Corporations, Accounting, Securities Laws, and the Extinction of Capitalism

9Capitalists, Capitalism, Social Systems, Classes, and Power

DOI: 10.4324/9781003240969-13

Introduction

No discussion of capitalism and its extinction would be complete without at least briefly acknowledging social structures and the classes produced by capitalism. As Radice (1999) thoughtfully observes, “Economic behaviour cannot be separated from social relations centred on the distribution of resources and power, and the social construction of beliefs and institutions” (p. 721).

Classes have existed throughout human history. There are, of course, many ways to categorize classes, e.g., peasants and nobility; lords and vassals; or classes based on heredity as in a caste system. Classes are not necessarily diametrically opposed as are bourgeois ...