Conceptualizing Capitalism Institutions, Evolution, Future

Conceptualizing CapitalismInstitutions, Evolution, Future

IntroductionDISCOVERING CAPITALISM

1. Distilling the essence 2. Social structure and individual motivation 3. Law and the state 4. Property, possession and contract 5. Commodity exchange and markets 6. Money and finance 7. Meanings of capital 8. Firms and corporations 9. Labor and employment10. The essence of capitalism

Geoffrey M Hodgson

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Conceptualizing CapitalismInstitutions, Evolution, Future

ASSESSING CAPITALISM11. Conceptualizing production12. Socialism, capitalism, and the state13. How does capitalism evolve?14. The future of global capitalism15. Addressing inequality16. Capitalism and beyond17. Coda on legal institutionalism

Geoffrey M Hodgson

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Today’s Lecture

1. How does capitalism evolve?

2. Will a new global hegemon overtake the USA?

3. The persistence of varieties of capitalism

Conceptualizing Capitalism

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Lecture 8: The evolution of global capitalism

Evolution is an extremely vague word

Its etymology suggests predestination

Single or multiple entities?

A population with a representative entity?

Every entity facing a pre-ordained set of stages? (Hegel, Marx, Rostow etc.)

Or “population thinking” that encompasses variety? (Darwin, Veblen, Mayr)


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Problems with stages theories

More advanced countries may accelerate, delay or divert the latecomers, which may then forge different paths.

Capitalism – mercantile, imperialistic, industrial, financial stages?

But finance was central to capitalism in Italy and the Netherlands.

Global development of capitalism may be more a result of rise and decline of different capitalist countries, than immanent mechanisms within the system.


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The development of major individual capitalist economies has global consequences.

Rise of Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries established a global trading and financial system.

British legal and administrative institutions were cloned in North America, Australia and elsewhere.

Absence of hegemon in the 1930s (Kindleberger 1973).

New world order based on US hegemony arose after 1945.

Big question now: global impact of China …

… cannot be understood without appraisal of developments within China and other economies.


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With populations of varied, interacting entities we must address at least three basic explanatory problems:

1. How does variation occur and how is it sustained within a population? What explains variations between members of a population?

2. How does one explain that some members of the population survive and replicate, while others are less successful, or expire?

3. How is the retention of features, and their transmission from one entity to another, explained?

Darwin’s three core principles of variation, selection and inheritance.


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Geoffrey M. Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen (2010)

Darwin’s Conjecture: The Search for the Principles of Social and Economic Evolution

(University of Chicago Press).

Global capitalism – populations of entities at multiple levels:

1. A population of capitalist systems.

2. Within each capitalism are populations of organizations competing for resources and within markets.

3. Every capitalist system includes human individuals.

At every level, entities face problems of immediate local scarcity of resources.

Information is transmitted from one entity to another.

Darwinian questions concerning the explanation of variation, differential success, and the transmission of information remain vital.


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In addition to the three Darwinian principles, a distinction is made between

(1) the entities that compete for locally-scarce resources and

(2) the information useful for survival that is transmitted from one entity to another.

Using David Hull’s (1988) terminology, the entities are termed interactors …

… and program-like sequences of information that are transmitted from one interactor to another are termed replicators.


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Cases of replication where one interactor gives rise to another …

such as the formation of a new political state by the secession of a region or component nation …

or by a company spin-off …

or by human sexual reproduction.


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In a different kind of replication, termed diffusion, no new interactor is formed …

but replicators are copied from one interactor to another.

Examples of diffusion include the copying of laws or policies by states …

the copying of routines by firms …

and the transmission of habits from one individual to another – i.e. learning by example.

Diffusion is much more common in socio-economic than in biological evolution.


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George Price (1995): we distinguish between subset selection and successor selection.

Interactors are objects of selection.

It is only indirectly that the pool of genotypes, or other replicators, will change as a result of selection.

With human individuals, both subset and successor selection can occur.

Subset selection occurs when firms go bankrupt.

Successor selection occurs when there are new entrants to the industry and spin-offs from existing firms.


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Conditions for efficiency improvement at one level can conflict with those at another.

For example, competition between firms could be more effective if competition and mobility among the workforce were reduced, leading to enhanced teamwork and learning (Campbell 1994).

Competition between firms does not always favour higher efficiency or productivity (Winter 1964, 1971, Boyd and Richerson 1980, Schaffer 1989, Hodgson 1993, 1994).

Firms that do well in one institutional context may do badly in another.


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War between states is an imperfect selection mechanism – Genghis Khan.

What is important is the threat rather than the reality of military defeat.

Robert Neild (2001) – fear of military defeat in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries prompted the development of more efficient national administrations and reductions in public corruption in European states.

Military rivalry with Russia and China from 1894 to 1905 promoted modernization of the Japanese state and the development of its industry and infrastructure.


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Examples of diffusion

Influence of Islamic institutions on medieval Europe:

Sea-trading partnerships in Venice and Amalfi in the ninth century were modeled on the legal form of the Islamic muqarada (Micklethwait and Wooldridge 2003).

Twelfth-century reforms of the English legal system by King Henry II may have had an Islamic inspiration ...

… accounts for the jury system (replaced trial by ordeal)

… and the Islamic waqf may have inspired English charity and corporate law.


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Examples of diffusion Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: “Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers. As privates in the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants”

Max Weber: “The discipline of the army gives birth to all discipline.”

Lewis Mumford (1934): “the psychology of the new industrial order appeared upon the parade ground before it came, fully fledged, into the workshop.”

Barton C. Hacker (1993): “Corporate management, patterns of professionalization in related fields, the very process of [nineteenth century] industrialization drew on military models and battened on military funding.”


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Examples of diffusion

The Dutch invasion of Britain in 1688 brought financial practices from the Netherlands.

From 1792 French armies occupied many European countries – imposition of a civil legal code, the abolition of remnants of feudalism, introduction of equality before the law (Acemoglu et al. (2011)

British Empire spread common-law systems to many countries.

Arrival of American warships in Tokyo Bay led to the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and Japan’s transition from feudalism to a Western-inspired capitalist society. Japan then replicated some European institutions.


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Implications of diffusion

Effective replication by diffusion is often difficult.

Replication by diffusion is often not subject to strong selection.

The importance of diffusion decisively undermines the Marx-Schumpeter notion that evolution is the unfolding of a system exclusively “from within.”


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Drivers of capitalist complexity

Adam Smith (1776): the growth of markets and an ever-finer division of labor.

Allyn Young (1928): “industrial differentiation … remains the type of change characteristically associated with the growth of production.”

Young underlined “the increase in the complexity of the apparatus of living, as shown by the increase in the variety of goods offered in consumers’ markets” plus an allegedly greater “diversification of intermediate products.”


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A new hegemon?

Possible diffusion of technology and institutions from the advanced to the less-advanced economies (Alexander Gerschenkron 1962, Stanislav Gomulka 1971).

But when can a country overtake in GDP per capita terms – and become the leader?


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A new hegemon?

Japan’s per capita GDP exploded from 1950 to 1973 at an average annual rate of 8.1%.

In 1950 Japan’s GDP per capita was 20% of the US.

In 1990 it reached 81% of the US level.

In 1950 South Korea’s and Taiwan’s GDP per capita were 8% and 10% of the US.

In 2012 they reached 64% and 78% of the US.

These are 20 60 exceptions, rather than the rule.


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Formerly Japanese colonies

A new hegemon?

Around 2020 China will become the largest economy in the world in terms of GDP – the new hegemon? China to “rule the world”?

About 1500 China GDP overtook India. China remained world’s largest economy until overtaken by US in the 1880s.

Despite rapid growth from 1980, in 2012 Chinese GDP per capita was 18% of that in the US.

Japan failed to catch up with US in 40 years. China in 2012 in a worse position than Japan in 1950.


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A new hegemon?

Possible high-growth: India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines – all in 2012 much poorer than China.

In 2012 Brazil’s and Russia’s GDP per capita about 24% per cent and 39% per cent of the US.


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A new hegemon? Predicted GDP per capita rankings for 2030 and 2050:


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2012 2030 Maddison

(2007)

2030 Buiter & Rahbari (2011)

2050 Buiter & Rahbari (2011)

USA 1 1 1 1EU 2 2 4 4Japan 3 3 2 5Russia 4 4 3 2Brazil 5 6 6 6China 6 5 5 3India 7 7 7 7


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The Rule of Law and Non-Oil GDP Per Capita (2012)All variables significant at 1% level. Adjusted R2 = 0.759. N = 97.

0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.70

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

70,000

Composite index of open government and absence of corruption

Non

-oil

GD

P pe

r cap

ita

ChinaIndia

Brazil

United Arab Emirates Russia

USA

France UK Japan

Germany

Singapore

Sweden

Hong Kong

Italy

Greece

Malaysia

South Korea

The persistence of varieties of capitalism

On institutional complementarities: Pagano (1991), Amable (2000), Aoki (2001), Hall and Soskice (2001), Boyer (2005), etc. …

Countries are at different levels of development and are experiencing different rates of growth variety preserved.

Institutions that are more effective at one level of development are often less effective in another.

Institutions that are necessary for higher growth rates are different from those suitable for more gradual change.


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Year (for share data)

Unit (for share data)

Share of top

20% 10% 5% 2% 1% Gini

Australia 2010 household 61.8 0.622

Brazil 0.784

China 2002 person 59.3 41.4 0.550

France 2010 adult 62.0 24.0 0.730

Germany 2007 household 61.1 0.667

India 2002 household 69.9 52.9 38.3 15.7 0.669

Italy 2010 household 62.6 45.7 32.9 21.0 14.8 0.609

Japan 1999 household 57.7 39.3 0.547

Netherlands 2008 household 78.5 62.7 0.650

Norway 2004 household 80.1 65.3 0.633

Russia 0.699

Spain 2008 household 61.3 45.0 32.6 21.7 16.5 0.570

Sweden 2007 adult 67.0 49.0 24.0 0.742

Switzerland 1997 family 71.3 58.0 34.8 0.803

UK 2008 adult 62.8 44.3 30.5 12.5 0.697

USA 2010 family 86.7 74.4 60.9 44.8 34.1 0.801

Distributions of Wealth in Selected Countries


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Gini Coefficients for Distributions of Income

1970 2000 changeAustralia 31.93 37.17 +5.24Brazil 46.66 Canada 35.11 38.19 +3.08France 36.42 Germany (W) 32.35 36.48 +4.13India 35.68 49.28 +13.6Italy 39.44 36.31 –3.13Japan 35.47 36.51 +1.04Netherlands 34.32 35.10 +0.78Norway 31.55 33.68 +2.13Russia 25.31 45.16 +19.85South Korea 42.12 37.60 –4.52Spain 41.21 39.25 –1.96Sweden 28.62 28.96 +0.34UK 26.78 36.77 +9.99US 35.08 38.28 +3.20

The persistence of varieties of capitalism Branko Milanovic (2011) showed that level of global income inequality has increased since the early 19th century, reaching a high level in about 1950, with slower growth since.

In the early 19th century, most global income inequality was due to differences within countries.

By the early 21st century most global income inequality was due to differences between countries.

Much of the change in global inequality in the next few decades could result from economic growth in large and lower-income countries – eg. China, India, and Brazil.

This could diminish world inequality by bringing their populations into globally higher income ranges.


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Public Social Spending as Percentage of GDP

1980 2005 changeAustralia 10.3 16.5 +6.2Austria 22.4 27.1 +4.7Belgium 23.5 26.5 +3.0Canada 13.7 16.9 +3.2Denmark 24.8 27.7 +2.9Finland 18.1 26.2 +8.1France 20.8 30.1 +9.3Germany 22.1 27.3 +5.2Italy 18.0 24.9 +6.9Japan 10.2 18.5 +8.3Netherlands 24.8 20.7 –4.1Norway 16.9 21.6 +4.7Portugal 9.9 23.0 +13.1Spain 15.5 21.1 +5.6Sweden 27.1 29.1 +2.0Switzerland 13.8 20.2 +6.4UK 16.5 20.5 +4.0US 13.2 16.0 +2.8

Our future?

Possible global destabalisation resulting from shift in economic centre of gravity to East.

Threat of further financial instability.

Ecological and resource problems.

Dani Rodrik’s (2011) trilemma: “we cannot simultaneously pursue democracy, national determination, and economic globalization”


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Conceptualizing Capitalism Institutions, Evolution, Future