M. Hodgson, Conceptualizing Capitalism: Institutions, Evolution, Future, the University of Chicago Press. Kindle edition, 2015

What capitalism is everyone knows, or thinks that he/she/they know(s). It is an economic and social system under which ownership of the means of production on one hand and labor on the other are largely separate (commenting on this, Marx once said that the reason why bourgeois dislike prostitutes is because the latter cannot be separated from the tools of their trade). One under which the main means of production such as factories, machines, roads, communications etc. are in large part privately owned and may, operating through a somewhat chaotic system known as “markets,” be more or less freely transferred from one owner to another. One under which the factor that ties those resources together, enabling them to function, is money rather than, say, barter or faith or charisma. One in which economic initiative is given free rein and consequently takes the form of competition among owners, actual or would-be, that in time is almost certain to lead to gross inequalities between rich and poor.

One that operates, and to a large extent can only operate, within a framework of rights and duties, freedoms and prohibitions, known as law, the task of creating and administrating which is the province of an overarching organization known as the state. One whose origins have deep roots in history—especially ancient Rome where private ownership, in the form of so-called cattle slavery, reached heights (or lows) to which subsequent generations had little to add. One that, originating in the Netherlands and England between about 1600 and 1800 and having resoundingly defeated communism as its most important opponent, has spread all over the world. To the point where, at present, it faces only limited competition even in countries, such as China, whose official ideology points in a different direction.

As the common saying has it, whatever goes up must go down. Rome, which as I just said in some way represented the acme of capitalism, ended by biting the dust. As it did so, it was replaced first by the various Germanic tribes and then by feudalism; based on entirely different principles, between them they lasted for almost a millennium. Panta rhei: to anyone with the least historical consciousness, the collapse at some future time of capitalism appears inevitable. Some may even see it as desirable. Do we really want to perpetuate a system that allows a handful of temperamental tycoons to control much of a country’s wealth, as it does both in the US and (more surprisingly) in Switzerland? But what will its successor look like? Science fiction apart, to-date the only really serious attempt to answer this question was provided by Lenin, Stalin and Mao. From them it passed to their successors or imitators. But that attempt, too, has hit the dust. If not in theory—a small number of die-hard Marxists still persists—then at any rate in practice. So the question is, what comes next; and it was the hope of obtaining at least some answers to that question that first made me turn to Hodgson’s book.

As I read along, I found that the relevant material is distributed between two separate chapters. They are number 14, “The Future of Global Capitalism;” and 16 “After Capitalism.” Chapter 14 is an attempt to guess what forms capitalism may yet take in various countries and the relative success of those forms: e.g Taiwan (supposing it does not fall to China, a possibility Hodgson does not even mention) and South Korea versus India; the United States versus China; the European Union versus Russia; and so on. All this while taking into account, or trying to take into account, a vast number of relevant factors such as birthrates, labor force participation, per capita GDPs, social and cultural attitudes, government interference (including R&D and subsidies on one hand and taxes and corruption on the other) and so on. Briefly, the kind of socio-economic analysis that, coming complete with countless tables and figures, may be found in a thousand other works.

Taking up the lead, chapter 16 deals with three questions. They are, 1.”Will the Great Global Diffusion Lead to a New Economic Hegemonism?” 2. “The Role of Law and Economic Development.” And 3. “The Persistence of Varieties of Capitalism.” Needless to say, the answers to each of these issues will play an important role in shaping the future. As with chapter 14, the author’s discussion of each of these issues is backed up by reams of facts and figures. One can imagine the author chewing his way through them, leaving no bone untouched. His main interest, though, comes through in the second issue; from beginning to end, he is determined to show that law and good government, far from merely forming a Marx-type “superstructure” that covers the economic “base” and justifies it, forms an essential part of capitalism’s nature or, at the very least, a prerequisite without which it could not exist. Presenting his case in some detail, he is probably more often right than wrong; what I found almost totally missing, though, was a more global –meaning, not country by country—oriented discussion of any fundamental changes capitalism may undergo.

To my mind, some of the most important early twenty-first century questions concerning capitalism are as follows. Given how powerful, how omnipresent ad by now, how persistent capitalism is at the present historical moment, what factors could push it off course and make humanity move into a different direction?  Suppose an alternative to capitalism is found, what will it look like?  Will inequality among rich and poor, individuals or countries, decrease or increase? Will the future resemble Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World? Or George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four? Or Anthony Burgess’ 1985? Or some combination of the three? Who loses? Who gains? Unfortunately Hodgson does not provide even the beginning of answers to any of these and similar questions.

Leaving his work, however well researched and rich and nuanced it may be, hanging in the air.