Modern Societies by Stephen K. Sanderson

Author:Stephen K. Sanderson
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781317256014
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

In the view of many, the evolution of the modern family was largely a product of the vast shift taking place during these centuries toward a highly commercialized, capitalist society (Shorter 1975; Stone 1979; Zaretsky 1976; Lasch 1977). Shorter (1975: 258–259) links the rise of capitalism to the modern family revolution through the rise of economic individualism:

Laissez-faire marketplace organization, capitalist production, and the beginnings of proletarianization among the work force were more important than any other factors in the spread of sentiment.

… How did capitalism help cause that powerful thrust of sentiment among the unmarried that I have called the romance revolution? … The logic of the marketplace positively demands individualism: the system will succeed only if each participant ruthlessly pursues his own self-interest, buying cheap, selling dear, and enhancing his own interests at the cost of his competitors (i.e., his fellow citizens). Only if this variety of economic egoism is internalized will the free market come up to the high expectations of its apologists, for if people let humanitarian or communitarian considerations influence their economic behavior, the market becomes inefficient; the weak cease to be weeded out. Thus, the free market engraves upon all who are caught up in it the attitude: “Look out for number one.”

… Egoism that was learned in the marketplace became transferred to community obligations and standards, to ties to the family and lineage—in short, to the whole domain of cultural rules that regulated familial and sexual behavior.

… So capitalism exerted its impact upon romantic love through involvement in the market labor force: economic individualism leads to cultural egoism; private gratification becomes more important than fitting into the common weal; the wish to be free produces the illegitimacy explosion.

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