Contemporary articles citing Szelenyi I (1988) Socialist Entreprene

communist, economic, terms, modern, economy, regulated, institutional, developed, quasi-illegal, argues

Paretskaya, Anna. 2010. "The Soviet Communist Party and the Other Spirit of Capitalism." Sociological Theory. 28:4 377-401. Link

Based on qualitative analysis of the Soviet press and official state documents, this article argues that the Communist Party was, counterintuitively, an agent of capitalist dispositions in the Soviet Union during 1970s-1980s. Understanding the spirit of capitalism not simply as an ascetic ethos but in broader terms of the cult of individualism, I demonstrate that the Soviet party-state promoted ideas and values of individuality, self-expression, and pleasure seeking in the areas of work and consumption. By broadening our conception of the spirit of capitalism, tracing the formation of capitalist dispositions as well as institutions, and showing that the culture of capitalism can come from within the old regime, I further the agenda of neoclassical sociology of studying varieties of origins, paths, and destinations of modern capitalisms.

WALDER, AG. 1994. "The Decline of Communist Power - Elements of a Theory of Institutional Change." Theory and Society. 23:2 297-323. Link

LIN, N. 1995. "Local Market Socialism - Local Corporatism in Action in Rural China." Theory and Society. 24:3 301-354. Link

Szelenyi, S, I Szelenyi & I Kovach. 1995. "The Making of the Hungarian Postcommunist Elite: Circulation in Politics, Reproduction in the Economy." Theory and Society. 24:5 697-722. Link

Borocz, J & A RonaTas. 1995. "Small Leap Forward: Emergence of New Economic Elites." Theory and Society. 24:5 751-781. Link

Emigh, RJ. 1998. "The Mystery of the Missing Middle-tenants: the ``negative'' Case of Fixed-term Leasing and Agricultural Investment in Fifteenth-century Tuscany." Theory and Society. 27:3 351-375. Link

Nee, V & Y Cao. 1999. "Path Dependent Societal Transformation: Stratification in Hybrid Mixed Economies." Theory and Society. 28:6 799-834. Link

Light, DW. 2004. "From Migrant Enclaves to Mainstream: Reconceptualizing Informal Economic Behavior." Theory and Society. 33:6 705-737. Link

The ``informal economy'' has developed in sociological theory to refer to clusters of illegal or quasi-illegal activities, usually unreported, by which people in some immigrant or ethnic communities earn income outside regular businesses and jobs. This article first extrapolates a set of characteristics beyond the legal status of such activities that define the ``informal economy.'' These provide a richer framework for future research and the basis for identifying informal economic activity in other sectors of the legitimate mainstream economy. In fact, informalization seems to have gone from marginal activities to a mainstream movement to make large sectors more fluid, network-based, and less regulated - the informalized economy. Its characteristics are identified. They overlap with the first set but differ principally in terms of extending Merton's proposition that different social structures exert different pressures to engage in non-conforming behavior. The article concludes with policy implications for fostering greater entrepreneurship in marginal migrant communities, and it suggests new ways for economic sociologists to study network transactions in modern corporations of informal economic activity through generative sociology.