ABSTRACT
Capitalism is usually defined as a system of commodity production involving private ownership and control of the means of production plus formally free labour power. On this basis, mainstream economics models the economy as a universal, harmonious and self-equilibrating system. Likewise, for political theorists, maintaining free markets is an important source of legitimacy in capitalist societies, compared to despotism in pre-capitalist class societies and the party dictatorships of state socialism (e.g. Friedman 1962). But this account of its democratic virtues highlights and idealizes one specific account of capitalism: rationally organized capitalist production and trade-oriented to free markets. This comprises only one of six modes of orientation to profit that Max Weber identified. The other five are: (1) traditional commercial capitalism, based on traditional types of trade or money deals; (2) rational trade and speculation in money and credit instruments; (3) predatory profit from political activities, including from financing of wars, revolutions or party leaders; (4) profits from continuous business activity based on force or a monopoly granted by political authority; and (5) profit from unusual transactions with political bodies (Weber 1978 (1922): 164–166). An analysis that looks at these other modes of securing profit might reach different conclusions about the formal correspondence between capitalism and democracy. Indeed, the more that capital accumulation rests on politically oriented capitalism (types 3–5), the harder it is to maintain more than a façade of democracy. I explore this thesis below for finance-dominated accumulation, which is heavily inflected by forms of political capitalism (see also Jessop 2013b).
