Individualism, Capitalism and the Dominant Culture: A Note on the Debate

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Abstract
In sociology, various attempts have been made to identify the basic features of the dominant ideology of capitalist societies. This note reviews some of the general analytical problems associated with the notion of a dominant ideology and reviews the literature on indivi dualism as an essential component of property relations in capital ism. It is argued that much of the confusion surrounding this issue can be resolved by distinguishing between the emergence of the individual in Western cultures, individualism as a doctrine of rights, individuality as an aesthetic theory of individual uniqueness and individuation as a bureaucratic process of surveillance. The connec tion between seventeenth-century individualism and the rise of capitalism was contingent. The early dominance of possessive indiv idualism declined with the emergence of corporate structures in late capitalism; this decline is associated with the regulation of modern societies by the state (individuation), the pluralisation of life-worlds and the crisis of the subject in the post-modernist culture of the intellectuals. The 'new' capitalist centres (such as Japan) appear to be developing without individualistic values and institutions, de pending instead on collectivist norms and authoritarian forms of management and organisation. In conclusion, it is argued that the relationship between individualism and capitalism is contingent and variable.

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