Introduction

Qualitative Sociology -     

Introduction

CAPITALISM HAS ALWAYS BEEN about the destruction of community. The removal of communities of aboriginals and peasants from their land and craftsmen from their tools and their skills were crucial conditions for the development of early industrial capitalism. The triumph of capitalism required a cultural revolution, for, as E.P. Thompson has written, "there is no such thing as economic growth which is not at the same time, growth and change of a culture."¹ New ideologies of possessive individualism, secularism and scientism were part of this far-reaching cultural revolution, which accompanied and legitimated an economy that for the first time in history was conceived and justified as operating according to its own rational laws, independent of community.