Capitalisms in Late Modernity

Author(s): Michael Blim

Source: Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 29 (2000), pp. 25-38
Published by: Annual Reviews
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/223413
Accessed: 30/01/2010 01:28

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=annrevs.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Annual Reviews is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Annual Review of
Anthropology.

http://www.jstor.org
 Annu. Rev. Anthropol.2000. 29:25-38
Copyright? 2000 by AnnualReviews. All rightsreserved

CAPITALISMS
IN LATEMODERNITY

MichaelBlim
City University of New York Graduate Center, New York,New York 10016-4309;
e-mail: blimmichael@hotmail.com

Key Words capitalism,modemsocieties,neo-Weberianism,

neo-institutionalism,
neo-Marxism
* Abstract This articlereviewsneo-Weberian,neo-institutionalist economic,and
neo-Marxianapproachesto theanalysisof capitalismin latemodemsocieties.It argues
thatall makeimportantcontributions to the understanding
of the increasingeconomic
variabilityreportedin capitalistsocieties.Theapproachesalso maybe profitablycom-
binedto assessthe degreeto whichspecificcasesidentifieddeviatein significantways
fromcurrenthegemonicpatternsof capitalistdevelopment.Finally,consumptionthe-
ory is assessedfor its valuein revisingstandardcapitalistdevelopmenttheory.

INTRODUCTION

As Salman Rushdie brings The Moor's Last Sigh to its shatteringclose, he con-
trives a scene of recognitionbetween Moraes,the Moor, and his father,Abraham
Zogoiby, in the penthouse of the CashondeliveriTowers, the father's Bombay
skyscraper:
Abrahambecame stone. He was ice, and flame. He was God in Paradiseand
I, his greatestcreation,hadjust put on the forbiddenfig-leaf of shame. "I am
a business person,"he said. "Whatthereis to do, I do."

Abraham,the black hole of Bombay.I saw him wrappedin a darkness,a

collapsing star sucking darknessarounditself as its mass increased.No light
escaped from the event-horizonof his presence. He had begun to scare me
long ago; now he engenderedin me a terror,and at the same time a pity, that
my words are too impoverishedto describe.
Rushdie(1995:336, 341)
AbrahamZogoiby had emerged from the wealthy obscurityof the Cochin spice
tradeto become a drugrunner,H-bombfinancier,engineerof uxoricide,and most
of all master-and monster-capitalist of Bombay. His father,the Moor realizes,
has become his enemy and, by implication,that of Indiatoo.

0084-6570/00/1015-0025$14.00 25
26 BLIM

Like the Moor, whetherit is our wish or fear, we have all awakenedat the end
of the 1990s to find our genitors,fictive or no, capitalistsin some extended sense,
and we as anthropologistsappearto sharethis fate no less thanthe rest.
In fact,capitalism'sstockin ourmarketis rising.The numberof anthropological
contributionsto the literatureon capitalismhas grownfourfoldbetweenthe period
1963-1985 and 1986-1999, a ratetwice as fast as the growthof generalanthropo-
logical literatureas a whole. Although since 1986, anthropologicalcontributions
to studies of capitalismhave lagged behind older favorites,such as kinship, reli-
gion, politics, and marriage,their numberin the past 14 years exceeds citations
devotedto the more generaltopic of economics. All said, capitalism'sgood runin
the anthropologicalmarketis still no matchfor thatof gender.Both topics garnered
an almost even numberof referencesin anthropologybetween 1963 and 1985, but
in the past 14 years, capitalismwas the IBM of anthropologywhereasgenderwas
the Microsoftof the field, increasingits contributionsthreetimes faster1
This abundanceof new anthropologicalwork on capitalismprovidesrich pos-
sibilities for interpretation.Anthropologistsmay write aboutcapitalismwith less
flair thanRushdie,but they often do so with a strongsense of moral and political
engagement. While value preferencesweigh heavily in anthropologicalinvesti-
gations of capitalism, the task here is to sort out the intellectual value of their
findings.The principalobjectivesof this essay areto providea structuralsketchof
a decade's worthof anthropologicalwork on capitalismand to develop a tentative
assessment of the degrees to which various kinds of investigationscontributeto
our greaterunderstandingof capitalismin the the late moder world.
I show thatthreesets of alternativedescriptionsof the new capitalistworldhave
emergedover the past decade. Takentogether,they are "neos,"that is they are re-
vised strainsof Marxist,Weberian,and institutionalisteconomic approachesused
as explanatoryschema to guide the outcomes of anthropologicalaccounts.Taken
separatelyas well as in comparisonwith the others,each possesses advantagesand
disadvantages,as I suggestbelow. At the conclusionof the essay, I brieflyexamine
the degree to which the new emphasis on consumptionas a process of capitalist
developmentcould affect what we intendconceptuallyby capitalism.
It is important,however,to be mindfulthatthe three"neos"are heuristicsand,
thus, not diagnostic of any one scholar'swork. More typically, in the face of the
facts, most scholarshipis forced to make its peace not from inside one paradigm
or another,nor from outside all paradigms,but from amongthe variousparadigms
claiming to capturethe novelties of capitalism'sextraordinaryenergies over the
past decade. Before takingeach in turn,it is useful to establisha common ground
for analysis.

1Thecomparisons reported reflecttheoutcomeof simplecrosstabulationsof anthropology

and the othervariablesin the SociologicalAbstracts(CambridgeScientificAbstract)
coveringthe periods1963-1985and 1986-1999.Althoughreferencesto anthropology
countedincludedescriptions of authors'academicdepartment affiliations,spotchecking
of itemsin eachof thelistsgenerated suggestedthatthenumbersarea goodproxyforthe
levelsof topicalinterestin anthropology.
 CAPITALISMSIN LATEMODERNITY 27

Some Initial Distinctions

AND CAPITALISMS:
CAPITALISM

Explosiveeconomic growthin Asia, the implosionof socialismin the formerSoviet

Union and throughouteasternEurope,and the partialrecoveryof the political and
economic hegemony of the United States in the world's marketshave combined
to createa varietyof new frontsof capitalistactivity.To betterunderstandthe new
scene, we need to explore capitalism as a phenomenonin both time and space.
Weber(1978:164-65) was notbashfulaboutimaginingcapitalismas a phenomenon
groundedin a varietyof more historicallyspecific types. For instance,he was de-
terminedto expandthe historicalorientationof capitalisticprofit-makingbeyond
the fabled free marketsfor goods, money, and capitalto include predatoryprofits
derivedfrom statemonopolies,political favoritism,andcolonialism.Althoughhis
modernismcommitted him to finding the most rationalizedforms of capitalism
in the west, he describedwith relativeequanimitythe presence of the othertypes
of capitalism in historical formationsthroughoutboth east and west. Moreover,
he envisioned the possibilities of an unlimited numberof capitalisttypes in our
time, so long as their analysis could pass causal muster in explaining particular
economic phenomena.
Braudel's(1984) concept of capitalismcombines the dimensions of space and
time in a way that makes Webermore useful. In Braudel's view, economies are
composed of threediscrete,contemporaneousspheresof activity,rangingfromthe
self-provisioningsof everydaylife, to the fulfillmentof needs in markets,to cap-
italism, the locus of monopolists and political predatorsinterestedin eliminating
competitionin economic transactions.We may use Braudelto more sensibly re-
strictWeber'stypological enthusiasmsby adoptinghis view thatin any given time
and space, some mix of the three types of economic activity is being utilized by
people in societies. In one, a people's economy is summedup by self-provisioning
and marketactivity where supply and demanddetermineprices. In another,cop-
ing with the capitalismof the anti-market-the refuge of financialspeculatorsand
price-fixers-may occupy more economic space than either self-provisioningor
resortingto marketsfor satisfying needs and wants.
Adoptingthis fused perspectivefor the purposesof this essay providesus with
an ample palette of colors with which to paint the contemporaryanthropology
of capitalism. It encourages furtherexplorationsof types of capitalism without
prematurelyclosing off awarenessof alternativesto capitalismin anygiven society.
It also binds our creativeendeavorsto a value-preferencebottomline, namely that
when all is said and done, capitalistactivities are-and should be-related to the
fulfillmentof our fundamentalneeds, however generouslydefined.

MAKINGTYPESOF CAPITALISM:
A Neo-WeberianExercise

Althoughnot always in sympathywith Weber'sprocess of ideal-typification,capi-

talistexpansionthroughoutthe globaleconomy has spurreda flurryof anthropolog-
ical name giving. Miller (1997) distinguishesbetween "pure"capitalism,or global
28 BLIM

norms,and "organic"capitalism,based upon local consumptionhabits. Overseas

investment in manufacturingin the People's Republic of China has prompted
Lever-Tracyet al (1994) to speakof the specificityof a "diasporacapitalism"(but
see Cooper& Jiang 1998, Oxfeld 1993). The "patronal"or "comprador"forms of
capitalism, which bind Indonesianstate elites and ethnic Chinese business lead-
ers in unholy combination,Hefner (1998b,c) finds to have led to the organization
in Indonesia of more "Islamic"forms of business and banking among Muslim
elites. Bestor (1997, 1998, 2000) finds a "bureaucraticcapitalism"embeddedin
the daily operationsof Japanesemarkets,whereas Verdery(1996) describes the
postsocialist economic successors in EasternEuropeas a form of "politicalcap-
italism." Hutchcroft(1998) opts for "booty"capitalism to describe banking in
the Philippines, whereas Yang (2000) characterizescapitalism as ceremonially
orientedin China.
This listing suggests the degreeto which anthropologistsare seeking to capture
variationin capitalistactivities throughtypification.The advantageof this strat-
egy (see especially Luong 1998, Gladney 1998, Li 1998, Peletz 1998, Eyal et al
1998, Dunn 1998) is thatit usually attributescapitalistactivitiesto specific agents
and groups, which adds an importantdose of realism to an exercise that could
degenerateinto nominalism.The challenge now is to establish the relative value
of each type, which dependson the degreeto which investigatorscan specify how
the featurescausally producethe case in question(see below).
Does typological ease imply it is useful or interestingto speak of capitalisms
in the plural?Accordingto Smart(1995, 1999), all capitalisms-as the late House
SpeakerTip O'Neill liked to say about politics-are local. For Hefner (1998a),
too, "capitalisms"(theplural)findsits value in connotinglocal variation.Although
Smart and Hefner are careful to specify a multicontextual,historical usage for
capitalism,Sahlins (1994) carriesthis position to the extremeby postulatingthat
with all economics being cultural,and all culturesbeing particular,all capitalisms
are particular.By takingcapitalismto be an instanceof economics, and therefore
subject to the universal stricturesof culture with a capital C, Sahlins mistakes
the historically specific ground of capitalism for the abstractanalytical concept
of economics. In doing so, he reduces "capitalism"to culturallydifferent local
practices-a notion that would surprisean agent of the Chase ManhattanBank,
not to mentionHefner'sIslamic banker.
The point is not to rest on an axiomatic particularismof the sort prescribed
by Sahlins but to explore the context and meaning of variationin capitalist ac-
tivities. Local social relationsare critical causally to the operationof the various
capitalisms.To illustratethis point,guanxi, a set of social practicesfound in China
and Taiwanthat usually refers to the exchange of gifts and favors to solidify so-
cial ties between cooperatingparties,has been richly describedby Smart(1993a),
Yang (1994), Yan (1996), Kipnis (1997), Mackie (1998), and Hamilton (1998).
Does the structuringof the exchangerelationswithin capitalistactivitiesaffect the
outcome of transactionsover the long haul? If so, a strongcase can be made for
an interestingcapitalisttype indeed.
 IN LATEMODERNITY
CAPITALISMS 29

To this shouldbe joined efforts to sort out the causal efficacy of otherrecurrent
social practicesbeing documentedin new capitalistoutposts. Ledeneva's (1998)
discussionof blat, the use of connectionsandpersonalnetworksin the postsocialist
Russianeconomy,bearsfurtherstudyandcomparisonwith guanxicapitalism.Are
langganan ties between Javanese food sellers and their customers equivalentin
value to the maintenanceof exchange and commerce of guanxi ties, as Alexander
(1998) proposes?
If so, at a broaderanalyticallevel, typificationmight help solve the problemof
the relative significance of instititutionalor interinstitutionaldifferences in capi-
talist economies. An economist with the standingof Stiglitz (1993) can toss off
without elaborationthe notion that there are institutionaldifferencesbetween the
capitalismsof the United States, Germany,andJapan,but an anthropologyof cap-
italisms must undertakea more systematicand comparativeanalysis of the degree
to which these kinds of generalizationsare useful. Economist Wade (1998), for
instance, arguesthat in many of Asia's capitalisteconomies, banks and firms are
composed and related differentlyto each other, which put the banks unfairly at
risk duringthe 1997 financialcrisis and the InternationalMonetaryFund (IMF)
Asian bailouts. Sociologists such as Useem (1990), Burt (1992), and Mizruchi
(1992) might offer some assistance in describingthe connections between firms
and institutions,and the ties of economic organizationsto politics. But these stud-
ies are more likely to interestthe more neo-institutionallyinclined scholarshipof
capitalism(see below).

NORMALIZING CULTURAL DISTINCTIVENESS:

The Neo-Institutional Approach

Institutionaleconomics, i.e. the study of economies as social as well as eco-

nomic structures,is making a comeback (see Hodgson 1994). It has been shorn
of its Veblenianradicalroots and refittedto neoclassical economic theory,and its
"neo-ness"derivesfromthe now 15-year-oldinjunctionof sociologist Granovetter
(1985) to treatall economies as embeddedin social-structuralrelations.To anthro-
pological readers,this may seem like Polanyi (1944) redux,butgiven thatits focus
is on capitalist economies, the new programdoes not strainto separateand ele-
vate noncapitalisteconomies, as did the trenchantlysocial democraticPolanyians.
Instead,the principleof rationalchoice is simply extended to the social domain:
Actors are rationalwhen they promotethe interestsof kin, kith, group,and firm.
Acheson (1994, 2000), a prominentexponent of neo-institutionalismin an-
thropology,has developed a comprehensivegenealogy of germane work in the
ethnographicliterature.His own studies of regulating lobster fishing in Maine
(Acheson & Knight 2000, Acheson 1998) as well as his analysis of household
budgets among the Purepechasof Mexico (Acheson 1995, 1996) provide indi-
cations of the value of applying the insights of neo-institutionaleconomics to
anthropologicalproblems.
30 BLIM

And Acheson is by no means alone in his pursuits.Plattner(1989) writes of

the security that personalrelationshipsin marketsprovide actors in the midst of
risky transactions.Smart(1993b) profitablyutilizes the concept of "rent-seeking"
in describing how permanentresidents of Chinese industrialboom towns have
found ways to collect royaltiesfromthe businessesthathavebroughtdevelopment
to their towns. Bestor (1998, 1999, 2000) finds that discussing the relative costs
of transactionsamong fish sellers and buyers in the Tokyo marketplaceaids in
understandingtheir motivations.He also finds recourseto concepts of relational
and obligationalcontractinga welcome relief to a culturalessentialism bent on
making long-standingJapanese business practices an artifactof the Tokugawa
Bakufu.Hertz(1998) places the social intentionsof individualsin the forefrontof
her analysisof the operationsandoutcomesof a Shanghaistockmarket.Shi (1999)
shows how ruralwomenmigrantsto Guangzhou,China,succeedin obtainingmore
income and increased social status as domestic workersdespite the gender and
social origin barriersthey find in difficulturbanlabormarkets.
Wilk's (1996) synthesis of economic anthropology,by implication, casts an
appreciativeglance at the new institutionalistparadigm.He advocatesits principal
virtue,the attributionof rationalityto all economic behavior,but cautionsthatthis
capacityis limited to some degree by the interventionsof place and time.
The accomplishmentof neo-institutionalismin sociology is robustandgrowing;
in anthropology,the effortis smaller,andtime will tell if it is growing.In its analysis
of local capitalistactivity,the researchprogramoffersthe benefitsof a transcultural
knowledge base in shapingexplanations.Its accountsamountto redescriptionsof
particularsocial motivationsand circumstancesin a frameworkthatmakes causal
efficacy easier to establish and more transparentto the reader.It remains to be
seen how much anthropology'sattachmentto culturalparticularswill mitigateits
flourishingin our midst.

EXPLAINING THE NEW GLOBAL CAPITALISM:

The Neo-Marxian Task

Although presumablyattachedto more universalistictheories of capitalism-or

perhapsbecause of this fact-neo-Marxian analyses of capitalistactivities were
among the firstto highlightthe rise in capitalistvariabilityin the global economy.
In the early 1990s, anthropologistsdetected importantchanges, such as the de-
centralizationof industrialproduction,the recruitmentand exploitationof women
and former peasants as laboringpopulations,and the connection of small-scale
capitalist ventures in the peripheryto the global economy. These were central
themes in ethnographiesby Nash (1989), Cook & Binford (1990), Blim (1990),
Benton (1990), and Griffith(1993). Particularattentionwas drawnto the role of
gender and households in subordinatingwomen's work (see Ong 1987, Stephen
1991, Rothstein& Blim 1992, Safa 1995, Harrison1997). The carefulanalysisby
Gates (1995) of the role of petty capitalismin China'spre- and postrevolutionary
 CAPITALISMSIN LATEMODERNITY 31

economies probablyrepresentsthe high-watermark of this tendency to spot in-

creasing differentiationin capitalistpractice.
At work, many of these anthropologistsreckoned, was a new mechanism of
accumulation.Harvey's (1989) highly useful analysis of the world economic cri-
sis of the 1970s and the subsequentrise of a global era of flexible accumulation
led to a numberof interestingstudies of new forms of capitalistactivities, as Ong
(1991) prescientlypredictedit would. Rothstein (1996, 1999) demonstrateshow
children and women in a Tlaxcalan village in Mexico lost both educationaland
monetarystatusin the flexible redeploymentof householdlaboraftera succession
of Mexican economic crises. Leach (1998) shows similarconsequencesof indus-
trialrestructuringon householdlaborpatternsin Ontario,Canada.Gledhill (1998)
argues that with respect to Mexico, the North AmericanFree TradeAgreement
has become effectively an instrumentof flexible accumulation.Freeman(1998)
shows that gender relationsshape how Caribbeanwomen respondto becoming a
new source of low-paying, downstreamlabor.Verdery(1996) arguesthat flexible
accumulation-or the inability to adaptto it as a new regime-probably explains
the collapse of many economic regimes among formerlysocialist countries.
Neo-liberalism, which might be called the ideological fig leaf covering the
depredationsof flexible accumulation,finds astute critics as well. Babb (1998)
and Buechler & Buechler (1998) describe how the neoliberal emphasis on de-
veloping petty entrepreneurshiphas encouragedstates and nongovernmentalor-
ganizations to engage in micro-lendingto small firms in societies with crippled
nationaleconomies. Susser (1997) also notes how instilled beliefs in the value of
flexible accumulationhave led in the United States to welfare and homelessness
policies that exploit women as caregiversand potentialworkersin the low-wage
service economy.
The principaladvantageof the neo-Marxianapproachis that its universalistic
theory facilitatescomparisonacross cases. However,for reasons that are unclear,
its use in anthropologyis often relatedto explicating one case at a time, leaving
the goal of ethnology largely unrealized.

DISCUSSION

Thus far, this essay has treatedthe three "neo" approachesseparately.To make
sense of the worldwide trajectoryof contemporarycapitalism,however,it is im-
portantto reimaginethem as complementarydevices in the task of understanding
a complex phenomenon.
Where is capitalismgoing? This question is not asked out of some misplaced
faith in the positivist prescriptionthat good theory must be able to predictsome-
thing. Nor is it asked out of belief in the corollarythat capitalismis an economic
system that has some discoverableteleology, an assumptionthat runs counterto
the tenorof this essay. Humanbettermentis the cause for ourinquiry,as the destiny
of so many is now tied to that of capitalism.
32 BLIM

Marx and Weber,the moder founders of the study of capitalism, provided

programmaticand, finally, inapt answers. Marx predicteda succession of crises
that would destroy capitalism through proletarianrevolution. Weber imagined
thatcapitalism'sinnercompulsionto rationalizeeconomic life would enervatethe
humanwill neededfor its reproduction.Both areadmirable,if less thanapplicable,
ideas in the currentcontext.But bothMarxandWeber,as Arrighi(1994) pointsout,
notedhow capitalismhistoricallyconcentratedeconomic andpoliticalpowerin the
handsof the few. TorecallBraudel,capitalismis the spaceof the anti-market,where
financiers,speculators,and the political powers of states come together to make
profits without the constraintsof competition.The political natureof capitalism
and its fit within the world system of states,in sum, expandsthe economic context
to include the problem of governance. In the currentworld setting, the United
States' political andeconomic hegemonyis a crucialvariablein whatis to become
of the variationin capitalismsanthropologyhas discovered(see Arrighiet al 1999;
Blim 1996, 1997). This in turnaffects what is to become of capitalism.
Accordingto Arrighiet al (1999), the unusualaspectof UnitedStates'hegemony
in the world economy, in contrastto its British and Dutch predecessors,is its un-
precedentedcontrolover internationalorganizationsthatregulatethe international
flows of capital,banking,and trade.In this context, the significanceof the World
Bank and the IMF after the 1997 Asian financialcrisis can hardlybe underesti-
mated.Strictenforcementof US-directednormsgoverningAsian nations'banking
and corporatepracticesin bail-out plans destroyedthe usual elite policy consen-
sus and encouragedprominentdissenters such as Jeffrey Sachs, Paul Krugman,
and Joseph Stiglitz to describe IMF policies not only as wrong-headedbut as in-
strumentsof America's self-interestedwill (see Krugman1999:109-117, Sachs
1998:81-82). Supposing that the variabilitydiscovered by anthropologistsis a
consequence of capitalism'sspreadand growing intensitywithin new spaces and
territories,the viabilityof these local capitalismsmay indeeddependon the degree
to which they are concordantwith US-inspiredinternationalnorms,or the degree
to which they successfully resist US hegemonic pressures.
Analysis of the new capitalisms' conformancewith internationalnorms leads
inevitably to a more serious assessment of the empiricaland causal significance
of each case. Here, it seems that the neo-institutionalistsoffer both a challenge
and a simple test for the neo-Weberiansand neo-Marxians:To what degree can a
given case, claimed as a variantfrom the capitalism'sstandardoperatingsystem,
be successfullyredescribedusing the modified"socialized"rationalchoice model
of the neo-institutionalists?The greaterthe degree, it seems to me, the less likely
a significantvariantlies revealedin the case, and the more likely a conventional
"capitalismdiscoveredin anothercounty"descriptionwould do.
However,some concession is demandedof the neo-institutionalistsas well. As
functional and parsimoniousas socialized rationalchoice theory is, it lacks an
object. That is, interestedparties,groups,and so on, focus theirintentionsin this
contexton somethingthe neo-Marxiansandneo-Weberianslike to call capitalism,
with its determinatestructureand process. Thus, the context for causal evaluation
 IN LATEMODERNITY
CAPITALISMS 33

must incorporatea general understandingof capitalism, which consists of the

organizationand utilizationof labor and effort for profit-the bare minimumof a
definitionto which all are likely to agree.
Turnaboutis fairplay for the neo-Marxiansas well. Insofaras they areequipped
with the most complete theoryof capitalismin circulation,they providethe others
with a theory that can bridge ethnographiccontexts in highly relevantways. Yet
the smotheringof variationis a constantdanger,one that would be laid to rest by
greateropenness and even adoption of a more neo-Weberianoutlook. Speaking
of "guanxi"or "predatory"or "diaspora"capitalism,to merely illustratethe point
here, is not to tradein metaphorsbut to create a possible field and vocabularyfor
describingvariationin a constructive,causally interestingway. Perhapsfollowing
Braudel, anthropologistsmight find heuristic value in the composition of local
economies by distinguishingbetween the dynamicsof self-provisioning,markets,
and anti-markets.

RESEARCHING THE FUTURE

Aside from variation,which continues to call for closer study, the mechanisms
of capitalistgovernanceneed anthropologicalattention.Areas often relegatedto
political science, such as internationalorganizationsand foreign policy, should
become part of our ethnographicwork. Internationalmarketsfor capital, those
Braudeliananti-marketswhere anthropologicalemphasison agency and intention
wouldpay off in ways superiorto otherscientificprojects,deservespecialattention.
Following Thrift (1998), we might add other agencies of collective change in
capitalism,such as the spreadof managementknow-howthroughthe diffusion of
graduatebusiness education,which has become a significantforce for institutional
transformationof business organization.Furtherresearchis necessary to assess
the extent to which Sklair's (1998) claim of a rising transnationalclass can be
instantiatedin the social settings we study.
Is there any prospectthat the theory of capitalismper se might be undergoing
significantrevision?Once morefromthe agency side, thereis a move to arguethat
differentstyles of popularconsumptionchange patternsin capitalism.Consump-
tion, accordingto Miller (1997, 1998), enablespeople to createalternativeworlds
from those proposednormativelyby the hegemonic center.With an eye more on
the everydayorigins of consumerculture,Applbaum(1998, 2000) shows thatpro-
fessional marketersfor transnationalcorporationsand consumer survey groups
deeply influence the directionof capitalistproduction.Heyman (1997) notes that
although Mexican households are swept up in the activities of globalizing cap-
italism, local tastes and moral choice flavor the consumer goods they purchase.
In a mannerreminiscentof Mintz's (1984) classic study of the sweetening of the
world marketthrough sugar, Roseberry (1996) demonstrateshow the organiza-
tion of upper-middle-classAmericantastes for coffee also organizesa commodity
chain of producers,wholesalers,and retailersthatexploit perceiveddifferencesin
34 BLIM

taste for superprofits.Schneider(1994) also indicateshow global demandcan be

reorganizedas large producerssearchfor bettermarketsfor new goods.
Close scrutiny of the new "consumptionist"viewpoint has already begun.
Carrier& Heyman (1997) comment that the emphasis on consumption in cap-
italism has thus far been one-dimensionalbecause it has failed to disclose, for
instance, how inequalities of race, class, and gender might differentiallyaffect
the productionof capitalist culture. This criticism is symptomaticperhaps of a
largerproblementailedin the consumptionistview thatwas discussed above with
respect to Sahlins' characterizationof the relationshipsbetween cultureand cap-
italism. The same risk of erring on the side of axiomatic particularismexists if
consumptionistproponentsemphasize solely differential"use"of capitalism by
local people at the expense of those populations' structuralrelationshipsto the
operationof capitalismas a world economic system.
That said, there is theoreticalroom for growth in our understandingof how
consumptionfits within contemporarycapitalism.Weber's(1978) conviction that
consumptiondifferences underlie the developmentof life styles augurs well for
furtherexplorationof the role of consumptionpatternsin generatingnew class and
statusstructures.Marxianapproachestraditionallyregardconsumptionas a crucial
prop to productionand believe thatconsumptiondeficits createcrises of effective
demand, and thus eventually of overproduction(see Hobsbawm 1954, Baran &
Sweezy 1966). With Keynes' imminent returnto favor among economists (see
Krugman1999), one can imagine an upswing in interestin "under-consumption"
theory for helping explain futurecapitalistemergencies.
As for the Moor, so for us. Capitalismis now all aroundus. The incentive to
study it seems never more compelling thannow.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanksto JaneSchneiderand ShirleyLindenbaumfor theiradvice and encour-
agementand to Alan Smartfor his suggestions of relevantwork for review.

Visit the Annual Reviewshome page at www.AnnualReviews.org

CITED
LITERATURE
AchesonJ. 1994. Welcometo Nobel coun- Acheson J. 1996. Household organizationand
economics.In
try:a reviewof institutional budgetstructuresin a Purepechapueblo.Am.
Anthropologyand InstitutionalEconomics: Ethnol. 23:331-51
Monographsin EconomicAnthropology,ed. Acheson J. 1998. Lobstertraplimits:a solution
J Acheson, 12:3-42. Lanham, MD: Univ. to a communal action problem. Hum. Org.
Press Am. 57:43-52
Acheson J. 1995. Coase among the Pure- AchesonJ. 2000. TheGenerationof Institutions
pechas: transaction costs and institutional and Organizations:The Viewof Institutional
change in a Mexican Indian pueblo. Economics. Orono:Univ. Maine, Dept. An-
J. Inst. Theor Econ. 151:358-72 thropol.
 CAPITALISMSIN LATEMODERNITY
Acheson J, KnightJ. 2000. Distributionfights,
coordinationgamesandlobstermanagement.
Comp.Stud. Soc. Hist. In press
AlexanderJ. 1998. Womentradersin Javanese
marketplaces:ethnicity, gender, and the en-
trepreneurialspirit. See Hefner 1998a, pp.
203-23
Applbaum K. 1998. The sweetness of salva-
tion: consumer marketing and the liberal-
bourgeois theory of needs. Curr Anthropol.
39:323-49
Applbaum K. 2000. Crossing borders: glob-
alization as myth and charterin American
transnationalconsumermarketing.Am. Eth-
nol. In press
ArrighiG. 1994. The Long TwentiethCentury:
Money,Power,and the Originsof Our Times.
London:Verso
ArrighiG, Silver B, AhmadI. 1999. Chaos and
Governance in the Modern WorldSystem.
Minneapolis:Univ. Minn. Press
BabbF. 1998. Fromcooperativesto microenter-
prises: the neoliberalturnin postrevolution-
aryNicaragua.See Phillips 1998, pp. 109-22
BaranP,Sweezy P. 1966. MonopolyCapital:An
Essay on the AmericanEconomicand Social
Order.New York:Monthly Rev.
Benton L. 1990. InvisibleFactories: TheInfor-
mal Economyand IndustrialDevelopmentin
Spain. Albany: State Univ. New YorkPress
Bestor T. 1997. Visible hands: auctions
and institutional integration in the Tsukiji
wholesale fish market, Tokyo. In Japanese
Business: Critical Perspectives on Busi-
ness and Management, ed. S Beechler,
K Stucker,pp. 229-54. New York:Routledge
Bestor T. 1998. Making things clique: cartels,
coalitions, and institutionalstructurein the
Tsukiji wholesale seafood market. In Net-
works,Markets,and the PacificRim:Studies
in Strategy, ed. W Fruin, pp. 154-80. New
York:OxfordUniv. Press
Bestor T. 1999. Wholesale sushi: culture and
commodity in Tokyo's Tsukiji market. In
Theorizingthe City, ed. S Low, pp. 20142.
New Brunswick,NJ: RutgersUniv. Press
Bestor T. 2000. Tokyo'sMarketplace:Culture
35
and Tradein the TsukijiWholesaleSeafood
Market.Berkeley:Univ.Calif. Press.In press
Blim M. 1990. Made in Italy: Small-Scale In-
dustrializationand its Consequences. New
York:Praeger
Blim M. 1996. Cultures and the problems of
capitalism.Crit.Anthropol.16:79-93
Blim M. 1997. Can NOT-capitalismlie at the
end of history,or is capitalism'shistorydraw-
ing to an end? Crit.Anthropol.17:351-64
Braudel F. 1984. Civilizationand Capitalism,
15th-18th Century, Vols. 1-3. New York:
Harper& Row
BuechlerH, BuechlerJ. 1998. Financingsmall-
scale enterprises in Bolivia. See Phillips
1998, pp. 83-108
Burt R. 1992. Structural Holes: The Social
Structureof Competition.Cambridge,MA:
HarvardUniv. Press
CarrierJ, Heyman J. 1997. Consumptionand
political economy. J. R. Anthropol. Inst.
3:355-73
CarrierJ, Miller D, eds. 1998. Virtualism:A
New Political Economy.Oxford,UK: Berg
Cook S, Binford L. 1990. Obliging Need: Ru-
ral Petty Industry in Mexican Capitalism.
Austin: Univ. Tex. Press
Cooper E, Jiang Y-H. 1998. The Artisans and
Entrepreneursof Dongyang County: Eco-
nomic Reform and Flexible Production in
China.Armonk,NY: Sharpe
Dunn E. 1998. Slick salesmen and simple peo-
ple: negotiatedcapitalismin a privatizedPol-
ish firm.In UncertainTransition:Ethnogra-
phies of Change in the Postsocialist World,
ed. M Burawoy,K Verdery,pp. 125-50. Lan-
ham, MD: Rowman& Littlefield
Eyal G, Szeleny I, Townsley E. 1998. Mak-
ing Capitalism without Capitalists: Class
Formation and Elite Struggles in Post-
CommunistCentralEurope.London:Verso
FreemanC. 1998.Femininityandflexiblelabor:
fashioningclass throughgenderon the global
assembly line. Crit.Anthropol.18:245-62
Gates H. 1995. China's Motor: A Thousand
Yearsof Petty Capitalism.Ithaca,NY: Cor-
nell Univ. Press
36 BLIM
Gladney D. 1998. Getting rich is not so glo-
rious: contrastingperspectives on prosper-
ity among Muslims and Han in China. See
Hefner 1998a, pp. 194-228
Gledhill J. 1998. The Mexican contributionto
restructuringUS capitalism:NAFTA as an
instrument of flexible accumulation. Crit.
Anthropol.18:279-96
GranovetterM. 1985. Economic action and so-
cial structure:the problemof embeddedness.
Am. J. Soc. 91:481-510
GriffithD. 1993. Jones's Minimal:Low-Wage
Labor in the United States. Albany: State
Univ. New YorkPress
Hamilton G. 1998. Culture and organization
in Taiwan's market economy. See Hefner
1998a, pp. 41-77
HarrisonF. 1997. The genderedpolitics and vi-
olence of structuraladjustment.In Situated
Lives: Genderand Culturein EverydayLife,
ed. L Lamphere,H Ragone, P Zavella, pp.
451-68. New York:Routledge
Harvey D. 1989. The Conditionof Postmoder-
nity. Cambridge,UK: Blackwell
Hefner R, ed. 1998a. MarketCultures:Society
and Morality in the New Asian Capitalisms.
Boulder,CO: Westview
Hefner R. 1998b. Introduction:society and
morality in the new Asian capitalisms. See
Hefner 1998a, pp. 1-40
HefnerR. 1998c. Marketsandjustice for Mus-
lim Indonesians.See Hefner 1998a,pp. 224-
56
HertzE. 1998. TheTradingCrowd:An Ethnog-
raphy of the Shanghai Stock Market.Cam-
bridge, UK: CambridgeUniv. Press
HeymanJ. 1997. Importsand standardsof jus-
tice on the Mexico-United States Border.
In The Allure of the Foreign: Post-Colonial
Goods in Latin America, ed. B Orlove, pp.
151-83. Ann Arbor:Univ. Mich. Press
HobsbawmE. 1954. The crisis of the 17thcen-
tury.Past Present 5:33-53; 6:44-65
Hodgson G. 1994. The returnof institutional
economics. In The Handbook of Economic
Sociology, ed. N Smelser, R Swedberg, pp.
58-76. Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniv. Press
HutchcroftP. 1998. Booty Capitalism:ThePol-
itics of Banking in the Philippines. Ithaca,
NY: CornellUniv. Press
KipnisA. 1997. ProducingGuanxi:Sentiment,
Self and Subculturein a NorthChinaVillage.
Durham,NC: Duke Univ. Press
KrugmanP. 1999. The Return of Depression
Economics.New York:Norton
Leach B. 1998. Industrial homework, eco-
nomicrestructuringandthemeaningof work.
LabourTrav.41:97-115
Ledeneva A. 1998. Russia's Economy of
Favours:Blat, Networkingand InformalEx-
change. Cambridge,UK: CambridgeUniv.
Press
Lever-TracyC, Ip D, Noel T. 1994. TheChinese
DiasporaandMainlandChina:AnEmerging
Economic Synergy.New York: St. Martin's
Press
Li T. 1998. Constitutingcapitalist culture:the
SingaporeMalay problemand entrepreneur-
ship reconsidered. See Hefner 1998a, pp.
147-72
Luong H. 1998. Engenderedentrepreneurship:
ideologies and political-economic transfor-
mation in a NorthernVietnamese center of
ceramics production.See Hefner 1998a, pp.
290-314
MackieJ. 1998. Businesssuccess amongSouth-
east Asian Chinese: the role of culture,val-
ues, and social structures.See Hefner 1998a,
pp. 129-46
Miller D. 1997. Capitalism:An Ethnographic
Approach.Oxford,UK: Berg
MillerD. 1998. Conclusion:a theoryof virtual-
ism. See Carrier& Miller 1998, pp. 187-215
MintzS. 1984. SweetnessandPower:ThePlace
of Sugar in ModernHistory.New York:Pen-
guin
Mizruchi M. 1992. The Structureof Corpo-
rate PoliticalAction:InterfirmRelationsand
Their Consequences.Cambridge,MA: Har-
vardUniv. Press
Nash J. 1989. From Tank Town to High
Tech: The Clash of Communityand Indus-
trial Cycles. Albany: State Univ. New York
Press
 CAPITALISMSIN LATEMODERNITY
Ong A. 1987. Spirits of Resistance and
Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in
Malaysia. Albany: State Univ. New York
Press
Ong A. 1991. The gender and labor poli-
tics of postmodemity.Annu.Rev.Anthropol.
20:279-309
Oxfeld E. 1993. Blood, Sweat, and Mahjong:
Family and Enterprise in an Overseas Chi-
nese Community,Ithaca,NY: Corell Univ.
Press
Peletz M. 1998. The "great transformation"
amongNegeri SembilanMalays,with partic-
ularreferenceto Chinese and Minangkabau.
See Hefner 1998a, pp. 173-202
PhillipsL, ed. 1998. TheThirdWaveof Modern-
ization in Latin America: CulturalPerspec-
tives on Neoliberalism.Wilmington,DE: SR
Books
Plattner S. 1989. Economic behavior in mar-
kets. In EconomicAnthropology,ed. S Plat-
tner, pp. 208-21. Stanford, CA: Stanford
Univ. Press
Polanyi K. 1944. The Great Transformation:
The Political and Economic Origins of Our
Time.Boston: Beacon
RoseberryW. 1996. The rise of yuppie coffees
and the reimaginationof class in the United
States.Am. Anthropol.98:762-75
RothsteinF. 1996. Flexibleaccumulation,youth
labor,and schooling in a ruralcommunityin
Mexico. Crit.Anthropol.16:361-79
Rothstein F. 1999. Declining odds: kinship,
women's employment, and political econ-
omy in rural Mexico. Am. Anthropol.
101:579-93
RothsteinF, Blim M, eds. 1992. Anthropology
and the Global Factory: Studies of the New
Industrializationin the Late TwentiethCen-
tury.New York:Bergin & Garvey
Rushdie S. 1995. The Moor's Last Sigh. New
York:Vintage
Sachs J. 1998. Capitalism:a new way forward.
Economist(Sept. 12):48
Safa H. 1995. The Myth of the Male Bread-
winner: Womenand Industrializationin the
Caribbean.Boulder,CO: Westview
37
Sahlins M. 1994. Cosmologies of capitalism:
the Trans-Pacificsector of the world sys-
tem. In Culture/Power/History, ed. N Dirks,
G Eley, S Ortner,pp. 412-55. Princeton,NJ:
PrincetonUniv. Press
SchneiderJ. 1994. In and out of polyester:de-
sire, disdain, and global fibre competitions.
Anthropol.Today10:2-10
Shi N-W. 1999. Survivaland mobilityin urban
labor markets:a case study of migrant do-
mestic workersin GuangzhouCity,People's
Republicof China.PhD thesis. Northeastern
Univ., Chicago, Ill. 371 pp.
Sklair L. 1998. The transnationalcapitalist
class. See Carrier& Miller 1998, pp. 135-
60
Smart A. 1993a. Gifts, bribes, and guanxi: a
reconsiderationof Bourdieu'ssocial capital.
Cult.Anthropol.8:388-408
SmartA. 1993b.The political economy of rent-
seekingin a Chinesefactorytown.Anthropol.
WorkRev. 14:12-21
Smart A. 1995. Local Capitalisms: Situated
Social Supportfor Capitalist Productionin
China.Dept. Geogr.Occas.Pap.Hong Kong:
Chinese Univ.
Smart A. 1999. Getting things done across
the Hong Kong border: economic culture
in theory and practice. In Qiaoxiang Ties:
InterdisciplinaryApproaches to "Cultural
Capitalism" in South China, ed. L Douw,
C Huang, M Godley, pp. 158-86. London:
KeganPaul
StephenL. 1991.ZapotecWomen.Austin:Univ.
Tex. Press
Stiglitz J. 1993. Whither Socialism? Cam-
bridge,MA: MIT Press
Susser I. 1997. The flexible woman: regender-
ing labor in the informationalsociety. Crit.
Anthropol.17:389-402
Thrift N. 1998. Virtualcapitalism:the global-
ization of reflexive business knowledge. See
Carrier& Miller 1998, pp. 161-86
Useem M. 1990. Business and politics in the
United States and the United Kingdom.
In Structures of Capital: The Social Or-
ganization of the Economy, ed. S Zukin,
38 BLIM

P DiMaggio, pp. 263-91. Cambridge,UK: dations of EconomicAnthropology.Boulder,

Cambridge Univ. Press CO: Westview
Verdery K. 1996. What Was Socialism, and Yan Y-X. 1996. The Flow of Gifts: Reciprocity
WhatComesNext? Princeton,NJ: Princeton and Social Networks in a Chinese Village.
Univ. Press Stanford,CA: StanfordUniv. Press
Wade R. 1998. The Asian crisis: the high debt YangM. 1994. Gifts,Favors,andBanquets:The
model versus the Wall Street-Treasury-IMF Art of Social Relationshipsin China. Ithaca,
complex. New Left Rev. 228:3-24 NY: Cornell Univ. Press
WeberM. 1978. Economyand Society, Vols. 1, Yang M. 2000. Putting capitalismin its place:
2. Berkeley:Univ. Calif. Press economic hybridity,Bataille, and ritual ex-
Wilk R. 1996. Economics and Cultures:Foun- penditure.Curr Anthropol.In press