Outline – March 7th, 2012
The Economy and Work
PART 1: A Brief History of Capitalism
1. What is unique about capitalism?
2. Creating a market system
3. The Industrial Revolution
PART 2: The Economy and Work Today
5. Where do people work? (brief)
6. The social organization of work (brief)
7. Reflections on the economy since September 2008: How did we get here and what now?
Aim of lecture
• There is nothing ‘natural’ about the market economy (capitalism)
• Nothing normal
• Capitalist economy seen as common sense in Canada
• Overview: key features of capitalism
What is unique about capitalism?
What made these societies (pharrohs, etc.) non-capitalist was what they lacked in common:
– No private property
– Recognize wealth, but none legally recorded the land ownership
– Individuals did not have rights in any sense we had today
– No market system
– All had typical markets where food, pottery, etc. was available
– Markets were the ornaments of society
– Nothing bonding economy with other nations
– No organized market to buy or sell land, buy labour, lend money
– Tradition and Command were its iron structure
– Economic freedom was held to little regard (workers belong to employers,
peasants to family hired by)
– Lacked economic instability (compared with capitalism)
– Economic life was stable, no pursuit of profit to motivate our economic lives
– Little material progress took place over a long period of time
– Capitalism: a volcanic disruption to time honoured routines
– Tradition and command were hardest to overcome
– Tradition and command had organized economic life. Capitalism had to replace these with a
market system.
Creating a market system
Market system:
– “free” to shop for a job (labour)
– Not responding to dictates of someones command
– Free to choose jobs
– Land is for sale (land)
– Farms can become shopping centres
– Contrast: land used to be no more for sale than our county’s and provinces
– Banks and other institutions lend, distribute and make money (capital)
– Flow of savings, investments and wealth
– Wealth of lenders (why you pay interest)
– Profit made off of loaning money (did not exist prior to capitalism)
– Land, labour and capital are the factors of production in capitalism
– How are the factors of production put to use prior to market system?
– There were no factors of production (land, labour and capital were not
commodities for sale)
– Labour was for slaves
– Capital was considered treasure