From: Dave Zachariah (davez@KTH.SE)
Date: Mon Dec 31 2007 - 09:33:59 EST
I agree, Cerni's article is very good. Far better than Ellen Wood's account of US imperialism in "Empire of Capital". I fully agree that a historical materialist analysis of imperialism must begin with the global material relations of production as the context for understanding the political and ideological aspects. However, there are two issues that I think lack analysis: What is the relation between the capitalism and the nation state, especially once capitalism has reached a truly global scale? From a purely abstract capitalist logic one would expect a decay of smaller nation states and the formation of larger blocs of juridical and military power, e.g. as the EU. But the reverse seems to be true. Given the integration of global capitalism today I have a hard time to see that the rivalries between capitals themselves will translate into rivalries between nation states (except for the case of state-capitalist enterprises). Cerni emphasises the shift of productive labour from the West/US to the East/China as the cause of the decline of the former. But she does not address the political potential of a rising industrial working class in the latter. //Dave Z on 2007-12-30 21:33 clyder@GN.APC.ORG wrote: > Have members seen Paul Cerni's article on the political enconomy of > imperialism in the 21st century > > http://theoryandscience.icaap.org/content/vol8.1/cerni.html > > I was very impressed by it but it raises many controversial issues. >
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