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This book offers a diverse range of essays on the state of current research, knowledge, and global political action and debate on cultural imperialism.
Africa, Empire and Globalization is a set of original essays in honor of the distinguished historian, Professor A. G. Hopkins, whose career of over fifty years covers three main areas that are global in reach, but connect to ideas that are generated in such major cities as Lagos and London. The volume celebrates the key principles that have emerged from the cumulative body of Hopkins'' work: searching for originality; extending the frontier of knowledge through new data and interpretations; questioning received assumptions and wisdom; promoting conversations between multiple, often divergent, sets of ideas from different disciplines; presenting ideas such that those within and outside of the academy can benefit; and applying theories drawn from various disciplines to organize the evidence and to present it in digestible form. The first section covers Africa, with essays on the economic history of Lagos and West Africa, the connections between economic change and imperialism, and the role of Africa in the world economy, including the trans-Saharan, trans-Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean World. The role of Africans in creating wealth and responding to new economic opportunities receives prominent attention in some chapters. In the second section, new topics on imperialism are explored, such as the British expansion to India, the role of trade in the Gambia, and the overall impact of the empire. Hopkins'' idea of "gentlemanly capitalism" generates considerable debate in various chapters, and is also applied to various contexts and places. The current issues around the theme of globalization are developed in the third section in terms of the relevance of the concept, the contributions that historians can make to the subject, the arguments for and against, and its impact on capitalism and democracy. From peace to war, from economic prosperity to economic decline, from the use of power to nationalist resurgence, the section looks at the dominant concerns of our time. Hopkins'' career, as the volume amply demonstrates, is rich, held together by interest in the connections between the local and the national, the national and the regional, and the regional and the global. In thus interconnecting the world, a philosophy of history emerges--how economic forces shape political realities. His work, while being quite broad-ranging spatially, has remained topically focused on economic history, for the most part. This emphasis will be a large part of what he passes on to future scholarly generations. As we pay various tributes through the original essays collected here, we believe that, for our shared benefit, Professor A. G. Hopkins has demonstrated how to remain candidly involved in the debates over one''s work, to defend oneself when appropriate, to reconsider one''s work when necessary, and continually to build upon one''s own body of work in compelling and relevant version. This book is part of the African World Series, edited by Toyin Falola, Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin. "This weighty and impressive book is a thoroughly appropriate scholarly festschrift for Tony Hopkins....Wherever one cares to dip into the volume, one finds finely crafted, densely textured pieces of historical research." -- Journal of African History "[A]n important volume and a fitting tribute to the work of A.G. Hopkins....[T]he anthology may look and feel like a tome, but it is a delight to read. The breadth of topics and careful scholarship should ensure this collection receives a broad readership and stimulates further debates over Africa, empire, and globalization." -- H-Net Reviews "...this is not a deferential miscellanea, but a volume of the widest interest to all those who practise in the fields in which Tony Hopkins has worked. It is the best possible tribute." -- The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
Winner of the first Paul A. Baran-Paul M. Sweezy Memorial Award for an original monograph concerned with the political economy of imperialism, John Smith's Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century is a seminal examination of the relationship between the core capitalist countries and the rest of the world in the age of neoliberal globalization.Deploying a sophisticated Marxist methodology, Smith begins by tracing the production of certain iconic commodities-the T-shirt, the cup of coffee, and the iPhone-and demonstrates how these generate enormous outflows of money from the countries of the Global South to transnational corporations headquartered in the core capitalist nations of the Global North. From there, Smith draws on his empirical findings to powerfully theorize the current shape of imperialism. He argues that the core capitalist countries need no longer rely on military force and colonialism (although these still occur) but increasingly are able to extract profits from workers in the Global South through market mechanisms and, by aggressively favoring places with lower wages, the phenomenon of labor arbitrage. Meticulously researched and forcefully argued, Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century is a major contribution to the theorization and critique of global capitalism.
Through interdisciplinary essays covering the wide geography of the Spanish and Portuguese empires, Iberian Empires and the Roots of Globalization investigates the diverse networks and multiple centers of early modern globalization that emerged in conjunction with Iberian imperialism. Iberian Empires and the Roots of Globalization argues that Iberian empires cannot be viewed apart from early modern globalization. From research sites throughout the early modern Spanish and Portuguese territories and from distinct disciplinary approaches, the essays collected in this volume investigate the economic mechanisms, administrative hierarchies, and art forms that linked the early modern Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Iberian Empires and the Roots of Globalization demonstrates that early globalization was structured through diverse networks and their mutual and conflictive interactions within overarching imperial projects. To this end, the essays explore how specific products, texts, and people bridged ideas and institutions to produce multiple centers within Iberian imperial geographies. Taken as a whole, the authors also argue that despite attempts to reproduce European models, early Iberian globalization depended on indigenous agency and the agency of people of African descent, which often undermined or changed these models. The volume thus relays a nuanced theory of early modern globalization: the essays outline the Iberian imperial models that provided templates for future global designs and simultaneously detail the negotiated and conflictive forms of local interactions that characterized that early globalization. The essays here offer essential insights into historical continuities in regions colonized by Spanish and Portuguese monarchies.
In this provocative study, economist Ernesto Screpanti argues that imperialismOCofar from disappearing or mutating into a benign OC globalizationOCOOCohas in fact entered a new phase, which he terms OC global imperialism.OCO This is a phase defined by multinational firms cut loose from the nation-state framework and free to chase profits over the entire surface of the globe. No longer dependent on nation-states for building a political consensus that accommodates capital accumulation, these firms seek to bend governments to their will and destroy barriers to the free movement of capital. And while military force continues to play an important role in imperial strategy, it is the discipline of the global market that keeps workers in check by pitting them against each other no matter what their national origin. This is a world in which the so-called OC labor aristocraciesOCO of the rich nations are demolished, the power of states to enforce checks on capital is sapped, and global firms are free to pursue their monomaniacal quest for profits unfettered by national allegiance. Screpanti delves into the inner workings of global imperialism, explaining how it is different from past forms of imperialism, how the global distribution of wages is changing, and why multinational firms have strained to break free of national markets. He sees global imperialism as a developing process, one with no certain outcome. But one thing is clear: when economic crises become opportunities to discipline workers, and when economic policies are imposed through increasingly authoritarian measures, the vision of a democratic and humane world is what is ultimately at stake."
Imperialsim and its political economy have turned the world upside down. This volume of essays trace the spread of imperialism and capitalism and demonstrate that globalization is not a New Millennium phenomenon, but rather one with classic roots as well as contemporary reverberations.
This volume seeks to deepen our understanding of the complex and constantly evolving ways in which modern capitalism, in the age of globalisation, works. It explains and illuminates the processes, institutions and policies involved.
Award-winning book showcases case studies uncovering the exploitation of labor and class in the Global South Winner of the 2018 Paul M. Sweezy—Paul A. Baran Memorial Award for original work regarding the political economy of imperialism, Value Chains examines the exploitation of labor in the Global South. Focusing on the issue of labor within global value chains, this book offers a deft empirical analysis of unit labor costs that is closely related to Marx’s own theory of exploitation. Value Chains uncovers the concrete processes through which multinational corporations, located primarily in the Global North, capture value from the Global South. We are brought face to face with various state-of-the-art corporate strategies that enforce “economical” and “flexible” production, including labor management methods, aimed to reassert the imperial dominance of the North, while continuing the dependency of the Global South and polarizing the global economy. Case studies of Indonesian suppliers exemplify the growing burden borne by the workers of the Global South, whose labor creates the surplus value that enriches the capitalists of the North, as well as the secondary capitals of the South. Today, those who control the value chains and siphon off the profits are primarily financial interests with vast economic and political power—the power that must be broken if the global working class is to liberate itself. Suwandi’s book depicts in concrete detail the relations of unequal exchange that structure today’s world economy. This study, up-to-date and richly documented, puts labor and class back at the center of our understanding of the world capitalist system.
A comprehensive survey of capitalism's colonialist roots and uncertain future Those who control the world’s commanding economic heights, buttressed by the theories of mainstream economists, presume that capitalism is a self-contained and self-generating system. Nothing could be further from the truth. In this pathbreaking book—winner of the Paul A. Baran-Paul M. Sweezy Memorial Award—radical political economists Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik argue that the accumulation of capital has always required the taking of land, raw materials, and bodies from noncapitalist modes of production. They begin with a thorough debunking of mainstream economics. Then, looking at the history of capitalism, from the beginnings of colonialism half a millennium ago to today’s neoliberal regimes, they discover that, over the long haul, capitalism, in order to exist, must metastasize itself in the practice of imperialism and the immiseration of countless people. A few hundred years ago, write the Patnaiks, colonialism began to ensure vast, virtually free, markets for new products in burgeoning cities in the West. But even after slavery was generally abolished, millions of people in the Global South still fell prey to the continuing lethal exigencies of the marketplace. Even after the Second World War, when decolonization led to the end of the so-called “Golden Age of Capitalism,” neoliberal economies stepped in to reclaim the Global South, imposing drastic “austerity” measures on working people. But, say the Patnaiks, this neoliberal economy, which lives from bubble to bubble, is doomed to a protracted crisis. In its demise, we are beginning to see—finally—the transcendence of the capitalist system.
In A Theory of Imperialism, economists Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik present a new theory of the origins and mechanics of capitalism that sounds an alarm about its ongoing viability. Their theory centers on trade between the core economies of the global North and the tropical and subtropical countries of the global South and considers how the Northern demand for commodities (such as agricultural products and oil) from the South has perpetuated and solidified an imperialist relationship. The Patnaiks explore the dynamics of this process and discuss innovations that could allow the economies of the South to achieve greater prosperity without damaging the economies of the North. The result is an original theory of imperialism that brings to light the crippling limitations of neoliberal capitalism. A Theory of Imperialism also includes a response by David Harvey, who interprets the agrarian system differently and sees other factors affecting trade between the North and the South. Their debate is one of the most provocative exchanges yet over the future of the global economy as resources grow thin, populations explode, and universal prosperity becomes ever more elusive.