Comparative Economic, Social and Political Systems

Cameron Gordon

Chapter Chapter 23 in Many Possible Worlds, 2023, pp 633-659 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract What was the core feature of the Industrial Revolution? A default answer is to say capitalism, and the creation and diffusion of a capitalist system. But Adam Smith, the high theoretician of the changes wrought during this time did not actually use the word “capitalism”; instead, he referred to “commercial society” (Naggar and Naggar in The American Economist 49:90–95, 2005). He did make many references to capital and its productive power, but was referring to them as a means towards the ends of division of labour, increased trade and expansion of the “extent of the market”, not an end in and of itself. During the Cold War the rivalry between Capitalism and the new “Socialist” bloc required firmer definitions and articulations of the Capitalist system to distinguish it from its competitor. There was also the need to answer the question of which system was “better” and this led to extended analysis of both Capitalism and Socialism and the variations within each. Thus was born the study of “Comparative Economic Systems” and the social and political dimensions that came with them.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:spr:sprchp:978-981-19-9281-0_23

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9789811992810

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-19-9281-0_23

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().