Theoretical Departures

1
Theoretical Departures

• Professor Roger Penn
• University of Bologna
• 2009

2
The Elements

• Structuralist History the French Annales School
• Neo-Weberian Sociology
• Neo-Ricardian Economics

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The Annales School I

• Named after the journal Annales dhistoire
  économique et sociale
• Founded by Marc Bloch Lucien Febre
• Subsequent figures include Fernand Braudel,
  Georges Duby and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie

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The Annales School II

• Rejected the narrative political history of
  great men and events in favour of an emphasis
  on long-term structural factors longue durée
• cf Duby reject simple accounting of events, but
  strivedto observe the long and medium-term
  evolution of economy,society and civilization
  Le dimanche de Bouvines
• Advocated total history rejected intense
  fragmentation of professional history

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The Annales School IV

• Rejected Marxist approaches
• ? demographic factors were seen as more
  fundamental than material ones
• ? cultural factors also emphasised
  mentalités

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The Annales School V

• The Annales school pioneered social history
• They also incorporated a multi-disciplinary
  approach history intersected with demography,
  climatology and geography
• Braudels La Mediterranée et le Monde
  Mediterranéen à lEpoque de Philiippe II 1949
• Events seen as surface disturbances, crests of
  foam that the tides of history carry on their
  strong backs

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Types of Change

• Structural change very long term
• Conjunctural change medium term
• Events immediate

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Neo-Ricardian Economics

• This is a school of economics founded by Sraffa
  which was critical of the dominant neo-classical
  paradigm but which was also critical of Marxs
  classical reasoning in Capital

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Piero Sraffa

• Italian economist friend of Gramsci and Turati
  PCI - who left Italy in 1927 for Cambridge
• Here he edited the collected works of Ricardo
  British classical economist who Marx criticized
  in Capital
• He also formed a close friendship with
  Wittgenstein Austrian philosopher

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Neo-Ricardianism

• Sraffas interpretation of Ricardo culminated in
  his Production of Commodities by Means of
  Commodities 1960
• Sraffa showed that there was no long-term
  tendency for capitalism to collapse amidst its
  internal contradictions
• Marx had been mistaken to assert that there was
  both a tendency for profits to fall in the long
  term and for wages to remain at subsistence
  levels
• All that could be shown in abstract was that
  capital and labour were engaged in a struggle
  over the distibution of the surplus in capitalist
  societies

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Core Propositions of Neo-Ricardian Sociology I

• Industrial capitalist society involves a
  structured conflict between capital and labour.
• This conflict is fundamentally asymmetric as a
  result of the essential characteristic of
  industrial capitalism the separation of the
  producer from the means of production as a result
  of capitalist ownership rights

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Core Propositions of Neo-Ricardian Sociology II

• These conflicts take various forms. The two most
  central involve conflicts over wages the
  distribution of the surplus and the organization
  of the division of labour the managerial
  prerogative
• These conflicts take place within variable
  structures one key element is the nature and
  structure of the spatial organisation of
  employers and employees

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Core Propositions of Neo-Ricardian Sociology III

• These conflicts over wages and over authority
  relations are both economic and normative issues
  of legitimacy are central to both sets of
  relations
• A major factor in the actual relationship between
  employers and employees is the pattern of
  collective organisation of both parties.
• Such collective organisation varies historically
  and spatially

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Neo-Weberianism I

• Webers sociological writings are fragmented
• Much of his writings was in the form of either
  personal notes Economy and Society or derived
  from his students notes General Economic
  History
• It requires a specific reading

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Neo-Weberianism II

• Weber accepted the distinction between capital
  and labour
• He developed additional stratification categories
• These included intermediate classes which
  covered the self-employed and professional/manager
  ial strata
• He also included exceptionally qualified
  workers within these intermediate strata

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Neo-Weberianism III

• Webers model suggested that not all manual
  workers form part of the working class
  proletariat
• Webers model is premised upon the differential
  power in the capitalist market place of various
  groups
• Capitalist entrepreneurs, the self-employed,
  professional/managerial strata and skilled
  workers are all relatively advantaged when
  compared to the sellers of non-skilled manual
  labour

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Neo-Weberianism IV

• Weber also argued that class differences do not,
  in themselves, produce class struggles nor, in
  the extreme, class revolutions
• These are contingent not inherent features of
  particular capitalist systems
• Other factors may form the basis fore collective
  action these include religion, ethnicity,
  nationality and gender
• Social stratification is a multi-faceted
  phenomenon opposed to economic reductionism

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Synthesis I

• A neo-Weberian perspective shares key elements
  with the neo-Ricardian economic position
• They both recognise the importance of capitalist
  relations within contemporary societies
• These are not exhaustive of patterns of social
  inequality in such societies

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Synthesis II

• There are multiple nodes of market power in such
  societies
• Conflict may just as likely occur within and
  between different categories of labour as
  between capital and labour itself
• There are also other aspects of social inequality
  that may be more important than class at any
  given moment empirically these include ethnicity
  and gender

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Contemporary Theory

• A combination of theoreticism and positivism
• Data selected to fit an a priori scheme
• Abstract formulations matched by anecdotal
  examples that always fit the argument
• Examples A.Giddens The Transformation of
  Intimacy 1993
• U.Beck The Brave New World of Work 2000

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Alternative Approach

• Empirically rigorous data not selected to fit a
  preconceived scheme but used to probe a series of
  sociological debates
• The three underlying theoretical approaches
  provide ways of seeing not empirical answers
• They should be seen as framing the types of data
  collected