Six forms of hierarchy for a theoretical analysis of capitalism

Alice Nicole Sindzingre and Fabrice Tricou

Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, 2022, vol. 45, issue 2, 210-245

Abstract: The paper develops a conceptual analysis, which aims at refining the general concept of capitalism through an inquiry about the forms of hierarchy it involves. It is argued that the capitalist regime exhibits a series of specific attributes that have been so far underinvestigated together and are here comprehensively elucidated via the deepening of the concept of hierarchy. Qualitatively, the capitalist social structure is ambivalent, as it is neither the strict arborescent hierarchy exhibited by the feudal society, nor the flat partition displayed by the pure market economy; and the complex structure of the capitalist firm is an encompassing hierarchy, capital and labor being associated in a production process ruled by capital. Quantitatively, the capitalist pyramidal hierarchies of income and of wealth are essentially mobile, through the dynamics of market sanction and asset evaluation; and the relationship between capital bets and profit gains draws a tangled hierarchy as these returns are reinvested. All these capitalist hierarchies are typically economic, situational hierarchies arising when capitalists do not dominate the political order of power or in the social order of prestige. Finally, echoing post Keynesian perspectives, the conception of capitalism as a hierarchical phenomenon underlines its monetary structure and its self-transforming nature.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01603477.2021.1913754 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mes:postke:v:45:y:2022:i:2:p:210-245

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/MPKE20

DOI: 10.1080/01603477.2021.1913754

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Post Keynesian Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().