Bringing Social Action and Situated Rationality Back in

Abstract

The social order and the organizational forms in our so-called capitalist era did not emerge from a tabula rasa. What Marx labeled capitalism never emerged in any ideal or pure form but was itself a result of specific historical processes in social contexts where social groups already had social positions in relation to the production and trade of goods, as well as the regulation of these activities. Indeed, the capitalist era and its specific forms of economic institutions, organizational forms, social division of labor, and positions of social groups in society took root in, rebuilt, and transformed existing social formations. However, in each social context, the emerging institutionalized standard of capitalism got its own face or color. Today, specific versions of the universal capitalistic institutions such as the market economy, the private ownership, and the political superstructure, are taking root in and creating new social orders in Russia, in the former East European countries, in China, and in Africa. In these social systems, existing social groups, social positions, and the production of trade and goods are not deleted overnight but provide the very background for building new forms of capitalism, or new business systems. The contemporary role of the Russian mafia and the political-bureaucratic elite provides one of many examples of how the past social structures shape the future even if there is a radical shift in the regime type (see also Michailova, 1997). Another example