Publisher's Synopsis
Our theme for our 2019 programme of enquiry was the 'Transformation of Capital' - more a case of evolution than revolution. The basic premise of the project was that instead of Capitalism ending (the Post-Capitalist argument), it could be radically transformed. If so, what could it be transformed into, and how much of that transformation is evident today?The history of capitalism extends further back than the formulation first identified by Marx. The Marxian version of capitalism is essentially an industrial form of capitalism. This contains an inconvenience for the Marxian formulation - pre-capitalist accumulations of capital - and the dilemma of how to describe emerging forms of capital in a post-industrial world. One way to handle these problems is to abandon the simple Marxian formulation of capitalism. This would allow us to engage with a wider array of subtleties and nuances.In the pre-industrial era, the economy would be essentially agrarian. There would be a degree of internal and international trade, mainly in primary products and rudimentary manufactures. The Industrial Revolution allowed the development of manufactures into more complex forms and was facilitated by the development of financial markets to serve these new methods of production. In many ways, the economy was shaped by, and helped to shape, emergent social forms. Industrialisation facilitated the growth of cities and rapid urbanisation, which shaped the politics of the day.For the purposes of this project, we held that the industrial era is coming to an end, to be replaced by the information age. Just as the transition from an agrarian to an industrial economy helped to re-shape social and economic institutions, so, we hold, will new economic and social institutions emerge from the transition from the industrial era to the information age. This book aims to examine this transition and how some of the emerging forms might take shape.