The Pitfalls of Realist Analysis of Global Capitalism: A Critique of Ellen Meiksins Wood's Empire of Capital

2007 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 71-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Us Imperialism ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
The Us ◽  
Realist Analysis ◽  
New Imperialism ◽  
Us Intervention

AbstractThe dynamics of the emerging transnational stage in world capitalism cannot be understood through the blinkers of nation-state-centric thinking. In her study Empire of Capital, Ellen Meiksins Wood exhibits the reification and outdated nation-state-centric thinking that plagues much recent work on world capitalism and US intervention, expressed in the confusing notion of a 'new imperialism'. The overarching problems in Wood's study – and, by extension, in much of the 'new-imperialism' literature – is a reified notion of imperialism, a refusal to draw out the analytical, theoretical, methodological, and epistemological implications of capitalist globalisation, and an incessant reification of the state. Instead of a 'new US empire', the current epoch is best understood as a new transnational phase in the ongoing evolution of world capitalism, characterised in particular by the rise of truly transnational capital, globalised circuits of accumulation, and transnational state apparatuses. 'US imperialism' refers to the use by tansnational élites of the US state apparatus to continue to attempt to expand, defend and stabilise the global capitalist system. US militarisation and intervention are best understood as a response to the intractable contradictions of global capitalism.

Internationalization of the State under US Hegemony and Japanese Quasi-Hegemony: Promoting Industrialization and Disciplining Labour, 1945–2000

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Glassman
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
The State ◽  
Industrial Transformation ◽  
Industrial Manufacturing ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
The Us ◽  
Depth And Complexity ◽  
Us Intervention

The fashion in which the Thai peasantry was captured has heavily conditioned the development of the industrial labour process and labour markets. Thai workers did not simply appear at the factory gates when and where they were needed and in possession of the requisite skills. Rather, new streams of marginalized peasants began to join older streams of immigrant Sino-Thai workers as the capitalist transformation of agriculture proceeded, and the ways in which these new streams entered the industrial labour force depended in part upon the ways they were removed from agriculture. Beyond this, the state did not merely passively witness the absorption of former peasants into the industrial labour force but actively abetted the process through a variety of measures, ranging from state promotion of industrial development to investment in education and training of workers. The Thai state also actively shaped the labour market through its alternating suppression and promotion of trade unions, a matter addressed in this chapter. The state functions that are integral to the industrial transformation described here were carried out by internationalized segments of the Thai state, including one—the Department of Labour—that would typically be associated with national corporatism, thus illustrating the depth and complexity of the internationalization process. The internationalization of capital and the state around industrial manufacturing development has been more complicated than the internationalization of capital and state in the capture of the peasantry both because of this depth and complexity and because of the overlapping roles played by two hegemons. Whereas the capture of the peasantry was the product of collaboration between Thai and US elites, the disciplining of the industrial labour force involves more multifaceted collaboration among Thai, US, and Japanese elites—as well as transnational statist institutions. Furthermore, there has been some historical phasing of the relative influence of the two hegemons, with US influence declining after the mid-1970s and Japanese influence increasing. Finally, whereas the US intervention in Thailand aimed directly at transforming the structures of state power along with the economy, the Japanese state has been more inclined to make use of the existing state apparatus and to transform its functions, where necessary, through sheer economic power.

Capitalists and Conquerors Teaching Against Global Capitalism and the New Imperialism Rage and Hope: Interviews with Peter McLaren on War, Imperialism, and Critical Pedagogy

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyson Edward Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
New Imperialism ◽  
Immanent Critique ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Peter Mclaren

AbstractThrough an immanent critique of Peter McLaren's recent work, the author demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of critical-revolutionary paedagogy. This review reveals internal lacks, gaps, and contradictions emerging from within the three main dimensions of McLaren's overarching manifesto including passion, reason, and revolution. Although McLaren is an important voice in linking Marxist political and cultural theory to the practice of education, his work ultimately cannot complete its own project and as such needs further development.

Reconceptualizing Clans: Kinship Networks and Statehood in Kazakhstan

2005 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Schatz
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Kinship Networks ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
Do So

What role, if any, does kinship play in modern political life? Recent work in comparative politics has focused on a variety of informal relationships. It is striking that kinship has not received similar, sustained attention. The broad assumption of most theoretically-driven work is that kinship is the domain of the anthropologist; to the extent that political scientists consider kinship, they do so as something for modern institutions to overcome, as something in fundamental opposition to the state apparatus.

scholarly journals In Search of Refutation of Rodrik’s Impossibility Theorem

2021 ◽  
Vol 102 (3) ◽  
pp. 22-39
Author(s):  
M. V. Kharkevich
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
System Integration ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Impossibility Theorem ◽  
Nation State ◽  
World Culture ◽  
The World

The article is devoted to the analysis of the so called impossibility theorem, according to which democracy, state sovereignty and globalization are mutually exclusive and cannot function to the full extent when present simultaneously. This theorem, elaborated in 2011 by Dani Rodrik, a famous economist from Harvard University, poses a fundamental problem about the prospects of the global scalability of political institutions of the nation-state. Is it in principle possible to globalize executive, legislative and judicial branches of power, civil society, and democracy, or is it necessary to limit globalization in order to preserve democracy and nation-state? Rodrik’s conclusions, in essence, make one give up hopes to create global democratic order against the background of global capitalism. On the basis of the Stanford School of Sociological Institutionalism and the reconstruction of the historical materialism by Jürgen Habermas, the author refutes Rodrik’s theorem. The author’s analysis shows that not only is it possible to build democratic order at the global level, but also that it already exists in the form of the world culture that includes such norms as electoral democracy, nation-state, civil society and other institutions of Modernity. The world culture reproduces fundamental social values, playing the role of social integration for the humanity, while global capitalism provides for its material reproduction, playing the role of system integration. However, since globalization is a more dynamic process than the development of the world culture, between material and ideational universalism arises a gap, which in its turn is fraught with various kinds of political and economic crises.

Disentangling US Feminism from US Imperialism

2018 ◽  
pp. 185-213
Author(s):  
Ann Russo
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Empire Building ◽  
Us Imperialism ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Empire

Recognizing how enmeshed mainstream feminist discourses are in US empire building, this essay offers ways of disentangling US ideas about solidarity from efforts of imperial conquest through a lens of accountability. The essay takes as a case in point the ways that feminist efforts have fed into the “war on terrorism” as it has played out in the US occupation and war in Afghanistan post-9/11 as well as in the context of Islamophobic and anti-Arab social policy and violence in the US. An accountability lens shifts to a solidarity grounded in mutuality and interconnectedness.

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