1. Università di Milano-Bicocca
Enzo Mingione,
Università di Milano-Bicocca
How to study contemporary societies and the crisis: decommodification and social innovation.
September 5th, Expo Graduate Seminar on sustainable development

2. Selected bibliographical references (*= highly recommended;
° = digital Pdf copies available):
°Amable B. and Palombarini S. 2009, A neorealist approach to institutional change and the diversity of capitalism, Socio-Economic Review, 7:
Arrighi, G The long twentieth century: Money, power and the origins of our times. London: Verso.
*°Arrighi, G. 2009, Postscript to the second edition of The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and the Origins of Our Times London: Verso.
*°Boyer R, 2011, Are there Laws of Motion of Capitalism? Socio-Economic Review, 9:
°Burawoy, M. (2010) From Polanyi to Pollyanna: The False Optimism of Global Labor
Studies, Global Labour Journal: Vol. 1: Issue 2, p
°Crouch, C. 2009, Privatised Keynesianism. An unacknowledged policy regime. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 11:
Crouch, C. 2011, The Strange Non-death of Neoliberalism, Cambridge: Polity Press. Trad. It: Il Potere dei Giganti, Laterza: Bari e Roma, 2012.
Crouch, C. 2013, Making Capitalism Fit for Society, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Della Porta, D. 2015, Social Movements in Times of Austerity, Cambridge; Polity Press.

3. Selected references 2
Emmenegger P. et al., eds, 2012, The Age of Dualization. The Changing Face of Inequalities in Deindustrializing Countries, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Esping-Andersen G. 1990, The Three Word of Welfare Capitalism, Cambridge Polity Press.
Evers, A. and Guillemard A.M., 2013, Introduction: Marshall’s Concept of Citizenship and Contemporary Welfare Reconfiguration, in Evers, A. and Guillemard A.M. (eds) Social Policy and Citizenship, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp
*Fraser, N, 2014, Can society be commodities all the way down? Post-Polanyian reflections on capitalist crisis, Economy and Society, Volume 43 Number 4: 541–558.
Gallie D. 2013, ed., Economic Crisis, Quality of Work, & Social Integration. The European Experience, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harvey D. 2014, The Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, London: Profile Books.
Krippner G. R. 2011, Capitalizing on Crisis. The political Origin s of the Rise of Finance, Cambridge (Ma): Harvard University Press.
La Touche S., 2009, Farewell to Growth, Bristol: Polity Press.

4. Selected References 3
Mahoney J. and Theleen K. eds, 2010, Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency and Power, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mazzucato M., 2013, The Entrepreneurial State. Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths, London and New York: Anthem Press.
Mingione E Sociologia della vita economica, Roma: Carocci.
Moretti E., 2012, The New Geography of Jobs, New York: Houghton Mufflin Harcour. Italian edition: 2013, La nuova geografia del lavoro, Milano: Mondadori.
Morgan G. & Whitley R., eds, 2012, Capitalisms and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Piketty, T., 2013, Le capital au XXIe siècle, Paris : Seuil. (English version): 2014, Capital in the Twenty-first Century, Harvard: Belknap.
*Polanyi, K The great transformation: The political and economic origins of our times. Boston: Beacon Press.
*Polanyi, K The economy as instituted process. K. Polanyi, C.M. Arensberg and H.W. Pearson (eds), Trade and market in the early empires: Economies in history and theory, New York: Free Press

5. Selected References 4
Sassen, S. (2014) Expulsions. Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy, Cambridge Mass. and London: Harvard University Press.
Stiglitz, J., 2012, The Price of Inequality, London: Allen Lane.
Streeck, W. (2011), “Taking Capitalism Seriously: Towards an Institutional Approach to Contemporary Political Economy”, Socio-Economic Review, 9 (1), pp
*Streeck, W. (2012), “How to Study Contemporary Capitalism?”, Archives Européennes de Sociologie, LIII, 1 , pp. 1–28.
*Streeck, W. (2014), “How Will Capitalism End?”, New Left Review 87, pp
Streeck, W. (2014), Buying Time. The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, London and New York: Verso.
Tilly C and L.J. Wood (2009), Social Movements, , New York: Paradigm.
Thomasberger C., (2014): Europe at a Crossroads: Failed Ideas, Fictional Facts, and Fatal Consequences, Forum for Social Economics, London: Routledge: 1-22.
Welzel C. 2013, Freedom Rising: Human Empowerment and the Quest for Emancipation, New York: Cambridge University Press.

6. Important recommendations to interpret contemporary social questions
Take into account the dynamic aspects of societies.
Take into account the global frame: the diversity between the North and the South and the dynamic interconnections between the two.
Market diffusion is an emancipation process (from traditional forms of domination: kinship, community, clan, tribe, religious groups) but opens new tensions (deficit of social protection). And not in all cases (see the following point).
Commodification without emancipation has been typical of capitalist colonization and post-colonization. The traditional oppressive institutions have been used by colonizers and by global capitalism to maintain control.
The institutional redistributive responses to modernization are featured by tensions due to bureaucratization, political domination, waste of resources, discrimination and exclusion processes.
The combination between the diversity of commodification pressures and the differences in the institutional transformation make the specific case diversified (variety of capitalisms and more).

7. The logical itinerary of the presentation.
An interpretation frame centred on the double movement: the destruction disembedding) and reconstruction (riembedding) of social bonds produced by commodification as the dynamic of capitalism.
The emancipation impact of commodification and the role of the emancipation movements in the industrializing countries.
The apparent disappearance of the double movement in the Golden Age of welfare capitalism: high growth and expansion of social protection at the expenses of unequal exchange and the oppression of underdeveloped countries (commodification without emancipation and colonial or imperial violence).
The present age of the double movement: commodification without emancipation, decommodification, social inequalities and the decline of social protection and Marshallian rights. Globalization and economic crisis: the debate on the end of capitalism (double movement).

8. Towards a long period of uncertain, caotic, controversial decay of capitalism
Streeck 2014 “How Will Capitalism End?” NLR 87:
“The demise of capitalism … is unlikely to follow anyone’s blueprint. As the decay progresses, it is bound to provoke political protests and manifold attempts at collective intervention. But for a long time, these are likely to remain of the Luddite sort: local, dispersed, uncoordinated, ‘primitive’—adding to the disorder while unable to create a new order, at best unintentionally helping it to come about.”

9. The contemporary profile of global financial capitalism: commodification without emancipation?
The progressive weakening and exhaustion of emancipation potentials creates tensions but we have to consider the remaining emancipation attraction of capitalism.
The interconnection between financialization and bureaucratic/ political oppression is enforcing economic and social inequalities and giving rise to conflicts, resilience and opposition (the impact of mass communication techniques on mobilization and organization of populist and anticapitalist movements)
A very uncertain period dominated by a combination of the decline of the double movement (see later) and other contrasting dynamics (social movements, innovation experiences, new forms of solidarity and community organizations, commons, the reinforcement of indigenous modernized organizations, etc.).
The controversial impact of decommodification processes.
Diverging trends in the global south (see the case studies proposed by Pavel Lopez) and in the global north (social innovation, the commons, etc.) in term of commodification and decommodification, resistance and opposition, emancipation and oppression.

10. Mobilization of emancipation movements
Methodological frame of analysis based on capitalism as a commodification force: the process of destruction and reconstruction of social bonds and social relations.
Mobilization of emancipation movements
Non istantaneous
istantaneous
The 3 areas of
institution building:
Reciprocity
Redistribution
Market cooperation
Great regime transformations
versus
Continuous more or less important adaptations

11. The main points of the double movement interpretation
Give the priority to the understanding of the dynamic aspects over the diversity of capitalism.
Commodification as a process that dismantle the traditional social bonds (disembedding). From this point of view it may be a powerful form of emancipation from traditional institutions and forms of oppression.
The process of reconstructing social bonds – riembedding as a simultaneous counter trend – is important in order to explain social change and behaviour in terms of agency.
The institutional building is creating new forms of domination: the political and bureaucratic traps (Weber) are particularly evident now.
The commodification process producing new levels of individualism in the industrializing countries is favoring the formation of emancipation and democratization movements (Nancy Fraser but not a third part of the double movement because it is not simultaneous).
Commodification without emancipation (in the colonial and underdeveloped countries) is imposed and supported by high levels of domination violence.

12. Why and how we use the concept of capitalism to explain contemporary global situation and crisis.
Capitalism is a social historical system dynamic and centred on commodification/ individualization processes.
The crisis is endemic in capitalism for reasons centred on the double movement of change: disembeddedness versus ri-embeddedness. The tensions between the promotion/diffusion of markets and the necessity to regulate markets (protect people, environnment, social bonds from markets).
The over-production and under-consumption internal tensions of capitalism. The new dangers of the finantialization responses to capitalist difficulties.
The use of the double movement to understand historical dynamism and the diversity of capitalism.
The question of nation state and democracy in the construction of modernity beyond the western experience.

13. The economic crisis and the debate on the end of capitalism / end of the double movement
Commodification without emancipation (or even better against emancipation) is problematic if it is not accompanied by a very high degree of violence and oppression (colonialism, slavery, imperialism).
The re-embeddedness process are becoming extremely problematic in terms of producing protection and defending public interests as contrasted by austerity policies, bureaucratic, political and financial appropriation of resources.
The countertendencies of decommodification are weakening the double movement in its very disembedding capacities.
The emancipation and democratization movements are becoming less and less compatible with the commodification part of the double movement.

14. The trends of change towards fragmented individualized societies
Tendences
Individualization
Destandardization
Fragmentation of the welfare risks.
Increase in the social and territorial inequalities. Deficit in the social citizenship rights. Discriminations against weak or less mobilized groups.
Innovations of welfare in order to produce more articulated and more efficient protections: local, active, social investments. Empowering initiatives and solidarity forms of decommodification.
Decline of public responsibility. Austerity, cuts in the public expenses and services, privatization, competition, new management.
Tensions between protection rights and cuts/ austerity

15. The tensions of the double movement in the industrialized countries
Alter the impact of commodification:
Social responsibility of firms
Direct relations between consumption and production
Time banks and solidarity exchanges
Social economies
Empower disadvantaged unrepresented populations:
Communication and information networks
Representation and participation initiatives
Social mobilization against bureaucratization and fincialization