printAppropriation of Leftist Instruments by Capitalism as a Strategy of Ideological Survival
Sakhnevich S.V.
Cand. Sci. (Philol.), Assoc. Prof., Department of Linguistics, Institute of Business Career, Moscow, Russia crash68@yandex.ru
Sakhnevich S.V. Appropriation of Leftist Instruments by Capitalism as a Strategy of Ideological Survival. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2026. No 9. P. 133-143
The article proposes a new analytical framework – Transitus Statim (from Latin, “immediate reassignment”) – to explain the survival of Western capitalism in the twentieth century. In contrast to the narrative of the “victory of the free market”, the author argues that the West neutralized the revolutionary threat not so much through military or economic means as through the appropriation of key instruments of its socialist and communist adversary: the welfare state, progressive taxation, labor rights, state regulation, the rhetoric of “exporting revolution”, and environmental activism. Drawing on the social reforms of the Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark), the social-democratic experiments of France and Germany, as well as Latin American and Asian cases, the article demonstrates how capitalist systems borrowed leftist methods to alleviate class tensions and preserve private property. The paper introduces the concept of “imitative containment” and draws parallels with contemporary phenomena – woke capitalism, ESG standards, the “green transition” – which can be interpreted as a continuation of the same Transitus Statim logic. The study opens new perspectives for the study of ideological hybridization in political science and economic history.
Болтански Л., Кьяпелло Э. Новый дух капитализма. М.: НЛО, 2011. [Boltanski L., Chiapello È. (2011) Novyi dukh kapitalizma [The New Spirit of Capitalism]. Moscow: NLO. (In Russ.)]
Дмитриев Т.А. Антонио Грамши // Мыслящая Россия: История и теория интеллигенции и интеллектуалов / Под ред. В. Куренного. М.: Ф-д «Наследие Евразии», 2009. С. 207–228. [Dmitriev T.A. (2009) Antonio Gramsci. In: Myslyashchaya Rossiya: Istoriya i teoriya intelligentsii i intellektualov [Thinking Russia: History and Theory of Intelligentsia and Intellectuals]. Ed. by V. Kurennoi. Moscow: F-d «Nasledie Evrazii»: 207–228. (In Russ.)]
Сахневич С.В. От теории к праксису: верификация метода Transitus Statim через анализ симулякров и разработку тактик // Цифровой ученый: лаборатория философа. 2025. Т. 8. № 4. С. 62–82. DOI: 10.32326/2618-9267-2025-8-4-62-82; EDN: CTPVXY. [Sakhnevich S.V. (2025) From Theory to Praxis: Verification of the Transitus Statim Method through the Analysis of Simulacra and Development of Tactics. Tsifrovoi uchenyi: laboratoriya filosofa [Digital Scholar: Philosopher’s Laboratory]. Vol. 8. No. 4: 62–82. (In Russ.)]
Симхович В.А. Модели социального обмена в японском корпоративном обществе // Журнал БГУ. Социология. 2002. № 1. С. 56–61. [Simkhovich V.A. (2002) Models of Social Exchange in Japanese Corporate Society. Zhurnal BGU. Sotsiologiya [Journal of the Belarusian State University. Sociology]. No. 1: 56–61. (In Russ.)]
Хобсбаум Э. Эпоха крайностей: Короткий двадцатый век (1914–1991). М.: Независимая Газета, 2004. [Hobsbawm E. (2004) Epoha krainostei: korotkii dvadcatyi vek [The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century (1914–1991)]. Moscow: Nezavisimaya Gazeta. (In Russ.)]
Erhard L. (1948) Ludwig Erhard on the Social Market Economy (August 22, 1948). German History in Documents and Images: 1–3.
Esping-Andersen G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Fertikh K. (2011) Three Small Turns and Then It’s Gone... Marxism and the Bad Godesberg Program of the German Social Democratic Party. Sociétés Contemporaines. No. 81: 61–79. DOI: 10.3917/soco.081.0061.
Guimarães A.Q., Gambi T.F.R. (2022) Dependência, instituições e variedades de capitalismo: uma análise dos constrangimentos político-institucionais para o desenvolvimento da América Latina. Revista de Economia. Vol. 43. No. 81: 372–404. DOI: 10.5380/re.v43i81.77869.
Henrekson M. (2017) Taxation of Swedish Firm Owners: The Great Reversal from the 1970s to the 2010s. Stockholm: Research Institute of Industrial Economics. (IFN Working Paper; No. 1168).
Jenkins P. (1985) Peter Jenkins on the Death of the Welfare State. London Review of Books. Vol. 7. No. 8: 11–14.
Johanna G. (2019) Debates and Controversies about the Nationalization of the Banking System: The French Regulation Crisis (1981–1986). In: 23rd Annual Conference of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought (ESHET) “Money, Banks and Finance in Economic Thought”. Lille: Sciences Po Lille: 63–64.
Kennan G.F. (1947) The Sources of Soviet Conduct. Foreign Affairs. Vol. 25. No. 4 (July): 566–582.
Ladejinsky W.I. (1977) Agrarian Reform as Unfinished Business: The Selected Papers of Wolf Ladejinsky. New York: Published for the World Bank by Oxford University Press.
Lijphart A. (1971) Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method. American Political Science Review. Vol. 65. No. 3: 682–693. DOI: 10.2307/1955513.
Muravchik J. (1991) Exporting Democracy: Fulfilling America’s Destiny. Washington, D.C.: AEI Press.
Musiał K. (1999) Institutionalisation of Scandinavian Consensual Democracy. Folia Scandinavica Posnaniensia. Vol. 5: 59–73.
Pecis L., Cervi L., Introna L. (2025) In Blockchain We Trust: Ideologies and Discourses Sustaining Trust in Bitcoin. Information and Organization. Vol. 35. Iss. 3. Art. 100573: 1–16. DOI: 10.1016/j.infoandorg.2025.100573.
Sarmiento M. (1964) The Lesson of Brazil. International Socialist Review. Vol. 24. No. 3: 84.
Sklansky J. (2023) The Work of Retirement. International Review of Social History. Vol. 68. No. 2: 301–323. DOI: 10.1017/S0020859023000196.
Tickner A.B., Herz M. (2013) No Place for Theory? Security Studies in Latin America. In: Thinking International Relations Differently. Routledge: 92–114.