Friday, August 7, 2015

Sewell on the capitalist epoch (and its possible end)

Following someone's Twitter trail, I came upon an entire issue from 2014 of the journal Social Science History that has been made freely available (link). It contains an address by sociologist William Sewell, as well as a piece by Julian Go on British imperialism 1760-1939, among other things.

3 comments:

Peter T said...

Useful link. I read Sewell's piece and nodded, then realised he does not offer any thoughts on what capitalism actually is.

LFC said...

I read the Sewell piece quickly -- half-read half-skimmed, actually. I agree he's vague on what capitalism is. He does mention Marx's focus on the "endless accumulation of capital," but I don't think he (Sewell) singles it out as a defining feature (unlike I. Wallerstein, who does).

[p.s. Haven't forgotten your Iran link; I'm just slow.]

LFC said...

Sewell is also vague, as I recall, on what he thinks "post-capitalism" will look like. It's not entirely an excuse, but this was a speech (a presidential address to this association), not a full-scale article.