Forms of production in practice: Fresh approaches to simple commodity production

Jaques M. Chevalier, Civilization and the Stolen Gift: Capital, Kin and Cult in Eastern Peru, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982.

In an important new book, Jacques Chevalier advances the concept ‘form of production’ by giving it explicit theoretical treatment. In doing so he reveals a number of significant differences in the way various scholars have used the concept, especially on the central question — the relationship between capitalist and non‐capitalist forms of production in peripheral social formations. This is an old problem, but one that refuses quietly to die. It thus deserves continued discussion. What makes Chevalier's book worthy of extended discussion, however, is that it provides an anthropological treatment of the cultural elements involved in creating and sustaining distinctive forms of production. It does so by elaborating some of Pierre Bourdieu's notions about social practice in creating cultural as well as material life. The two sets of issues are not as far apart as one might think, since both consider actual social practice within particular material and cultural contexts, giving agency to both economic practice and to the environment containing it in determining the resulting social dynamic. In this way the scholars working on these two traditions hope to avoid many of the deterministic assumptions embedded in most analysis of production ‐ a problem that has long bedevilled marxists (as well as anthropologists). In this review essay I reflect on both sets of issues and the advantages to be gained by considering them as interrelated.     

‘This Spider Web of Woman's Life’: Private Space and Community Life in Peter Abelard

This essay explores such complex and ambiguous presentation of convent life in Helen Waddell's novel Peter Abelard (1933), considering Heloise's fear of women's communities as expression of concerns central to women's writing published in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s. Waddell uses Peter Abelard to intervene in these contemporary debates about private and public spaces. The dislike which her Heloise expresses for women's communities may, given the text's feminist ideology, seem surprising, but, as discussed, similar anxieties are voiced in texts by several of Waddell's contemporaries, and the novel is shaped by this tension between private, autonomous individual and shared public space. Peter Abelard is read in relation to selected journalism of Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby (late 1920s), Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own (1928) and Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night (1935).     

Social Service Provision in the US and Germany: Convergence or Path Dependency?

With a special focus on social services, the article discusses the topic of convergence versus path dependency of state welfare arrangements in the US and Germany. In both countries, social services cover a broad spectrum of activities. In the US as well as in Germany, these services are to a large extent provided by non-profit organisations, although the two countries belong to very different welfare regimes. With a special eye on social services, the article provides an overview of the history of the two welfare states; it refers to current developments, of which the shift towards private commercial social service provision is most prominent. Against this background, the article comes to the conclusion that there is no simple answer to the question of path-dependency versus convergence. Indeed, in both countries commercial provision of social services is on the increase; however, current developments in Germany and the US do not reflect thoroughly the path-dependent or the convergence approach of depicting change.     

Democracy and the Canadian House of Commons at the miIlennium

Abstract: The current debate about democracy in the House of Commons is not a debate about democracy at all. Instead it is a debate about responsible government. The author defines responsible government and links it with other major elements of the system of government, including the concept of political representation that is still widely shared among Canadians, the electoral system, and the organization of the House of Commons. The point is stressed that these elements form a consistent whole. Therefore, reforms that are made to any particular element are bound to affect the other elements. Those who, like members of the Reform party, are intent on pursuing radical reforms to the organization of the House are advised to consider the reverberating effects such reforms are likely to have on the system as a whole. Sommaire: L'actuel débat sur la démocratie dam la Chambre des communes n'a en fait rien à voir avec la démocratic. C'est un débat sur la responsabilité gouvernemen-tale. L'auteur définit ce qu'est un gouvernement responsable et fait le lien entre ce dernier et d'autres éléments majeurs du système de gouvernement, dont la notion de représentation politique toujours très partagée par les Canadiens, le système électoral et l'organisation de la Chambre des communes. Il souligne le fait que ces éléments constituent un ensemble cohérent. Par conséquent, la réforme de tout élément aura des répercussions sur les autres éléments. Ceux qui, comme le Parti réformiste, préconisent une reform radicale de l'organisation de la Chambre des communes, auraient intérêt B bien peser les conséquences qu'une telle réforme pourrait avoir sur l'ensemble du système.