Varieties of capitalism, Varieties of modernity:

relating Beck's secondary modernity to new capitalism

Dr. Marcus LeaningUniversity of Winchester

Money: Imaginaries of Capital Symposium10th May 2010

IntroductionAn aspect of my work examines the

theorising of the relationship of modernity to capitalism in the work of Ulrich Beck.

Relates to an ongoing debate taking place in the British Journal of Sociology in the past 7-8 years.

I want to:Sketch out Beck’s theory;Describe the debate;Offer my own rather meagre amendment.

Ulrich BeckAn influential theorist of

modernity.Professor and Director of the

Institute of Sociology at the University of Munich, Prof. of Sociology at the LSE.

Relevant key works: Risk Society (1992) Reflexive Modernization (1994) The Reinvention of Politics

(1996) Individualization (2002) Cosmopolitan Vision (2006) Cosmopolitan Europe (2007). World at Risk (2008).

Post ModernityA school of thought that argues against the idea that

we live in post-modern times. We are not ‘beyond’ the modern.Instead we live in a radicalised period of modernity,

termed “risk society” (Beck), “reflexive” or “secondary” (Beck), “high” (Giddens) or “late” (Lash) modernity.

Modernity is continuing, yet it is aware and reflexive of its impact, cognisant of its own existence and cautious of the certainties (science and technology, modernising progress and universalism) that underpinned the early phase of modernity.

Secondary modernitySecondary modernity is not a period beyond

modernity, but a radicalisation and continuation of the systems of modernity.

Furthermore it re-examines the very certainties that made possible early modernity – it is constantly reflexive of certainties.

It is global in its reach, we (nearly) all live in secondary modernity.

Secondary modernity’s mechanicsBeck’s modernity is a meso-level account, highlighting

the social systems embodying meta-level transformations.Draws upon Giddens’s understanding that modernity and

modernisation are processes that are integrated into many aspects of life through institutional dimensions such as capitalism, surveillance, military power and industrialism.

We feel them in the social systems we live by.Beck sees a linear transition from modernity to

secondary modernity.We will see the transformation in the changing patterns

of work, of emotional habits and of institutional activity.

CriticismAn influential model and account that is

gaining in popularity.Also subject to considerable criticism and

attack.Three forms of attack:

1. Charge of being a ‘Naive Europhile’.2. Human rights and nation states.3. Charge of ‘problems in logic’.

1. The Naive EurophileBeck unashamedly pro-europe and cosmopolitan.1. But criticised as only seeing the world through

this lens and like Giddens unable to see the dark side of modernity and globalisation.

2. Unwelcome? Maybe the cosmopolitan, human rights centric, European vision is not welcome?.

3. Does acknowledge multiplicity of voices, but seems to ‘air-brush’ out many of the problems of neo-colonial experience of power.

2. The issue of human rights1. Many of the benefits of cosmopolitanism are

possible not because of Europe but because of the nation state frame work.

2. System of states makes possible European Convention on human Rights and Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

3. Cosmopolitanism has only arisen due to the very systems of nation states that Beck sees as oppositional to cosmopolitnaism.

3. Logical problemsThe transformation is described as a single

trajectory:

This is the European experience, what about the rest of the world?

Pre modernity

Modernity

Secondary

modernity

Mode of production

Agrarian Industrial Flexible / new capital

Focus Tradition Anti tradition Self

Rationality Religious Scientific Fractured / negotiated

How are non-Western parts of the world understood?Western world experiences the latest stage of modernity in

this reflexive manner.What of other parts of the world?Are they an ‘appendage’ (Lee, 2009)? Simply making

possible the reflexivity of the west?Is there a single integrated modernity as Globalisation

theory would argue?How can the experience of secondary modernity in non-

western societies be understood? How can they be regarded as instances of secondary

modernity if they have not undergone the first (Lee, 2009)?Do non-western regions of the world resemble pre, first or

second modernities or a mixture of all?

Multiple modernities!One approach is to regard the differing experiences as

‘multiple modernities’.Here the experience of the west is regarded as one of many

possible modifications of first modernity rather than linear path.

Eisenstadt (2000) saw the originating model as European but it has been ‘localised’ by cultural patterns.

Katzenstein (2006) sees it as passed back and forth between the west and the non-west.

Thus we can have one (secondary) modernity in the UK and a different one in Japan and yet another in Brazil.

All are modernities, different locally specific articulations of a historic form.

Multiple modernities??However, there are problems with this:

We don’t live on different worlds;The idea of discrete bounded societies / countries

with a coherent experience is very problematic – Globalisation tells us of the inherent

connectedness of the contemporary experience, networks prove a better frame of reference.

We DO live on a single world (risks & consequences).

Even the recognition of other ways of being is indeed an instance of reflexivity.

How do you solve a problem like modernity?My bit.Turn to political economy and the issue of ‘varieties of

capitalism’ debate.Post-communist world, capitalism not a singular

system over time (corporatist, flexible, new capitalism) or place: Japanese, Germanic, Swedish, Anglo-Saxon,Icelandic (!?)

Is there any commonality?

Varieties of capitalismThe solution proposed is that these are not

different systems, multiple capitalisms, instead they are different in mode rather than essential nature (Hall and Soskice, 2001; Yamamura and Streeck, 2003).

Not separate systems but members of a family of economic formations that share common features.

Varieties of ModernityProposal that Beck’s model can be salvaged by

acknowledging that while the experience of the developed west is one of secondary modernity, it is one of a constellation of associated and interlinked formations of modernity.

Because of the integrated nature of globalisation and the now super-complexity of the systems that compose modernity (capitalism, political power, military power), all experiences of modernity are constantly linked.

Local modernities - Linked instancesHowever there are local configurations of modernity, as

there are of capitalism, but they are linked at a ‘component’ level before their instantiation as instances of modernity.

These components are ‘live’ and linked, perhaps hyper-text or ‘object embedding’ is a better way of thinking about them.

Thus changes in the capitalist global economic system will make themselves felt in the social systems at the most local of levels.

The manifestation of modernity may be local but the structuring processes, such as the global economic system, are global.

ConclusionSecondary modernity not solely a European

phenomena.As Beck notes needs to be understood as a

manifestation and articulation of processes.These processes are global in reach (and

possibly origin), they will structure the experience of modernity.

The resultant constellations should be regarded as varieties of modernity rather than absolute different entities.

ReferencesBeck, U. (1992) Risk Society, New Delhi: Sage.Beck, U., Giddens, A. and Lash, S. (1994) Reflexive Modernization Politics, tradition and aesthetics in the modern social order, Cambridge: Polity Press.Beck, U. (1996) The Reinvention of Politics, Cambridge: Polity Press.Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2002) Individualization, New Delhi: Sage.Beck, U. (2006) Cosmopolitan Vision, Cambridge: Polity Press.Beck, U. and Edgar, G. (2007) Cosmopolitan Europe, Cambridge: Polity Press.Beck, U. (2008) World at Risk, Cambridge: Polity Press.Eisenstadt, S. (2000) ‘Multiple Modernities’, Daedalus, 129, 1-29.Hall, P. A. and D. Soskice, Eds. (2001) Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, New York: Oxford University Press.Katenstein, P. (2006) ‘Multiple Modernities as Limits to Secular Europeanization?’in T. Byrnes and P. Katzenstein, eds., Religion in an Expanding Europe, pp. 1-33, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Lee, R. (2009) ‘In search of second modernity: reinterpreting reflexive modernization in the context of multiple modernities’, Social Science Information, Vol. 47, No. 1, 55-69.Sennet, R. (2006) The Culture of the New Capitalism, New Haven: Yale University Press.Yamamura, K. and Streeck, W. (eds.) (2003) The End of Diversity? Prospects for German and Japanese Capitalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.