Economic Anthropology, Ch. 8: One-world Capitalism

 In Hann and Hart’s eighth chapter, capitalism is discussed in detail.  The chapter discusses the development of capitalism, some of its elements, and flows into discussing the recession in 2008 in the US’s and other markets.  Hann and Hart discuss the ideas of many academics, but much focus is given to Marx, Mauss, Weber, Locke, and Ho.  Marx, it is argued, “for him, modern capitalism was that form of making money in with money in which free capital was exchanged with free wage labor” (p.145).  Weber, takes Marx a step further and makes the argument that capitalism is more than an economic movement, but rather it was “a massive cultural revolution … [that] must have been necessary to persuade people to place their economic lives in the hands of capitalists whose principle orientation was to uncertain future profits” (p. 146).  I find this very interesting and I think it relates a lot to my medieval history class in which we studied the values within Protestantism, and how they affected other facets of culture.  We weren’t able to focus on it much in the class, but it seems like Hart and Hann discuss this point also, but don’t have time to expand.

I enjoyed the chapter’s focus on the recession of 2008.  It started when I would have been in middle school and though I heard of these events happening (banks failing, General Motors bailout, etc.) my middle school mind was not too interested in understanding these events.  I found the sort of buildup of corporations beginning to gain the rights of people interesting.  I didn’t actually know the specific legal grounds corporations made these claims on until reading this chapter.  Additionally, I enjoyed the distinction the authors made in differentiating the capitalism that exists in different cultures.  Instead of all being uniform, there are variations, even if they follow similar guidelines.

This chapter really ties economic anthropology in with other academic disciplines, which I really appreciated and found interesting.  The authors’ use of multiple examples and time periods in which to show the affects, components, and history of capitalism gave a very clear picture of the practice.  The section on consumption was an element ties well to my paper, and though my project is very specific, I think a lot of the principles Hann and Hart discuss open a good background for me to discuss consumption as it relates to Disney.