CAPITALISMand democracy are now opposed to one another
(e.g., Piven and Cloward 1982). This view holds
that the tremendous inequality of wealth generat-
ed by modern capitalism impedes the possibility of
political equality. Even conservative writers (e.g.,
Huntington 1975) have noted the problematic
relationship between contemporary capitalism and
democracy, suggesting a retrenchment of demo-
cratic forms in defense of capitalism. The future of
capitalism will be shaped by this tension with
democracy, but that tension itself is located in an
increasingly global economy. At the moment, the
politics of capitalist society seem to lag behind the
economic changes. The individual is increasingly
pressured to sell his or her labor as a commodity
on a world market, yet at the same time that
individual remains a citizen, not of the world, but
of the nation. The transnational capitalist enter-
prise and the flow of capital, on the other hand, are
ever more free of such national borders.
(SEE ALSO: Marxist Sociology; Postindustrial Society)
REFERENCES
Bechhofer, F., and B. Elliott 1985 ‘‘The Petite Bourgeoi-
sie in Late Capitalism.’’ Annual Review of Sociology
11:181–207.
Brubaker, Rogers 1984 The Limits of Rationality. Lon-
don: Allen and Unwin.
Christensen, Kathleen 1987 ‘‘Women and Contingent
Work.’’ Social Policy 17:15–18.
Dicken, Peter 1997 ‘‘Transnational Corporations and
Nation-States.’’ International Social Science Journal
47:77–89.
Durkheim, Emile 1984 The Division of Labor in Society.
New York: Free Press.
Giddens, Anthony 1987 Sociology: A Brief but Critical
Introduction, 2d ed. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich.
Glasberg, Davita Silfen, and Michael Schwartz 1983
‘‘Ownership and Control of Corporations.’’ Annual
Review of Sociology 9:311–332.
Haller, William J., and Vijai P. Singh 1996 ‘‘Technology,
Producer Services, and the New International Divi-
sion of Labor.’’ Journal of Developing Societies 12:4–18.
Huntington, Samuel P. 1975 ‘‘The United States.’’ In
Michael Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington, and Joji
Watanuki, eds., The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the
Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commis-
sion. New York: New York University Press.
London, Bruce, and Robert J. S. Ross 1995 ‘‘The Politi-
cal Sociology of Foreign Direct Investment: Global
Capitalism and Capital Mobility, 1965–1980.’’ Inter-
national Journal of Comparative Sociology 36:3–4.
Mandel, Ernest 1978 Late Capitalism. London: Verso.
Melling, Joseph 1991 ‘‘Industrial Capitalism and the
Welfare of the State: The Role of Employers in the
Comparative Development of Welfare States: A Re-
view of Recent Research.’’ Sociology 25:219–239.
Morss, Elliott R. 1991 ‘‘The New Global Players: How
They Compete and Collaborate.’’ World Development
19:55–64.
O’Connor, James 1973 The Fiscal Crisis of the State. New
York: St. Martin’s Press.
Offe, Claus 1984 Contradictions of the Welfare State. Cam-
bridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press.
Piven, Frances Fox, and Richard A. Cloward 1982 The
New Class War. New York: Pantheon Books.
Polychroniou, Constantine G. 1990 ‘‘Global Capitalism:
A Perspective of Convergence.’’ International Review
of Modern Sociology 20:239–251.
Prashad, Vijay 1994 ‘‘Contract Labor: The Latest Stage
of Illiberal Capitalism.’’Monthly Review 46:19–26.
Rogers, Hudson P., Alphonso O. Ogbuehi, and C. M.
Kochunny 1995 ‘‘Ethics and Transnational Corpora-
tions in Developing Countries: A Social Contract
Perspective.’’ Journal of Euromarketing 4:11–38.
Ross, Robert J. S. 1995 ‘‘The Theory of Global Capital-
ism: State Theory and Variants of Capitalism on a
World Scale.’’ In D. Smith and B. J. Jozsef, eds., A New
World Order? Global Transformations in the Late Twenti-
eth Century. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers.
Scott, Alan 1996 ‘‘Bureaucratic Revolutions and Free
Market Utopias.’’ Economy and Society 25:89–110.
Sklair, Leslie 1995 Sociology of the Global System 2nd ed.
Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Sklair, Leslie 1998 ‘‘The Transnational Capitalist Class
and Global Capitalism: The Case of the Tobacco
Industry.’’ Political Power and Social Theory 12:3–43.
Sweezy, Paul M. 1970 The Theory of Capitalist Develop-
ment. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Valocchi, Steve 1990 ‘‘The Capitalist State and the
Origins of National Welfare Policy in Nineteenth-
Century Germany.’’ Critical Sociology 17:91–109.
Weber, Max 1958 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism. Talcott Parsons, trans. New York: Scribners.
———1976 The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civiliza-
tions. R. I. Frank, trans. London: New Left Books.