In Imperialism and Global Political Economy Alex Callinicos intervenes in one of the main political and intellectual debates of the day. Imperialism and Global Political Economy, Polity Press: Cambridge,. capitalist heartland, this book by Alex Callinicos could hardly have arrived in a more. Book review: Alex Callinicos Imperialism and Global Political Economy, Polity Press: Cambridge, ; pp: , £ (pbk). Show all authors.
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Reading Alex Callinicos’ Imperialism as the West once again began to bomb Iraq for the third time and in the aftermath of a summer of Israeli assault on Palestine, I was struck by the clarity and importance of the Marxist analysis of Imperialism.
In this book Callinicos traces the history of Imperialism, both as a political concept, and as a force that shaped, and continues to shape, the world we live in. Pete Ramand rated it really liked it Jan 20, What such a theory does is to render the movements of the capitalist economy dependent on those of the class struggle.
Alex Callinicos: Imperialism and global political economy (Autumn )
Trivia About Imperialism and G All these weighty strategic analyses could be so much epiphenomenal fluff, beneath which lies the reality of a secure and invincible American empire. Harman, Analysing ImperialismInternational Socialism 2: Charlie Burton rated it it was amazing Apr 11, And he seems to find a lot more nuance in his own position than he does in the other two. For two of the most important contributions, see R.
But the aim of the French president, Jacques Chirac, seems to have been straightforwardly geopolitical — to find in the rising power of China a counter-weight to American hegemony. But a much more carefully stated and empirically supported critique of the classical Marxist theory has been developed in recent years by Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin.
Callinicos explores these questions in this wide-ranging book. This was caklinicos fundamental mistake that has, ever since, continued to plague proper understanding. All of this is fair enough, and one can add other specific reasons why economic competition within the Western bloc need not translate into military conflict. For a comparative account of these two theories, see A.
Capitalist imperialism, then, must be understood through an extension of the capitalist theory of the state, rather than derived directly from the theory of economic stages or crises. The conclusion that Panitch and Gindin draw from this analysis is not to invite us, in the face of the evidence, to conclude politlcal all is well with the contemporary imperial order:.
Sep 22, Martin Empson rated it really liked it. From this perspective modern imperialism is what happens where two previously distinct forms of competition merged, as they did popitical the late 19th century: Mann, Incoherent Empire London Simultaneously China has also become a lightning-rod for geopolitical tensions, has supplanted Japan as the main object of protectionist agitation in the US, and has been identified calliniicos the Pentagon and the CIA as the Great Power with which America is most likely to go to war.
China may perhaps emerge eventually as a pole of inter-imperial power, but it will obviously remain very far from reaching such a status for a good many decades. A recent CIA assessment went even further, predicting: But I sorta thought the whole point of Marxism was to reject the “simplify and specialize” ethos of positivism. Its extension was a result of the creative political intervention of the American state, particularly under the Clinton administration, for example, to take advantage of the Balkan Wars to force through NATO and EU expansion on terms that preserved and indeed extended the role of the US as the leading military and political power in Eurasia, and to reinforce the role of the Bretton Woods institutions as enforcers of the neo-liberal Washington Consensus on terms favourable to the Anglo-American model of free-market capitalism.
Obviously, the evidence is extremely complex, contradictory, difficult to parse, and subject to various interpretations.
Jim Plank rated it really liked it Sep 16, Behind this lies, of course, the failure of the occupation itself. The global policies of the United States in the past decade have encouraged the widespread belief that we live in a new era of imperialism.
My library Help Advanced Book Search. See the critical responses collected in G. This time he promises to back up his own claims as well impwrialism Harvey’s, presumably with empirical evidence, which is something that in my opinion has been dearly missing from these types of debates on imperialism. The case of Japan underlines the importance of not reducing geopolitical to economic relations. Social X rated it really liked it Jan 08, The classical theories were defective in their historical reading of imperialism, in their treatment of the dynamics of capital accumulation, and in their elevation of a conjunctural moment of inter-imperial rivalry to an imperializm law of globalisation Global Capitalism and American Empire Londonhereafter GCAEp.
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Imperialism and Global Political Economy
It is an important addition to the revival of interest in the critique of callinicoss. Running through these errors is a failure to appreciate the importance in conceptualising imperialism as a proper understanding of:.
Thanks for telling us about the problem. Like all human phenomena, US imperialism is subject to the law of unintended consequences. Marc De rated it liked it Jan 11, Very good, very thorough examination of imperialism, backed up by both theory, history, and economic data.
Imperialism and Global Political Economy by Alex Callinicos
We must hope — and act to ensure — that this fragility does not make itself felt in too brutal and destructive a way. He then outlines a theory of the relationship between capitalism as an economic system and the international state system, carving out a distinctive position compared to other contemporary theorists of empire and imperialism such as Antonio Negri, David Harvey, Giovanni Arrighi, and Ellen Wood.
In my view, Panitch and Gindin are mistaken both in holding to an over-politicised theory of crisis and in asserting that global capitalism in general, and the US in particular, have overcome the crisis of profitability that developed in the s.
The fact that, instead of disintegrating after the Cold War, the transnational economic and geopolitical space constructed in the slex became genuinely global was in no sense inevitable. But perhaps the most serious transatlantic row since the invasion of Iraq has been over EU plans to end the arms embargo imposed on China after the Tiananmen Square massacre of June Personally I find it more economical, however, to take this material at face value, and to treat it as evidence of the very long-standing preoccupation impperialism US grand strategy to prevent the emergence of a hostile Great Power or coalition on the Eurasian landmass.
In the first part, he critically assesses the classical theories of imperialism developed in the era of politiical First World War by Marxists such as Lenin, Luxemburg, and Bukharin and by the Liberal economist J. Theory 23 1 The Classical Legacy 25 1. See, for example, N.