Varieties of Capitalism: Some Philosophical and Historical Considerations

Geoffrey Hodgson ()

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2016, vol. 40, issue 3, 941-960

Abstract: The literature on varieties of capitalism has stimulated some authors to challenge notions of ‘essentialism’ and even the concept of capitalism itself. This essay argues that the existence of varieties of capitalism does not rule out the need for, or possibility of, specification or definition of that type. Accordingly, ‘capitalism’ is still a viable term. The critique of ‘essentialism’ is also countered, after clarifying its meaning. In particular, a suitably defined ‘essentialism’ does not imply some kind of ontological or explanatory reductionism—‘economic’ or otherwise. But while adopting what are basically Aristotelian arguments about essences, we need to reject Aristotle’s auxiliary notion that variety generally results from temporary deviations from a representative type or trend. Furthermore, capitalism is a historically specific and relatively recent system: we need to develop a classificatory definition of that system that demarcates it from other past or possible social formations.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cje/bev083 (application/pdf)
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:oup:cambje:v:40:y:2016:i:3:p:941-960.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Cambridge Journal of Economics is currently edited by Jacqui Lagrue

More articles in Cambridge Journal of Economics from Cambridge Political Economy Society Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().