How Society Makes Itself. The Evolution of Political and Economic Institutions

Citation

Mesure, H. (2007), "How Society Makes Itself. The Evolution of Political and Economic Institutions", Society and Business Review, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 134-135. https://doi.org/10.1108/17465680710725326

H.J. Sherman, who is Professor Emeritus of Economics at University of California (Riverside), has published about 20 books and more than 70 articles mainly in “radical” reviews. Broadly speaking, he is a macroeconomic economists interested by development, the comparison of economical systems (such as soviet economy or capitalist) and subjects like stagflation, realms that he has studied from radical or Marxist points of view. He won the 2004 Veblen‐Commons Award of the Journal of Economics Issues. As far we know, “How society … ” is its latest book that marks an orientation toward an evolutionary approach of the political and economic institutions.

According to Sherman it is possible to distinguish, at least, six generic forms of societies that have succeeded in history. They are: the prehistoric communal societies, Ancient Salve Societies (more or less those of the Antiquity), the Feudalism societies (Middle Age), Pre‐Capitalism in US (about 1776‐1865), the Corporate Capitalism (1865‐1940) and the Global Capitalism (1940‐2004). This six model of societies are de facto designed from a nowadays American angle. They can be characterized thanks to “four categories” (p. 6): social institutions, ideology, technology, economics institutions, that all interact and permit to “understand how society functions” (p. 6).

Roughly, the book grants a chapter by period precising what were – at the period considered – the idiosacratic contents of each of these four categories and how they influence each others. Each chapter also takes attention to the factors and the processes that made possible the transition from a model of society to an other. From the Chapter 5 (“From Pre‐Capitalism to Capitalism”), Sherman tackles systematically four issues: the relations between law and other institutions; racism (or slavery); unions and the status of women. If we except the Chapter 12 (“The rise and fall of Soviet Union”) – that falls like a hear in a soup[1] – the environmental question occupies more and more place in the last Chapters (11 and 13). Above all, the book tips up from an evolutionary perspective to a political one. In fact, Sherman deals with the questions of the inequality and the democracy.

For the author, the Global Capitalism is clearly a society that creates tremendous and unjustified inequalities and that threatens democracy. Therefore, Sherman militates for the instauration of a real economic democracy (like D.P. Ellerman) throughout a “large number of different types of non‐capitalist enterprises” that are “consumer‐organized cooperatives, business‐organized cooperatives, and worker‐organized cooperatives” (p. 202) and non profit enterprises. But “the elite oppose evolution from capitalism to economic democracy, so any such evolution would be long and turbulent” (p. 210).

The last chapter (the 14th) is dedicated to “Lessons from the Story of Evolution”. According to Sherman, “the process of social evolution is not mysterious”…“The process of change is understandable and it is controlled by human beings working under certain given historical circumstances”…“So, no one should fear it” (p. 212). Among the six lessons draws by Sherman we select one. The progress, specially the technological one, is not necessary good and above all it is not necessary. It emerges only when social and economics institutions and dominant ideas encourage it to improve.

This book is to recommend to those who are looking by a primer or a quick look about the historical evolution that leads to the nowadays US because it is rich of facts and references. It is also a good introduction for those who are interested by “alternatives” to the actual Global capitalism because it shows that something else is –if not possible – at least thinkable without purely utopia. But the book is conceptually feeble and superficial. The main notions that are used are not precisely defined and the potential readers may not be convinced by the lessons that Sherman has abstracted from the story of social evolution.