Formations of Modernity (Understanding Modern Societies: An Introduction)

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NS 0F;-MQD_E.BJ\J·I1fY

UNDERSTANDING MODERN SOCIETIES: AN INTRODUCTION Series editor: Stuart Hall Book 1 Formations of Modernity ed ' ited by Stuart Hall and Bram Gieben Book 2 Political and Economic Forms of Modernity edited by John Allen, Pete:t; Braham and PEml Lewis Book 3 Sooial and Cultural Forms of Modernity edited by Robert Bocock and Kenneth Thompson Book 4 Modernity and its Futures edited by Stuart Hall, David Held and Anthony McGrew For general availability of all the books in the series, please contact your regular supplier or, in case of difficulty, Polity Press. This book for�s part of the Open University course D213 Understanding Modern Societies. Details of this and other Open University courses can be obtained from the Central Enquiry Service, P.O. Box 200, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6YZ. Cover illustration: John Tandy Abstract composition (c. 1930) Private Collection, London. Reproduced by courtesy of the Redfern Gallery, London, and by kind permission of Mrs Suzanne Tandy. Photo: A.C. Cooper.

I I EDITED BY

STUART

AND BRAM

HALL

GIEBEN

Copyright© The Open University 1992 First published 1992by Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd and The Open University Reprinted 1993,1994,1995

Editorial office: Polity Press 65 Bridge Street, Cambridge CB21UR, UK

Marketing and production: Blackwell Publishers Ltd 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4.1JF, UK All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanicaC photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency Limited. Details of such licences (for reprographic reproduction) may be obtained from the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd of 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P 9HE. Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out,or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. ISBN 0 7456 0959 7 ISBN 0 7456 0960 0 (pbk) A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Edited, designed and typeset by The Open University Printed in Great Britain by Redwood Books, Trowbridge

(�Of\JTENTS PREFACE

vii

INTRODUCTION

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE BIRTH OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

17

Peter Hamilton THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN STATE

2

71

David Held 3

THE EMERGENCE OF THE ECONOMY

127

Vivienne Brown 4

.

CHANGING SOCIAL STRUCTURES: CLASS AND GENDER

177

Harriet Bradley 5

THE CULTURAL FORMATIONS OF MODERN SOCIETY

229

Robert Bocock 6

THE WEST AND THE REST: DISCOURSE AND POWER

275

Stuart Hall ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

333

INDEX

337

Understanding Modern Societies Course Team

Stuart Hall Maureen Adams John Allen Margaret Allot Robert Bocock David Boswell

Secretary

Senior Lecturer in Economic Geography Discipline Secretary, Sociology Senior Lecturer in Sociology Senior Lecturer in Sociology

Peter Braham Vivienne Brown Dianne Cook Robert Cookson

Lecturer in Sociology

Lecturer in Economics Secretary Senior Editor, Social Sciences

Helen Crowley James Donald

Paul du Gay Molly Freeman

Professor of Sociology and Course Team Chair

·

Bram Gieben Peter Hamilton

J�ecturer in Women's Studies, North London Polytechnic Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Community Studies, University of Sussex Post-graduate student, Sociology Discipline Secretary, Sociology Staff Tutor, Social Sciences Lecturer in Sociology

David Held

Professor in Politics and Sociology

Paul Lewis

Senior Lecturer in Politics

Vic Lockwood

Senior Producer, BBC

Anthony McGrew

Senior Lecturer in Politics

Gregor McLennan

Professor of Sociology, Massey University, NZ

David Scott-Macnab

Editor, Social Sciences

Graeme Salaman

Senior Lecturer in Sociology

Jane Sheppard

Graphic Designer

Paul Smith

Media Librarian

Keith Stribley

Course Manager

Kenneth Thompson Alison Tucker

Professor in Sociology Producer, BBC

Pauline Turner

Secretary

Diane Watson

Staff Tutor, Social Sciences

David Wilson

Editor, Book Trade

Chris Wooldridge

Editor, Social Sciences

Consultants

Harriet Bradley

Senior Lecturer, Sunderland Polytechnic

Tom Burden

Tutor Panel

Tony Darkes

Tutor Panel

Celia Lury

Lecturer in Sociology, University of Lancaster

Denise Riley

Researcher in political philosophy

Alan Scott

Lecturer in Politics, University of East Anglia

Jeffrey Weeks

Professor in Social Relations, Bristol Polytechnic

Geoffrey Whitty

Professor of Sociology of Education, Institute of Education, University of London Professor of Sociology, University of Ulster

Steven Yearley External Assessor

Bryan Turner

Professor of Sociology, University of Essex

vii

FORMATIONS OF MODERNITY

PREFACE Formations of Modernity is the first book in a new series of sociology

textbooks which aims to provide a comprehensive, innovative and

-stimulating introduction to sociology. The four books in the series, which is entitled Understanding Modern Societies: An Introduction, are listed on page ii. They have been written to suit students and readers

who have no prior knowledge of sociology and are designed to be used on a variety of social science courses in universities and m1legoo.

Although part of a series, each book is self-contained to facilitate use with students studying different aspects ofthe history, sociology and� ideas of modern society and its international context. The four books form the central part of an Open University course, also called Understanding Modern Societies. Open University courses are

produced by an extensive course team consisting of academic authors

and consultants, a panel of experienced tutors, an external academic assessor, editors and designers, BBC producers, academic administrators and secretaries. (The full course team responsible for this course is

listed on the opposite page.) Every chapter has been subjected to wide­

ranging discussion and improvement at each of several draft stages. The result is a unique series of textbooks which draw on the cumulative

academic research and teaching experience of the Open University and

the--wider ..academj_g__G_ommunity.

�

All four books have three distinctive features. First, each chapter

provides not only a descriptive, historical account of the key social processes which shaped modern industrial societies, and which are

now, once again, rapidly transforming them, but also analysis of the key concepts, issues and current debates in the related academic literature. Secondly, each chapter includes a number of extracts from classic and contemporary books and articles, all of them pertinent to the chapter.

These are printed conveniently at the end of the chapter in which they

are discussed. They can be distinguished from the main text (and can

thus be found easily) by the continuous line down the left-hand margin. The third important feature of the text is that it is interactive: every chapter contains specially designed exerci�es, questions and activities

to help readers understand, reflect upon and retain the main teaching points at issue. From the long experience of Open University course

writing, we have found that all readers will benefit from such a package

of materiais carefully designed for students working with a fair degree

of independence.

While each book is free-standing, there are some cross-references to the other books in the series to aid readers using all the books. These take the following form: 'see Book 1 (Hall and Gieben, 1992), Chapter 4'. For further information on a writer or concept, the reader is sometimes referred to the Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. Full bibliographic

details of this dictionary are provided where relevant at the end of each

FORMATIONS OF MODERNITY

chapter, together with other references which suggest further reading which can be undertake.n in each area. In the long collaborative process by which Open University materials

are made, the editors of such a volume are only the most obvious of those who have helped to shape its chapters. There are many others with responsibilities for the detailed and painstaking work of bringing a book with so many parts to completion. Our external assessor, Professor Bryan Turner, provided invaluable intellectual guidance, comment, . advice, stimulus and encouragement at every stage of the production of these books. We owe special thanks to Molly Freeman, Maureen Adams, Pauline Turner, Dianne Cook and Margaret Allott for really marvellous secretarial support. Rarely in the history of word-processing can so many drafts have been produced so swiftly by so few. Our Open University editors, Chris Wooldridge, David Scott-Macnab, David Wilson and Robert Cookson, have improved each chapter with their insight and professionalism, usually under quite unreasonable pressures of time, and with unfailing good nature. Thanks also to Paul Smith, our media librarian, for his creative work in finding so many of the illustrations. Debbie Seymour, of Polity Press, has been a constant source of encouragement and good sense. Finally, the chapter authors have borne stoically our innumerable criticisms and suggestions, and have managed to preserve the essence of their original creations through successive rounds of amendments and cuts. Their scholarship and commitment have made this book what it is. Bram Gieben and Stuart Hall

INTRODUCTION

iNTRODUCTION Stuart Hall·

- Formations of Modernity, as the title suggests, is concerned with the

_process of formation which led to th_fL�:W.§.!gg:p.ce of modern societies, and which sta.:rgEe�_thef!L_�th thei! d!sti!lQllYsL£:.h.9J'it£t§,r. The boOk addresses a number of questions which have proved to be of fundamental importance throughout the history of the sQ_dafsCI� When, how and why did �_g_Q_en_l�cieJ:ie_s.lirsLemerge1 Why did they assurrie the forms and structures which they did?/What were the key processes which shaped their development? Traliitionally,� �have been identified with the onset of industrialization in the !!i. neteenth century. Formations breaks with� tradii;ig_n, t:TacJng modern societreslJack to their origins in the rapid and extensive social and economic development which followe'bthe dacli.n.g_.o_f_feu dalism in �I.LE:w:o.pe. It sees modern societies now as a global phenomenon and the modern world as the unexpected and unpredicted outcome of, not one, bJJt a series_o.Lrnaj.or.histori.G&l.:trgp.sttio!lQ,_ ·' The six chapters which comprise this volume not only map this historical process of formation, but attempt to provide an explanatory framework for this development. The commonsense term 'modern' meaning recent, up-to-date --=-- is useful in locating these societies chronologically, but it lacks a theoretical or analytic rationale.' This book, however, analyses the ��(lg_e_�� -l!.!QQ._eri!_ity in terms of a theoretical model based on the interaction of a number of 'deeply struct�ed processes of change taking place over long per�ods', as David Held puts it in Chapter 2. The book doff's not collapse these into a sing]&_ P...£2.£.��8 (e.g. 'mtJ:d:ernizationLJ·,J)ut treats them as different processes, working according"Toaiffereilt historical time-�9-��s, whose interaction led to variable and contingent outcomes. As Held observes, 'the stress is o:ri processes,jgctors and q_f!:.!:!:§.al patterns. .. . there is no mono-causal explanabori - no single phenomenon or set of phenomena - which fully explains [their] rise ... It is in a combination of factors that the beginnings of an explanation ... CJ!Il be found'. We return to the implications offf.i.Effiulti-causal approachlate.rJ.n.J:b.is.lnuc. .tr.ud tion ) The four major social processes which the book identifies are: the political, the economic, the social and the cultural. They form the basis of the four central chapters in this volume, and organize the narrative or 'story-line' of the other books in the series. In the next two volumes, Political and Economic Forms ofModernity and Social and Cultural Forms of Modernity, these processes provide the framework for an analysis of what developed industri(ll societies look like and how they :work. In the final vohliiie in ilie-serie·s:'Mode�;;_ity-andits-Futures, they provide the basis for identifying the emergent @_cial.fo.LG.!3S and contr�dictory_proce.s��-s which are radically re-shaping modern societies toda�;-·- - -

Formations ofModernity is divided into six chapters. In Chapter 1, 'T�. Enlightenment and the birth of social science', Peter Hamilton examines

FORMATIONS OF MODERNITY

the explosion of intellectual energy in eighteenth-century Western Europe which became known as 'the Enlightenment'. This movement gave definition to the very idea of 'modernity' and is often described as the original matrix of the modern social sciences. Of course, in one sense, the

study of society was not new. Writers had been making observations about social life for millennia. But the idea of'the social' as a separate and

distinct form of reality, which could be analysed in entirely 'this-worldly',

material terms and laid out for rational investigation and explanation, is a

distinctly modern idea which only finally crystallized in the discourses of

the Enlightenment. The 'birth of the social' as an obj53ct of knowledge

made possible for the first time the systematic analysis and the prac:�ices of

investigation we call 'the social sciences'.

Chapter 1 examines the historical and geographical context of the European Enlightenment, and the vision of intellectual emancipation

which seized its principal figures- the philosophes- including such

major precursors of modern social ·theory as Montesquieu, Diderot,

Voltaire, Rousseau, and the luminaries of the 'Scottish Enlightenment' such as David Hume, Ac1.�sl_:�.9JU�l Ferguson. It discusses the

Enlightenment critique df'traditional authority and examines some of its leading ideas- progress, science, reason, and nature. TLese gave shape

to the 'promise'. of the Enlightenment- the prospect which it opened

up of an unending era of material progress and prosperity, the abolition

of prejudice and superstition and the mastery of the forces of nature

based on the expansion of human knowledge and understanding. The

chapter takes the story forward·, through the Romantic movement and

the French Revolution. to those major theorists of nineteenth-century

social science- Saint-Simon and Comte. It looks forward to that later moment, at the end of the nineteenth century, when the social sciences were once again reorganized.

This second moment in the development of the social sciences-

between 1890 and 1920- was the time of what are now known as the :�fu�� Weber, Sirnrnel and Tonnies. Thereafter the social sciences became more compartmentalized into

their separate disciplines, more specialized and empirical, more

'scientific' (positivistic) and more closely engaged with application to

the 'real world' through social engineering. Nevertheless, these classical figures of modern sociology also undertook a major examination of the formation of the modern world and its 'laws of development', not

unlike that which the Enlightenment philosophes had inaugurated.

These Enlightenment concerns continue to underpin the social sciences

today. Indeed, in recent years, there has been a remarkable revival in

historical sociology, which is concerned with these questions of long­ term transformation and development; and, interestingly, they are being

pursued in a more interdisciplinary way, drawing together the

researches of sociologists, economic and social historians, political

theorists and philosophers. It is as if these profound questions about the origin and destiny of the modern world are surfacing again at the very

moment when moder;nity itself- its promise'and its vicissitudes- is

3

INTRODUCTION

being put in question. This book draws on much of that new work in historical sociology and reflects these emerging concerns and debates. The second chapter 'TJ:e development of the modern state' opens by examining the formation of the modern state. DavidHera sees the modern state emerging at the intersection of the national and international systems. He traces the state's development through a variety of historical forms- from the classical European empires, the divided authority of the feudal states (PapCJJ;y and Holy Roman Empire), the estates system and the absolutisms of the early modern period, to the emergence of the forms of political authority, secular power, legitimacy and sovereignty characteristic of the modern nation-state. The chapter considers the roles of warfare, militarism and capitalism in underpinning the supremacy of this nation-state form. It discusses the system of nation-states as the foundation of the modern international order. Into this story are woven the changing conceptions of politics elaborated in western political philosophy by writers such as Hobbes, Locke Rousseau, Mill rx and Weber. The chapter looks forward to the emergence of liberal democracy as e privileged twentieth-century state form of modern societies in the West. In Chapter 3, ·�rgence q.fJhfLer:.c:mo...IDJl ', Vivienne Brown examines the forrnatio�stinct sphere of economic life, governed by new economic relations,_and regulated and represented by new economic ideas. She describes the spread of commerce and trade, the expansion of markets, the new division oilabour and the growth of material wealth and consumption e in eighteenth-century British society, consequent upon the rise Of capitalism in Europe and , the gradual transformation of the traditional economy. European economic development. began early - some date it as early as the ?Jift�century- and the expansion of trade and the market was at the centr8o:f-the process. But for a long time, capitalism developed under the protective shadow of state monopolies at horne and mercantilism overseas. By the eighteenth century, however, laissez-faire and the market forces of th-e private economy were beginning to unleash the productive energies of the capitalist system. Vivienne Brown reminds us that the engines of this development were the commercial and agrarian revolutions. The economic model in the mind of Adam_ Smith when he wrote The Wealth of Nations- that bible of capitalist s;lflvel aprnen�- was agrarian and commercial capitalism, not the industrial smokestacks and factory-hands of Marx and Engels. The chapter weaves together an account of the formation of the modern economy and the new ways of speaking and thinking about economic life- the new economic discourse- which emerged in the eighteenth century. It provides a re-reading of Adam Smith's classic work, which became such a landmark text of the modern age, and sets its ideas in their proper historical and moral contexts.

;)

��

In Chapter 4, 'Changing social structures: class and gender', Harriet Bradley takes the story forwards from the agrarian and commercial revolutions of the eighteenth century to the upheavals Qf the Industrial

4

FORMATIONS OF MODERNITY

Revolution of the nineteenth. She also shifts the focus from economic processes to the changing social relations and the new type of social structure characteristic of industrial capitalist society. Her chapter is concerned with the emergence of new social and sexual divisions of labour. She contrasts the class and gender formations of pre-industrial, rural society with the rise of the new social classes, organized around

capital and waged labour; the work patterns associated with the new forms

of industrial production; and the new relations between men and women, organized around the shifting distinctions between the public and the private,

w�e, the public world and the family and household.

The chapter discusses some of the major sociological theories and models of class formation. It also deploys the concepts of gender, patriarchy, and family which feminist social theorists have advanced in the social science agenda and which are increasingly problematizing 'class' as the master (sic) explanatory category. Harriet Bradley analyses the social structure of industrial society in terms of the deep interpenetration of class and gender. The chapter points forward to how these class and gender structures evolved and were complicated by questions of race and ethnicity in the twentieth century. In Chapter 5, 'The cultural formations of modern society', Robert

Bocock looks at the increasing importance given to the analysis of culture, meaning, language and the symbolic structures of social life in contemporary social theory-what the anthropologist, Levi-Strauss, identified as 'the study of the life of signs at the heart of social life'. The chapter then turns to a discussion of three key cultural themes in the transition to modernity. First, the shift from a religious to a secular world-view, and from a 'sacred' to a 'profane' foundation for social and moral values, which characterizes the passage from traditional society to modern society. Second, the role which religion played in the formation of the 'spirit of capitalism'-a discussion of Max Weber's thesis about 'the Protestant ethic'. Third, the growing awareness among western philosophers and social theorists of the costs of modern culture -what Freud called civilization's 'discontents', and Weber saw as the consequences of the increasing rationalization and disenchantment of the modern world. This final theme points forward to recent critiques of the 'promise' of the Enlightenment, which are taken up in subsequent volumes in the series. It shows that a pessimistic assessment of enlightenment and modernity has in fact been part of Enlightenment reason-its 'dark shadow'-from its very inception. Finally, in Chapter 6, 'The West and the Rest: discourse and power', Stuart Hall places the early Europe-centred-and Euro-centric­ account of the evolution of modern societies and modernity in the West, in a wider global context. The gradual integration of Western Europe, its take-off into sustained economic growth, the emergence of the system of powerful nation-states, and other features of the formation of modern societies is often told as a purely internal story-as if Europe provided all the conditions, materials and dynamic necessary for its own

development from within itself. This view is challenged at several

5

INTRODUCTION

places in this book and Chapter 6 reminds us, once again, that the .-process also had external and global conditions of existence. The particular form of 'globalization' which is undermining and transforming modernity today (the internationalization of roduction, consumption, m�, IS on y the latest phase 1n a vefylOiigstory; it is not a new phenomenon. The early expansion of the European maritime empires in the fifteenth century, the exploration of new worlds, the encounter with new peoples and civilizations very different from that of Europe, and the harnessing of them to the dynamic development of Europe through �merce, c� colonization are key episodes (but often neglected ones) in the f��Q!L�ciet�d the modern age. Chapter 6 argues that the integration of Western Europe also involved the construction of a new sense of cultural identity. Europe only discovered and produced this new identity in the course of representing itself as a distinct, unique and triumphant civilization, and at the same time marking its difference from other cultures, peoples, and civilizations. These 'Others' were incorporated into the West's image of itself- into its language, its systems of representation, its forms of knowledge, its vjpualJm�ry, even its conception of what sorts of people did and did not have access to reason itsel: This encounter with difference and the construction of 'otherness' is sketched in relation to the European exploration and conquest of the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. The chapter analyses the formation of these discourses of 'self' and 'otherness', through which the West came to represent itself and imagine its-difference from 'the Res rt looks forward, across the centuries, to the way these images of the West and 'the Rest'. resurface in contemporary discourses of race and ethnicity, at a time when 'the Other' is beginning to question and contest the 'centredness' of the West, which western civilization (and western social science) has for so long taken for granted.

v'

tf

We can now turn to consider in greater detail some of the themes and approaches in this book. As noted earlier, the account of the forma!!.9n _ ___g_:Lmoder:q_$Q�l@ti��is grgaJ:lized principll!lY.iJJJt:lr:qis of four major prgcesses-_the _pol!�!_c:a.:I.._!!?:�.-�SQgc}:;> !l:i_ c_.,_the social and the cultural_. The transition fa' modernity is explained in terms-ol'tlie inter'acfiori between-­ these· four proc��_§[email protected] could.iiot have occurred-wfthol1t them. No one, proc-ess;-·e:;:U-Its-�wn, provides an adequate explanation of the formation of modern societies. Consequently, no one process is accorded explanatory priority in the analysis. Analytically, we treat each process as distinct- an approach which has certain consequences to which we shall return in a moment. However, it must be borne in mind that, in '!..eal' hist@ical timy, they interacted with one another. The evolution of the modern state, for example, has a different history from that of the modern economy. Nevertheless the nation-state provided the institutional framework and shared legal and political norms which

6

FORMATIONS OF MODERNITY

facilitated the expansion of the national economy. Modernity, .then, was the ���