ABSTRACT
Previous chapters have examined the institutional nature of capitalism and of precapitalism, general dynamics of institutional change, factors of human agency that drive change, and reasons why societies do not make the transition to capitalism. What are the relevant policy lessons? How might motivated and rational technocrats put transition theory into practice? How does the Weberian model translate into workable guidelines for reform? The plan of the chapter is as follows. The first section explores a policy priority sequence. The second section suggests a crisis-induced sequence of opportunities for initiating and sustaining capitalist transition. In the remaining two sections I look in more detail at how reforms might be implemented in the legal and administrative subsystems, and examine the insights that can be gleaned from literature on legal and administrative reform. For capitalist theory to be practically applied by policymakers it is necessary to bring to light and systematize the procedural principles that give shape and consistency to a ‘causal chain’ of market-led and law-led transformations, which lead, in turn, to the modernization of public administration and political representation. I propose a succession of discrete policy regimes of fairly short duration that overcome obstacles to the construction of institutions. The sequence is a mechanism for building state strength. Its key procedural goal is the depersonalization of the state.
