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Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism. Richard H. Robbins. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1999. 421 pp.
As the basic premise of this textbook Robbins asserts that many of the most serious problems in the contemporary world, including hunger, poverty, economic exploitation, injustice, environmental deterioration, disease, ethnocide, genocide, and social protest, are negative side-effects of what he calls the "culture of capitalism." His theoretical perspective is that capitalism is simply a cultural construction, albeit a very powerful one, but its development is neither a natural nor an inevitable development. Robbins draws heavily on history and presents many very rich case studies to explain how capitalism developed, and to persuasively demonstrate its negative human consequences. Unfortunately, his interpretive approach makes it difficult to either explain why capitalism has taken such a negative course or to imagine possible solutions to the cultural problems it unquestionably produces. Global problems are presented simply as intrinsic features of the culture and side effects of improved living standards.
Much of the book is devoted to describing how capitalism works as a system of cultural meanings and culturally defined relationships, explaining the historical origins of capitalism, and showing the human damage that it has caused. Why capitalism happened is not really explored. If capitalism is neither natural nor inevitable, there might be alternative ways of constructing capitalism, and other ways that goods and services can be produced and distributed more equitably and sustainably, but such alternatives are only considered briefly in the final "Global Futures" chapter.
I agree that capitalism is only one particular cultural construction...