3. The Strange Disappearance of Capitalism from Social Movement Studies

Abstract

While capitalism has spread to nearly every corner of the globe, scholars who specialise in the study of social movements, especially in the United States, have increasingly ignored the ways in which capitalism shapes social movements. The first part of this paper analyses this strange disappearance of capitalism from social movement studies during the past few decades. In the second part of the paper, supports this claim by examining a 'hard' case for our thesis, namely, the gay and lesbian (or LGBT) movement. The dynamics of capitalism are presumably least relevant for 'new social movements', including the LGBT movement, which are not centrally concerned with economic, labour, workplace or other materialist issues. The paper concludes that movement scholars, including scholars of new social movements need to pay or more accurately, repay - grater attention to the dynamics of capitalism. It is time to bring capitalism back into social movement studies. Keywords:dynamics of capitalism; LGBT; Social Movement Studies; Strange Disappearance