ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a reflection on ways of thinking about capitalism, and more specifically on ways of theorising capitalism as a civilisational phenomenon. The capitalist world system appeared as a specific civilisational formation, striving to impose its distinctive patterns and transfigure them into universal principles of civilisation as such. Despite Karl Marx’s explicit concern with civilisational dimensions, his approach leads to a systematic minimisation and de-differentiation of the issues noted above as germane to a civilisational perspective. For Marx, the revolutionary character of capitalism consists in two interrelated and self-perpetuating processes: the accumulation of abstract wealth and the permanent revolution of technological progress. A broader concept of accumulation is explicitly used in Max Weber’s introductory definition of modern capitalism. If the idea of capitalism as a self-contained system is rejected, the analysis of varieties cannot begin with the diversity of solutions to invariant problems.
