The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (32 page)

In democratic political systems the selection of candidates became critically important as political parties came to dominate electoral politics. In systems where party preference of voters dominates over the personal qualities of candidates, the selection of candidates determines who will represent the parties in the legislature or serve as the parties' candidates for the post of president. In electoral areas, local or national, which are dominated by a single party, the choice of candidate effectively determines the outcome of the election.
In Britain and in Europe the political parties are responsible for selecting their candidates. Political parties select candidates either on a national, regional, or local basis. At the local level the ‘selectorate’ may consist of all party members or there may be a system in which smaller groups of delegates or representatives are entrusted with selecting the candidate. The rules governing candidate selection are an important measure of the extent to which parties adhere to a ‘party democracy’ model of politics. Once selected and successfully elected to the legislature, the legislator may enjoy considerable security of tenure and find that subsequent reselection is normally a formality unless there has been a serious breach with the party.
In part of the United States a system of
primary elections
was introduced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to overcome the corruption which had developed through selection by party
convention
or
caucus
. The primary election transfers responsibility for selecting the candidate from the party to the electorate-either the electorate at large or those members of the electorate who have registered with the public authorities as supporters of the party. Moreover the primary election is part of the official business of government, it ceases to be part of an internal party process and the party has to accept the outcome of the primary election. Primaries are held to establish candidates for both the Congress (both Houses) and, on a loosely organized state-by-state basis, for presidential elections.
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CAP
(Common Agricultural Policy)

The Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, which is designed to stabilize farm prices. It involves a massive transfer of resources from non-farmers to farmers.

 
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A term denoting a distinct form of social organization, based on generalized commodity production, in which there is private ownership and/or control of the means of production. The word ‘capitalism’ is a relative latecomer in social science, with the
OED
citing its first use in 1854 (‘capitalist’ in 1792). Originally popularized by Marxist writers (Marx preferred to speak of the capitalist mode of production or bourgeois society), it is a term which has increasingly gained credence across the political spectrum, although this has inevitably produced inconsistency in its employment. At least three present-day usages are discernible.
1
The meaning derived from the work of Werner
Sombart
and Max
Weber
. Sombart describes capitalism in terms of a synthesis of the spirit of enterprise with the ‘bourgeois spirit’ of calculation and rationality. This
geist
or spirit is deemed to be an aspect of human nature and is seen to have finally taken a suitable form for itself in the shape of the economic organization of modern society. On this basis, Weber (in
The Protestant Ethic
and the
Spirit of Capitalism
) charts how the ‘spirit of capitalism’ transformed other modes of economic activity designated as ‘traditionalist’. A traditionalistic worker does not consider maximization of the daily wage as a primary objective, but opts instead to work to secure an accustomed style of life. The capitalist enterprise, by contrast, is based on a rational reorganization of production and is directed solely towards maximizing productive efficiency. Although Weber stops short of suggesting that the Protestant ethic produced capitalism, He believes that the origins of the capitalist spirit can be traced particularly to the ethics associated with
Calvinism
. Capitalism is therefore less the result of the introduction of new technology than the consequence of a new spirit of entrepreneurial enterprise. Weber (in
General Economic History
) develops an account of the rise of modern capitalism in post-feudal Europe, emphasizing characteristics broadly similar to those discussed by Marx. The spirit of rational calculation fosters a capitalist economic system in which wage-labourers are legally ‘free’ to sell their labour power; restrictions on economic exchange in the marketplace are removed; technology is constructed and organized on the basis of rational principles; and there is a clear separation of home and workplace. Furthermore capitalism enables the consolidation of the legal form of business corporation, the expansion of public credit, organized exchanges for trading in all commodities, and the organization of enterprises for the production of commodities rather than simply for trade. Above all, capitalism is characterized by the increased rationalization of social life, and the further advance of
bureaucracy
is seen as inevitable in the modern world. Capitalism, for Weber, is clearly the most advanced economic system ever created. However, its technical rationality threatens to constrict and extinguish the most distinctive values of Western civilization. Humanity is therefore trapped in an ‘iron cage’ of its own making.
2
The sense which identifies capitalism with the organization of production for markets. This is a usage derived from the German Historical School, with its primary distinction between the ‘natural economy’ of the medieval world and the ‘monetary economy’ of the modern age. This definition of capitalism as a commercial system is commonly buttressed by an emphasis on a certain type of motive, the profit motive. Although this definition has affinities with the Sombart/Weber view, its emphasis on the market economy lends it a substantially different focus.
3
Karl Marx sought the essence of capitalism neither in rational calculation nor in production for markets with the desire for gain (a system termed by Marx, ‘simple commodity production’). For Marx capitalism is a historically specific mode of production, in which capital (in its many forms) is the principal means of production. A mode of production is not defined by technology but refers to the way in which the conditions of production are owned and controlled and to the social relations between individuals which result from their connection with the process of production. Each mode of production is distinguished by how the dominant class, controlling the conditions of production, ensures the extraction of the surplus from the dominated class. As Marx clarifies in a famous passage, the really distinctive feature of each society is not how the bulk of labour is done, but how the extraction of the surplus from the immediate producer is secured: ‘It is in each case the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the immediate producers … in which we find the innermost secret, the hidden basis of the entire social edifice, and hence also the political form of the relationship of sovereignty and dependence, in short the specific form of state in each case’ (
Capital
, vol. iii, ch. 47). Capitalism is thus perceived as a transient form of class society in which the production of capital predominates, and dominates all other forms of production (generalized commodity production). Capital is not a thing, not simply money or machinery, but money or machinery inserted within a specific set of social relations whose aim is the expansion of value (the accumulation of capital). Capitalism is therefore built on a social relation of struggle between the bourgeoisie and the working class. Its historical prerequisite was the concentration of ownership in the hands of the ruling class and the consequential and ‘bloody’ emergence of a propertyless class for whom the sale of labour-power is their only source of livelihood. The distinction between the sale of labour and the sale of labour-power (the capacity to labour) is crucial, Marx argues, for understanding how all profit derives from the unpaid and therefore exploited labour of the worker. Capitalism therefore combines formal and legal equality in exchange with subordination and exploitation in production. The existence of trade, rational calculation, production for the market, the use of money, and the presence of financiers is not enough to constitute a capitalist society. For Marx, capitalism is based on a specific form of private property which enables capital to yoke labour to create surplus value in production. Like Weber, Marx portrayed capitalist society as the most developed historical organization of production. Unlike Weber, Marx envisaged that class struggle would intensify and produce an ever-expanding union of workers who, as a self-conscious, independent movement of the majority, would rise up and abolish capitalism.
All periodizations of capitalism are problematical. Whilst Marx claims that in Western Europe bourgeois society began to evolve in the sixteenth century and was making giant strides towards maturity in the eighteenth century, Karl Polanyi concludes that capitalism did not emerge until the Poor Law Reform Act of 1834. Capital existed in many forms-commercial capital and money-dealing capital-long before industrialization. For this reason the period between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries is often referred to as the merchant capital phase of capitalism. Industrial capitalism, which Marx dates from the last third of the eighteenth century, finally establishes the domination of the capitalist mode of production.
For most analysts, mid- to late-nineteenth-century Britain is seen as the apotheosis of the
laissez-faire
phase of capitalism. This phase took off in Britain in the 1840s with the Repeal of the Corn Laws, and the Navigation Acts, and the passing of the Banking Act. In line with the teachings of classical political economy ( Adam
Smith
and David Ricardo ), the state adopted a liberal form which encouraged competition and fostered the development of a ‘self-regulating’ market society. Liberal and conservative thinkers have been keen to identify this particular phase of capitalism with the essence of capitalism itself. This has encouraged some theorists to dispense with the term completely when describing societies in the post-1945 period. Hence during the postwar long boom (1950–70), an explosion of terms—industrial society; post-industrial society; welfare statism; post-capitalist society—threatened to displace the centrality of the concept of capitalism. The waves of economic and political crises experienced since this period, however, led many commentators to reinstate the term, particularly under the influence of the
New Right
(
Hayek
and Friedman ). In contrast to liberals, writers in the Marxist tradition understand twentieth-century developments in terms of the movement from the
laissez-faire
phase of capitalism to the monopoly stage of capitalism. On the basis of
Lenin's
famous pamphlet,
Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
, the monopoly stage is said to exist when: the export of capital alongside the export of commodities becomes of prime importance; banking and industrial capital merge to form finance capital; production and distribution are centralized in huge trusts and cartels; international monopoly combines of capitalists divide up the world into spheres of interest; and national states seek to defend capitalist interests thus perpetuating the likelihood of war ( see also
imperialism
).
Since the extension of the franchise in nineteenth-century Britain there has been a hotly contested debate on the relationship between democracy and capitalism. The experience of the twentieth century, however, shows that there are a variety of political forms—liberal democratic, social democratic, fascist, statist, republican, monarchical—which can accompany capitalist economies. This constitutes the basis for the study of the
state
in capitalism.
Although the world market has always formed the backdrop to the development of capitalism, a number of recent changes, associated with both the ‘globalization of capital’, and the demise of the Soviet Union, have strengthened the claim that capitalism should now be viewed as a world system.
PBm