are not we will discover the fundamental flaw in the system of wage labor ... as we discovered it in the systems of slavery, feudalism, guild corporations ... The time will come, no doubt, when our grandchildren will consider us barbarians for leaving the working classes without protection, the same barbarians, what they, just like us, will consider the nations that have reduced these classes to slavery. It is clear from this remarkable statement that Sismondi foresaw the replacement of capitalism by some higher and more humane social system, the features of which, however, he did not imagine at all.

V. I. Lenin. Poly. coll. cit., vol. 2, p. 178.

J. Simond de Sismondi. New principles of political economy, or on wealth in relation to the population, vol. 2. M., Sots-ekgnz, 1937, p. 176

J. Simond de Sismondi. New principles of political economy, or on wealth in relation to population, vol. 2, p. 209.

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Introduction

Chapter 1. Analysis of capitalism by K. Marx

1.1 Contradictions in capitalism by K. Marx

1.2 Classes and contradictions in K. Marx

1.3 Criticism of capitalism by K. Marx

Chapter 2. Opposite understanding of capitalism by K. Marx and M. Weber

2.2 Characteristics of capitalism by K. Marx and M. Weber

2.3 The meaning of the ideas of K. Marx and M. Weber about capitalism

Chapter 3. "Capitalist spirit" and types of capitalism in M. Weber

3.1 "Capitalist Spirit" by M. Weber

3.2 Weberian typology of capitalisms

3.3 Criticism of Weber's typology of capitalism

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

There is an idea, half-forgotten today due to its seeming triviality, that sociology is first and foremost (and not only in terms of its “origin”) a theoretical understanding of capitalism, taken, however, not in one of its dimensions - let it be even the political and economic dimension, within which this concept itself was first defined, but in its cultural and historical integrity, embodying the “unity of diversity” of its most diverse dimensions.

If already the economic analysis to which Adam Smith subjected his contemporary society, later called "industrial society" (by Saint-Simon and Comte) or capitalist (by Marx, but not only by him), opened up the possibility of a sociological deciphering of the corresponding theoretical concepts, then in line with the socio-philosophical tradition that joined him—and it included not only the line leading through Saint-Simon to the founder of sociology, but also the one that led through Hegel to the creator of the materialistic "science of society"—this possibility is a step step by step turned into reality. So, in the end, capitalism even appeared as not so much a political economy as a sociological concept, saving, at times, an aggressive tendency to “remove” its own sociological content in itself. M. Weber, who came to his version of sociology through German historical political economy, had to develop this general trend sociological "decoding" of the concepts and categories of the political economy of capitalism.

Although Weber, who did not miss a chance to emphasize "to what extent ... in the development of all his formulations" he "owes the very fact of the existence of the classical works of Sombart with their well-defined problems", at the same time he stipulated that "all the main provisions" of his " Protestant Ethics" were "expressed in his much earlier" works (and, as follows from the context of this reservation, independently of Sombart's studies), - nevertheless, the fact remains that for the first time the general contours of Weber's concept of capitalism were drawn with certainty precisely in the cycle articles linked by this common name. Moreover, to a large extent, the certainty of its contours, the concept proposed by Weber in The Protestant Ethic, was due precisely to its polemical orientation against the solutions proposed by Sombart. It was a response to the very problems, the clarity of the formulation of which deserved such a high assessment from Weber.

In the above Weberian statement, two important points are clearly marked, which sharply distinguish Weber's point of view from the concept of Sombart and Marx, to whom he was very close in the general understanding of capitalism. Of the authors involved in the study of the ideas of K. Marx and M. Weber on the nature of capitalism, researchers stand out: Kravchenko A.I., Zarubina N.N., Zheleznyak N.N., Davydov Yu.N., Barg M.A., Aron R. and others. It is also necessary to note the works of M. Weber "History of the economy", "City".

The subject of the work is the sociology of K. Marx and M. Weber.

The object of the work is the nature of capitalism.

The purpose of the work is to study the ideas of K. Marx and M. Weber about the nature of capitalism.

1) study the analysis of capitalism by K. Marx;

2) consider the opposite of the understanding of capitalism by K. Marx and M. Weber;

3) analyze the "Capitalist spirit" and types of capitalism by M. Weber.

Chapter 1. Analysis of capitalism by K. Marx

1.1 Contradictions in capitalism by K. Marx

Marx's teaching is an analysis and comprehension by the mind of contemporary capitalist society: the mechanism of its functioning, structure, inevitable change. Undoubtedly, Marx believes that modern societies are industrial and scientific societies as opposed to military and theological ones. But instead of making the antinomy between former societies and today's societies the main thing in his interpretation, Marx puts at the center of his research the contradiction inherent, in his opinion, in modern society, which he calls capitalist.

While positivism sees conflicts between workers and employers as marginal processes, faults of industrial society that can be corrected relatively easily, in Marx's teaching conflicts between workers and employers, or - to use Marxist terminology - between the proletariat and capitalists, appear to be the main a fact of the life of modern societies, revealing their essence and at the same time making it possible to foresee historical development.

Marx's intention is to interpret the contradictory or antagonistic character of capitalist society. In a certain sense, all of Marx's work is an attempt to demonstrate that this antagonism is inseparable from the fundamental organization of the capitalist order and at the same time serves as the driving force of historical progress.

If it is well understood that the main thing in Marx's teaching is the thesis about the antagonistic character of the capitalist system, then it immediately becomes clear why it is impossible to separate the sociologist from the man of action, because the demonstration of the antagonistic character of the capitalist system irresistibly leads to the proclamation of the self-destruction of capitalism, and at the same time to incitement people to contribute a little to the realization of this predetermined destiny.

Capitalist society is characterized by two types of contradictions, which, however, are discussed in the scientific works of Marx. They are also presented in the Manifesto of the Communist Party.

The first type is the contradiction between the productive forces and production relations. The bourgeoisie is constantly creating ever more powerful means of production. But the relations of production, i.e., apparently, both the relations of property and the relations of distribution, are not reconstructed in the same rhythm. The capitalist system is able to produce more and more. However, despite this increase in wealth, poverty remains the lot of the majority.

This gives rise to a second kind of contradiction, between the growth of wealth and the growing poverty of the majority, which in time will lead to a revolutionary crisis. The proletariat, which constitutes and will more and more constitute the vast majority of the population, is constituted into a class, i.e. a social unit striving to seize power and transform social relations. Thus, the proletarian revolution will differ in character from all revolutions of the past. All the revolutions of the past were carried out by a minority for the sake of a minority. The proletarian revolution will be carried out by a vast majority for the benefit of all. The proletarian revolution will thus mean the end of classes and the antagonistic character of capitalist society. This revolution, which will end simultaneously with the destruction of capitalism and classes, will be generated by the capitalists themselves. The capitalists cannot but shake the social organization. Engaged in fierce competition, they cannot but increase the means of production, and at the same time increase the size of the proletariat and its poverty.

The contradictory nature of capitalism is expressed in the fact that the growth of the means of production, instead of leading to an increase in the standard of living of the workers, causes a dual process: proletarianization and pauperization.

1.2 Classes and contradictions in K. Marx

Marx does not deny that there are many intermediate groups between capitalists and proletarians: artisans, petty bourgeoisie, merchants, peasant proprietors. But he is convinced of the following two propositions. On the one hand, as capitalism develops, there will be a tendency towards the crystallization of social relations between two, and only two, groups - the capitalists and the proletariat. On the other hand, two, and only two, classes will have the opportunity to create political regime and the idea of ​​a social regime. The intermediate classes possess neither initiative nor historical dynamism. There are only two classes that are able to put their stigma on society. One is the capitalist class, the other is the proletarian class. By the time of the decisive conflict, everyone will be forced to join either the capitalists or the proletarians. By the time the proletarian class takes power, there will be a decisive turn in the course of history. Indeed, the antagonistic character inherent in all societies known to this day will disappear. Marx writes about it this way: “When class distinctions disappear in the course of development and all production is concentrated in the hands of an association of individuals, then public power will lose its political character. Political power in the proper sense of the word is the organized violence of one class in order to suppress another. If the proletariat in the struggle against the bourgeoisie necessarily unites into a class, if by revolution it transforms itself into the ruling class and, as the ruling class, by force abolishes the old relations of production, then together with these relations of production it destroys the conditions for the existence of class opposition, it destroys classes in general, and thereby also its own domination as a class.

In place of the old bourgeois society with its classes and class antagonisms comes an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

This fragment is characteristic as an expression of one of the most important ideas Marx. AT early XIX in. all publicists were inclined to consider politics or the state as secondary to such major phenomena as economic or social. Marx is not devoid of this general inclination, he also believes that politics or the state are phenomena secondary to what is happening in society itself.

Hence, he presents political power as an expression of social conflicts. Political power is the means by which the ruling, exploiting class maintains its domination and exploitation.

If we think along these lines, then the elimination of class contradictions should logically entail the disappearance of politics and the state, since politics and the state seem to be a by-product or expression of social conflicts.

These are the plots of Marx's historical vision and political propaganda at the same time. Here they are presented in a simplified way, but Marx's science sets itself the goal of rigorously proving these of its propositions: about the antagonistic character of capitalist society, about the inevitable self-destruction of such a contradictory society, about a revolutionary explosion that will put an end to the antagonistic character of today's society.

Thus, at the center of Marx's plan is the interpretation of the capitalist system as contradictory, in which the class struggle prevails. Marx studies (or believes that he studies) the class struggle in capitalist society and finds in different historical societies the equivalent of the class struggle he observes. According to Marx, the class struggle shows a tendency towards simplification. Different social groups are polarizing: some around the bourgeoisie, others around the proletariat. The driving force of history will be the development of productive forces; it will lead, by means of proletarianization and pauperization, to a revolutionary explosion and to the construction, for the first time in history, of a non-antagonistic society.

1.3 Criticism of capitalism by K. Marx

capitalism marx weber political

Marx himself, in a passage, perhaps the most famous of all that he wrote, briefly outlined his sociological concept in the work “On the Critique of Political Economy (Foreword)”, published in Berlin in 1859, he expresses his thoughts as follows: “The overall result, to to which I came and which later served as a guiding thread in my further research, can be briefly formulated as follows: In the social production of their lives, people enter into certain, necessary, relations independent of their will - relations of production that correspond to a certain stage of development of their material productive forces. The totality of these "production relations is economic structure society, the real basis on which the legal and political superstructure rises and to which certain forms of social consciousness correspond. The mode of production of material life determines the social, political and spiritual processes of life in general. It is not the consciousness of people that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness. At a certain "stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing production relations, or - which is only the legal expression of the latter - with the property relations within which they have hitherto developed. From the forms of development of the productive forces, these relations turn into their fetters. Then the epoch of social revolution sets in. With the change of the economic basis, a revolution takes place more or less rapidly in the entire vast superstructure. In considering such revolutions, it is always necessary to distinguish between the material revolution, ascertained with natural-scientific precision in the economic conditions of production, from the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophical, in short - from the ideological forms in which people are aware of this conflict and fight for its resolution.

These are the leading ideas of the economic interpretation of history. So far, we have not dealt with complex philosophical problems: to what extent does this economic interpretation correspond or does it not correspond to materialistic philosophy? What is the exact meaning of the term "dialectics"? For the time being, it is enough to stick to the leading ideas, which are obviously the ideas set forth by Marx, and which, by the way, contain a number of ambiguities, since the exact framework of the basis and superstructure can and has become the subject of endless discussions.

Marx reproaches the classical economists for regarding the laws of capitalist economics as laws of universal action. In his opinion, each economic system has its own economic laws. The economic laws discovered by the classics reveal their truth only as the laws of the capitalist system. Thus, Marx moves from the idea of ​​a universal economic theory to the idea of ​​the specificity of the economic laws of each system. At the same time, it is impossible to understand a given economic system if one does not consider its social structure. There are economic laws inherent in every economic system, because they serve as an abstract expression of the social relations that characterize a particular mode of production. For example, under capitalism it is the social structure that explains the essence of exploitation, and in the same way, the social structure determines the inevitable self-destruction of the capitalist system. (15.C.192]

It follows from this that Marx strives to be objective, explaining at the same time the way the capitalist system functions in terms of its social structure and the formation of the capitalist system in terms of the way it functions. Marx is an economist who aspires to be at the same time a sociologist. Comprehension of the functioning of capitalism should contribute to the understanding of why people are exploited in the conditions of private property and why this regime is doomed, due to its contradictions, to give rise to a revolution that will destroy it. The analysis of the mechanism of the functioning and formation of capitalism is at the same time something like an analysis of the history of mankind in the light of the modes of production.

Marx believed that economic laws are historical in nature: each economic system has its own laws. The theory of exploitation exemplifies these historical laws, since the mechanism surplus value and exploitation presupposes the division of society into classes. One class - the class of entrepreneurs or owners of the means of production - buys labor power. The economic bond between capitalists and proletarians corresponds to the social relation of domination between two social groups.

The theory of surplus value performs a double function, scientific and moral. It is their combination that explains the enormous power of the influence of Marxism. Rational as well as idealizing or rebellious minds find satisfaction in it, and both types of intellectual joy encourage each other.

The starting point of Marx's reasoning was a statement of the trend towards a decrease in the rate of profit. This proposition was held, or believed to be held, by all the economists of his time. Marx, who was always eager to explain to the English economists where, thanks to his method, he excelled them, believed that in his schematic analysis he explained the tendency to lower the rate of profit as a historical phenomenon.

The main and main thing in the Marxist teaching is to combine the analysis of functioning with the consideration of inevitable change. Acting rationally in accordance with their interests, each contributes to the destruction of the common interest of all, or at least those who are interested in maintaining the regime. This theory is something like an inversion of the main provisions of the liberals. From their point of view, everyone, working for his own interest, works in the interests of society. According to Marx, everyone, working for his own interest, contributes to the activity necessary for the final destruction of the regime.

Chapter 2. Opposite understanding of capitalism by K. Marx and M. Weber

2.1 Modern capitalism of K. Marx and many capitalisms of M. Weber

Assessing the work of M. Weber, the famous American historian of economic thought B. Seligman wrote: “Most of all he was interested in economic sociology, from the point of view of which he could study the institutions characteristic of the era.” Indeed, considering typical economic institutions and forms of economic activity, Weber rarely touches on issues that are paramount for any economist, for example, profit, supply and demand, economic cycles, etc. Economics, history, law, culture and religion are considered by him through the prism sociology. M. Weber managed to do what none of the sociologists (and not only sociologists) before him could do - to give a sociological "decoding" of the classical concepts of political economy. To do this, he had to develop an original concept of capitalism, which we are going to analyze at least in the most general terms. For the first time, the general outlines of Weber's concept of capitalism are outlined in a series of articles united by the common title "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism".

Despite all the variety of issues raised by M. Weber, capitalism remained the main and clearly defined subject of his research, according to experts. Yu. N. Davydov offers an even stronger formulation: sociology is first and foremost a theoretical understanding of capitalism. He proposes to seek an explanation for this thesis in the history of science: economic analysis modern society, undertaken by A. Smith, opened up the possibility of a sociological interpretation of the concepts used, and the socio-philosophical understanding of capitalism was further deepened by Saint-Simon, Hegel and Marx. As a result of gradual shifts towards social analysis economic problems, clearly revealed in the new European thought, "capitalism appeared even as not so much a political economy as a sociological concept." M. Weber, having passed through the German historical political economy, had to develop further the general trend of "osociologizing" economic categories and capitalism itself.

Revealing his understanding of capitalism, M. Weber makes a very remarkable reservation: the term "modern capitalism" does not cover at all any form of capitalism that exists anywhere on Earth at the present time, but only and only Western European and American capitalism. Thus, the sign "modern" indicates not the historical time, but the degree of development of what it is applied to. It must be understood that modern capitalism is the most mature form of a certain universal phenomenon or process that has taken place at all times and among all peoples. Indeed, here M. Weber points out that "capitalism existed in China, India, Babylon in antiquity and in the Middle Ages." How then does modern capitalism differ from non-modern capitalism? The latter has everything that the modern has, but lacks one element, namely the "spirit of capitalism". So, if we subtract from modern capitalism a certain ethos called the "spirit of capitalism", we get any other capitalism that has ever existed anywhere on the planet.

These two points - the understanding of capitalism as a universal transhistorical process and the concentrated expression of the nature of capitalism not in its basis, but in its superstructure, called the "spirit of capitalism" - distinguish the concept of M. Weber from similar concepts and his ideological opponent K. Marx , and his ideological supporter W. Sombart. We can put it this way: Weber adhered to the principle of the plurality of historical forms of capitalism, while Marx and Sombart adhered to the thesis of the uniqueness of capitalism.

The main difference between the approach of M. Weber and similar attempts to explain the origin and evolution of capitalism by K. Marx, E. Durkheim and W. Sombart is the concept of motivation labor activity. None of them even bothered to touch on, let alone deeply and comprehensively analyze the labor process and explain why the traditional thinking and traditional attitude towards the work of the peasant hinders his progress towards a market economy and hinders the increase in labor productivity. Having answered this question, M. Weber, it seems to us, began to unravel the whole tangle of problems step by step and eventually came to the main reason - a different ethos of thinking, behavior and relationships of people, i.e. understanding of the "spirit of capitalism".

K. Marx could not have a theory of motivation for labor and entrepreneurial activity for two reasons: he paid little attention to the human factor, and in his conception, economic factors relegated cultural factors to the background. Although it is he who is the author of the most advanced version labor theory value, and it was he who devoted many pages of his works to the description of anatomy labor process. However, the replacement of obsolete forms of capitalism by the newest ones appeared to him as a process of displacement of simple commodity production by proper capitalist production, as a displacement of the formal subordination of labor to capital by real subordination. K. Marx could not discover the multiplicity of forms of capitalism because in his modern capitalism it was not adventurous capitalism (or some other form of it) that preceded it, but simple commodity production. It could originate in antiquity, it could exist in the Middle Ages. But why call it capitalism? It was no accident that Marx invented the term “forms preceding capitalism” and devoted a special work to them, where he considers the entire historical path that mankind has traveled on the path to capitalism. Capitalism for Marx can only be "modern capitalism". Many capitalisms do not fit into his universalist scheme of the evolution of socio-economic formations. If we accept Weber's idea of ​​the plurality of forms of capitalism, then we will have to abandon the Marxian idea of ​​the plurality of social formations. Either capitalism occupied the entire conceivable historical space on which mankind has settled since the invention of writing and money, or mankind only matured before it in the 11th-19th centuries, and the rest of the time it lived under primitive communal, slave-owning and feudal formations.

By the way, Weber's scheme is not without flaws. Capitalism as a universal historical formation covers only the so-called written history of mankind. There was no capitalism in the primitive communal system, and this is 9/10 of human history. But in the scheme of Marx and this formation there was a place. According to Weber, all over the world - in China, India, Ancient Greece, Rome, Florence and in Europe of the 19th century - for three millennia there was a "capitalism of usurers, military suppliers, tax-farmers, large commercial entrepreneurs and financial magnates" . In Marx, who traced the beginning of the capitalist era to the 16th century, capitalism occupies a much more modest period of history - about three hundred years (including its early stage). Let's compare two figures: three thousand and three hundred years - the difference is solid. So, modern science - both economics and sociology (just look at Western monographs and textbooks) - believes that capitalism is a maximum of three hundred years old, but by no means three thousand. Thus, in the issue of determining the chronological framework of capitalism, modern scientific thought resolutely adheres to the tradition that comes from A. Smith, K. Marx, W. Sombart and E. Durkheim.

The thing is that in the field of economic sociology, M. Weber should be ranked among the supporters of an overly broad interpretation of the concept of "capitalism".

2.2 Characteristics of capitalism by K. Marx and M. Weber

What other distinguishing characteristics of capitalism does Weber cite? True capitalism, and only rational (in everyday language - civilized), capitalism can be true, capitalism, is focused on making profit not by any predatory or deceitful ways, but exclusively through exchange.

Behind the complex formulations of M. Weber, a rather simple idea is hidden - rational capitalism exists where and when the income received peacefully exceeds the costs. This is the view of the sociologist. He gives a very general and very vague, from the point of view of an economist, concept, and this is satisfied. The excess of income over expenses is a very weak filter through which any fish can slip. So it is: in almost all cultural countries there was - but to varying degrees - such capitalism. The weaker the requirements for empirical referents of a concept, the wider its scope. Such is the immutable truth of methodology. It is worth tightening the selection criteria, as the number of applicants for the title of capitalist will immediately decrease.

At one time K. Marx took the path of reducing the number of applicants and increasing the severity of the selection criteria. Among the signs of developed capitalism, he included a special way of obtaining surplus value, the formation of a powerful wage labor market, the transformation of the formal subordination of labor to capital into a real one, the dialectic of exchange and use value, and a great many other indicators that are theoretically very difficult to understand for an unprepared reader.

On the other hand, Marx described the future socialist society very abstractly and with great love - in fact, in the same way as Weber described ideal capitalism. Socialism for him is a planned and rational organization of social labor, where unproductive costs are finally eliminated and members of society receive what they have earned. And the specific "spirit of socialism" in Marx is also present. Only it is called the spirit of collectivism. it existed "in all cultural countries the globe- as far as we can judge from the preserved sources of their economic life. For Marx, the role of the historically universal social order was played by the communist way of life, or communism. Mankind faced it at the dawn of its existence. The first and very immature form of manifestation of communism was tribal, i.e. primitive society. Then, due to the emergence of private property, classes, economic exploitation and the state about 5-6 thousand years ago, humanity deviated from the "correct" path. As a result, there were three delays in the way - slavery, feudalism and capitalism. By historical standards, it took not so much time to stop - about three thousand years. The very ones during which, according to Weber's scheme, the first glimpses of capitalism arose and some of its mature forms managed to appear. For the past three hundred years, according to the scheme of both thinkers, modern capitalism has indeed prevailed in Europe. But, according to Weber, it must evolve further into infinity, and according to Marx, it must be replaced by a more progressive system - socialism. Socialism is the pinnacle of the evolution of the communist system, of this universal historical way of life. True, Marx got out of a terminological confusion: with one term “communism”, he designated both the universal historical order and at the same time its highest phase, which should come after socialism.

Thus, rationality, although this is Weber's term (he introduced it into scientific circulation and thoroughly developed it, if you follow the content, and not the terminological form of expression of scientific theory), characterizes the world-historical process both in K. Marx and M. Weber. In both cases, rationality is a process of accumulation of progressive features of economic and social life; and grows over the course of history. The difference between them is that for Weber rationality is associated with capitalism, while for Marx it is associated with communism. The former has elements of religious ethics, pragmatism, calculation, individualism, while the latter has elements of atheism, altruism, calculation and collectivism.

2.3 The meaning of the ideas of K. Marx and M. Weber about capitalism

From the classification point of view, Marx and Weber should be attributed to the supporters of the universal historical theory of the socio-economic structure of social life. Both German thinkers, continuing the tradition of classical sociology.

So, the main criterion for belonging or not belonging to an economic unit (or country as a whole) to the capitalist system is the degree of rationality. If we build a continuum of rationality, where two poles are designated - a rational and irrational economic structure, then capitalism will be on our right, and socialism - on the left (since it is a manifestation of a budgetary, non-market economy). But if K. Marx decides to place capitalism and socialism on the same continuum of rationality, then they will change places with him, since contemporary capitalism served as the embodiment of unreasonableness and predatory waste of human strength.

The opposite of the approaches of Marx and Weber is also manifested in other aspects, in particular in their understanding of what kind of economic structure performs the function of a universal historical one. For Weber, this is capitalism. It accompanies the entire documented history of mankind (an indication of written sources is contained in the definition of capitalism given above: German philosophy, quite in the spirit of Hegel’s globalist projects, saw world history as a manifestation, like some kind of emissions of “nodules” of the Absolute Spirit. Only its name has changed - it is called Rationality.

Preservation for sociology of the entire apparatus developed by political economy scientific concepts, interpreted "ideally typical" should not be credited to M. Weber. First, the ideal-typical categorical apparatus is a generic feature of German philosophers and sociologists. It is also inherent in K. Marx. Secondly, M. Weber did not at all aim to preserve the classical apparatus for sociology, i.e. English political economy. He was just fighting with her. And contemporary political economy was represented in fact only by the works of representatives of the German historical school in political economy - those with whom he first fought and then criticized. If anyone has managed to preserve the classical apparatus of political economy for science, it is K. Marx. And, finally, one can hardly agree that the concept of capitalism turned out to be much more meaningful and heuristic than the concept of "industrial society". In modern science, after M. Weber, practically no one has developed the sociological aspects of the concept of "capitalism". And even if he developed it, he did not add anything fundamentally new to Weber.

Chapter 3spirit" and types of capitalism by M. Weber

3.1 "Capitalistspirit "M. Weber

The word "spirit" means nothing more than a set of ethical or ethically colored norms that regulate the entire way of life. Weber defines it not so much operationally as contextually, warning the reader that the notion of "capitalist spirit" will gradually become clearer as the theoretical analysis progresses. Indeed, the conceptualization this concept unfolds in Weber and gains substantial power only towards the end of the Protestant Ethic.

Summarizing Weber's individual statements, one can imagine a certain system of provisions that together reveal what the "capitalist spirit" is. In one case, this is “a certain lifestyle, normatively conditioned and acting in an “ethical” guise”, i.e. "type of perception and behavior." In another case, one speaks of “a complex of connections ... which we unite in the concept into one whole from the point of view of their cultural significance". In other fragments, we are talking about a specific ethos, the rules of everyday behavior and "ethics", about ethically colored norms that regulate the entire way of life, about a certain way of thinking. Describing the "traditionalist" economy and its corresponding ethos or spirit, Weber writes: "At the heart of such an economy was the desire to preserve the traditional way of life, the traditional profit, the traditional working day, the traditional conduct of business, the traditional relations with workers and the essentially traditional circle of customers, as well as traditional methods in attracting buyers and in marketing - all this ... determined the "ethos" of entrepreneurs in this circle.

In the final sections of The Protestant Ethic, the concept of the "capitalist spirit" is not developed into a strict system. As before, its synonyms are encountered: way of thinking and economic ethos, professional ethos, capitalist ethos, and so on. Only in the article "Protestant sects and the spirit of capitalism", written after the completion of the main work, in 1906, but logically and meaningfully adjacent to it, Weber, explaining the consequences of the spread of Puritan ethics, gives an idea that, in the absence of anything else, can be considered theoretically complete definition: “For ... not the ethical teaching of a religion, but that ethical attitude towards life, which is encouraged depending on the nature and conditionality of the means of salvation offered by a given religion, is “its” specific “ethos” in the sociological sense of this the words". As you can see, we are talking here about a religious, and not about an economic ethos, which is far from the same thing.

It is possible that by the full theoretical definition Weber meant something different than we are accustomed to think. Most likely, the matter concerns not the definition and exhaustive descriptive formula of the concept, but the disclosure of its substantive content. And in this sense, Weber kept his promise in the best possible way, because his entire book is devoted to a lengthy and very reasoned description of what should be understood by the "capitalist spirit" depending on the types of country, religion, historical era under consideration. Without going into the details of Weber's analysis, we will only point out that its quintessence is formulated, as Weber himself admits, in the teachings of Benjamin Franklin, which very accurately reflects the essence of not only the American, but also the European capitalist mentality.

Weber writes that Franklin's thoughts are imbued with the "spirit of capitalism", its characteristic features. But this does not mean that they contain everything that this “spirit” is made up of. Such is only the lower, non-religious layer of the "capitalist spirit", its practical philosophy. In essence, these are the maxims of the everyday behavior of an entrepreneur, i.e. ethically colored norms governing the whole way of life. Weber calls them the specific meaning of the "spirit of capitalism", since it is inherent only in modern (European and American) capitalism, but not inherent in its historical predecessors. The capitalism that existed in Babylon, India, China, etc., lacked exactly the kind of ethos that is found in Franklin, Weber notes.

It can be assumed that, along with a specific meaning, there is some non-specific, more universal interpretation of the concept. Such a line of thought would be quite logical and appropriate: in addition to the lower layer, there is a higher one, under the surface layer, consisting of everyday rules (even if ethically colored), there is a deeper layer, including, perhaps, religious ideals and norms as some kind of ethical imperatives.

Weber nowhere confirms, but does not refute such ideas. Considering the fundamental role Weber always assigned to religion, we can conclude that our two-layer model of the "capitalist spirit" is quite consonant with his teachings: the first layer is utilitarian rules of behavior, the second layer is religious norms. The universality of religion is beyond doubt: it existed and in its own way justified the ethos of economic life in ancient Babylon, China, medieval Europe. On the contrary, utilitarianism is a new phenomenon, although its content is very ancient: honesty is useful, because it brings credit, for the same reason punctuality, diligence, moderation are virtues.

Both layers of the "capitalist spirit" represent a very complex and subtle formation. They easily pass into their visibility under unfavorable circumstances. Utilitarianism means that being honest is profitable. But extreme utilitarianism clarifies: if a benefit or the same effect can be achieved through the appearance of honesty, then no one forbids hypocrisy and pretending. The Germans imagine the always helpful and smiling Americans as hypocrites.

Absolute and quite conscious arrogance in the pursuit of profit flourished as a ubiquitous phenomenon in the so-called "pre-capitalist" era. "We speak of the 'pre-capitalist' era because economic activity was not yet focused primarily on either the rational use of capital through its introduction into production, or on the rational capitalist organization of labor. Extreme utilitarianism, the thirst for profit, not limited by ethical boundaries, only apparently resembles the "capitalist spirit", but in fact it contradicts and hinders its spread. For rational capitalism, there is no other worst enemy than its counterpart - irrational, greedy capitalism. The thirst for profit is conceived as an end in itself to such an extent that it becomes something transcendent and even simply irrational.

According to Weber, one of the constitutive elements of the modern "capitalist spirit", and not only of it, but of the entire modern culture is "rational life behavior based on the idea of ​​a "professional vocation" that arose from the spirit of Christian asceticism." Asceticism is based on a religious assessment of tireless, constant, disciplined, systematic worldly professional work as the surest way to establish a reborn person and the truth of his faith. All this was to serve as a powerful factor in the dissemination of that attitude which is called the "spirit of capitalism." Asceticism asserted the limitation of leisure to the inner sphere. religious work on moral self-deepening, limiting consumption to the limits of satisfying reasonable (minimal, rational) needs. Ascetic frugality had its practical result in the accumulation of capital, which was not spent on the acquisition of luxury goods, but was used productively as invested capital.

Thus, the essence of the “spirit of capitalism” lies in the fact that economic laws and the new religious doctrine corresponding to them (Protestant ethics) motivated, stimulated, finally forced not one, but two factors to work productively: labor and capital, workers and entrepreneurs. Moreover, their functioning now took place or, in principle, should have taken place in a single rhythm, according to the same laws.

Previously, entrepreneurs mercilessly exploited, speculated, sought to profit, trampling all sorts of norms and restrictions. For their part, the social rank and file, forced to engage in unprestigious routine work, also circumvented the norms and laws, but in their own way: they deliberately limited labor productivity, sabotaged, disobeyed orders, showed dissatisfaction and neglect of work.

It is in the 17th century, and Weber is right here, that a spiritual revolution takes place. Everything turned upside down: black became white. Speculation on the stock exchange and exhausting work in the mine were henceforth called in equal measure the professional duty of a person. People stopped working hard, they began to serve God, to fulfill their calling.

Analyzing the consequences of the spread of Protestant ethics, we forget about the radical transformation of the socio-psychological climate in society. What is it expressed in? The poor ceased to envy the rich, wealth that was easily obtained was condemned, and even the last poor man would not envy wealth that was obtained by the sweat of one's brow and at the risk of one's life. All categories of the population, as chosen by God, became morally equal. And economically? Inequality persisted. But wealth as such was not condemned, which means that it retained its attractiveness for those who did not yet have it, but had great hope, were able and wanted to work. Wealth has been retained as an incentive for upward mobility if done legally. And the legal way is the most democratic and generally accessible. Therefore, the formation of a mass middle class is not far off.

3.2 Weberian typology of capitalisms

“Capitalism, of course, is identical with the desire for profit within the framework of a continuously operating rational capitalist enterprise, for continuously regenerating profit, for profitability ... We will call capitalist such economic management, which is based on the expectation of profit through the use of exchange opportunities, that is, peaceful (formally ) acquisitions. Acquisition based on violence does not fall under the classification of capitalist entrepreneurship, since profit is not achieved through the process of exchange. The "capitalist individual" realizes not only his own benefit (otherwise his greed would know no limits), but also the benefit of his partner. In other words, he voluntarily submits to the rational "rules of the game" adopted by the cultural community. Therefore, he shares the same values ​​that other members of the community share.

It is also important to emphasize the value rationality in the actions of the “capitalist individual” because the values ​​shared by society, protected by society and assimilated by an individual in the process of socialization, remain the most powerful brake on the irrational desire for profit. When the value layer of culture, social traditions are destroyed, nothing can stop the raging flow of greed. We see this every time when a society moves from one qualitative state, with a weakened effect of monetary motives and priorities, to another qualitative state, in which all methods of enrichment are allowed and institutional barriers for dishonest gain are not set.

Nevertheless, Weber moves away from such an analysis, preferring to focus on formal rationality, the foundation of which is purposeful rational action. Recall that Weber's formal rationality means calculability, quantitative accounting, and systematic organization of business. This means the systematic use of material resources and personal efforts for profit.

Capitalism for Weber does not begin with the emergence of commodity-money relations and not with the industrial revolution. He leads his chronology from the beginning of accounting for capital, which can take a variety of forms, but no matter how different they are, the content of accounting is the same. "Such calculations are made at the initial stage when drawing up a balance sheet, precede each event in the form of a calculation, serve as a means of monitoring and verifying the appropriateness of individual actions and help to establish the amount of" profit "at the end of the event." Accurate calculation can be replaced by approximate, in accordance with tradition, experience and habit, calculation and control. However, this characterizes the degree of rationality, and not the essence of capitalist entrepreneurship. It does not matter in what form the partners keep records - in mind or on a computer, how they agree on a deal - in writing, orally, by phone, fax or otherwise, the important thing is that economic activity is focused on comparing income and costs in terms of money.

The degree of primitiveness of transactions being made serves Weber as an actual criterion for the historical typology of capitalism. "Capitalism" existed in China, India, Babylon, Egypt, Ancient Greece and Rome, in Europe of the Middle Ages and modern times. “There were not only separate isolated enterprises, but also entire farms, completely oriented towards the continuous emergence of new capitalist enterprises ... It is obvious that capitalist enterprises and capitalist entrepreneurs, employed ... constantly at a given enterprise, have existed for a long time ... ".

One of the most difficult tasks facing the Weberian literature (Weber studies) is to identify historical types of capitalism. The fact is that Weber himself did not leave a clear typology of capitalism (although capitalism is the most important topic of his reasoning), just as Marx did not leave behind a clear typology of classes, although it is known that classes were the most important subject of his analysis, the quintessence of Marxism. Weber talks rather confusingly about the American and European types of capitalism, writes a lot and randomly about adventurous, commercial, fiscal, financial, political capitalism, implying that we are talking about some kind of independent species or types. In particular, Weber points out that "capitalism in its type can act as adventurous, commercial, oriented towards war, politics, administration and the opportunities for profit associated with them." He calls the modern type either "bourgeois industrial capitalism" or "rational industrial capitalism."

3.3 Criticism of Weber's typology of capitalism

Trying to somehow systematize Weber's ideas, experts offer various ways of reconstructing Weber's typology of capitalism. Although P. P. Gaidenko does not give an explicit typology of the historical forms of capitalism, the proposed criterion is quite obvious - the types of social action. According to the author, Weber “not accidentally arranged the types of social action in the indicated order; such an order is not just a methodological device convenient for explanation: Weber is convinced that the rationalization of social action is a tendency of the historical process itself. History develops along the path of deepening the degree of rationalization of social life, which means the ascent of society along the steps of capitalism - from imperfect to more and more perfect forms, from traditional to purposeful rational action.

The second attempt to classify Weberian forms of capitalism was made by Yu.N. Davydov. In his opinion, M. Weber distinguished: 1) adventurous capitalism, which was focused on violence or on an irrational-speculative way of making a profit, 2) military capitalism, focused on war, 3) merchant capitalism, which organizes profit through trade operations, and not industrial labor, 4) bourgeois-industrial, i.e. new European capitalism, which is the highest stage in the development of human civilization. The main thing in the approach of Yu.N. Davydov is not the differentiation of capitalism into certain stages. They are not clearly spelled out either by M. Weber or Yu.N. Davydov (and it is unlikely that they can be clearly separated from each other). N. Davydov considers Weber a supporter of the universalist approach, according to which capitalism was a single world-historical process of human development, passing on its way various forms and stages, the most mature of which is modern Western European capitalism. T. Parsons adhered to a similar position in his time. Actually, the roots of this interpretation of Weber stretch from him. There is nothing wrong with her. However, it is necessary to clearly understand its historical and methodological framework. This version of Weber's teaching is today recognized as early, i.e. outdated. It was replaced by a late, innovative one. According to supporters new version capitalism, in particular D. Kantovsky, M. Weber did not at all defend the universality of the Western path, he only emphasized its specificity.

Undoubtedly, Weber distinguished between adventurist and war capitalism, but in what way is not clear. He does not elaborate or specify his thought in any way. Undoubtedly, also the fact that Weber allowed the remnants of pre-capitalist structures and their carriers, which are of an irrational-speculative nature, to penetrate into modern capitalism. They deviate the movement of rational industrial capitalism from the ideal-typical orbit.

According to Weber, the ideal orbit of modern capitalism is determined by such parameters as formally free labor, the separation of the enterprise from household, legally formalized division of the capital of the enterprise and personal property of the entrepreneur, rational accounting. Together they constitute what he calls "the rational capitalist organization of labor". It is she who sets the coordinates of the movement of modern capitalism.

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