European Journal of Sociology - Havens Center.pdf

European Journal of Sociology /EUR Additional services for European Journal of  Sociology: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here How to Study Contemporary Capitalism? Wolfgang Streeck European Journal of Sociology / Volume 53 / Issue 01 / April 2012, pp 1 ­ 28 DOI: 10.1017/S000397561200001X, Published online: 15 May 2012 Link to this article: /abstract_S000397561200001X How to cite this article: Wolfgang Streeck (2012). How to Study Contemporary Capitalism?. European Journal of  Sociology,53, pp 1­28 doi:10.1017/S000397561200001X Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from /EUR, IP address:  on 27 Aug 2012 w o l f g a n g s t r e e c k How to Study Contemporary Capitalism? 1 Abstract The paper argues that contemporary capitalism must be studied as a society rather than an economy, and contemporary society as capitalist society. Capitalism is defined as a specific institutionalization of economic action in the form of a specifically dynamic system of social action, with a tendency to expand into, impose itself on and consume its non-economic and non-capitalist social and institutional context, unless contained by political resistance and regulation. The paper illustrates its perspective by four brief sketches, depicting contemporary capitalism as a historically dynamic social order, a culture, a polity, and a way of life. All four examples, it is claimed, demonstrate the superiority of a longitudinal-historical approach over static cross-sectional comparisons, and of focusing on the common- alities of national versions of capitalisms rather than their ‘‘varieties’’. Keywords: Capitalism; Capitalist Society; Institutional economics; System of social action. O N C