Date post: | 24-Nov-2023 |
Category: |
Documents |
Upload: | independent |
View: | 0 times |
Download: | 0 times |
Theories of Imperialism Revisited
Panagiotis Sotiris
During the 1990’s ‘globalization’ emerged as the most convenient concept to
describe world affairs. However, during the 2000s imperialism made an
impressive come-back in political and theoretical debates. David Harvey’s New
Imperialism, (Harvey 2003), Ellen Meksins Wood’s Empire of Capital (Wood
2003) or Alex Callinicos’ The New Mandarins of American Power (Callinicos
2003), on the Marxist side. The notions of empire and imperialism became
pertinent again in mainstream discussions of international relations and
conflicts, exemplified in calls for a liberal imperialism to deal with terrorism and
rogue states (Cooper 2002) and for the need for the US to act as a benevolent
imperial hegemon (Kagan 1998) to safeguard Western values and liberties. This
mostly had to do with the emergence of an aggressive American military
interventionism, beginning with the war in Afghanistan, the brutal occupation of
Iraq, the plans for a military strike against Iran.
However, regarding the Marxist Theory of Imperialism, there are indeed some
open questions. Is a theory of imperialism simply a combination of Marxist
political economy and Realism? Is it a theory of territorial expansion? Is it a
theory of a unified global system Is it a theory of Empire?
Alex Callinicos has insisted on the need to incorporate the state system and the
conflicts and antagonisms at that level as “a dimension of the capitalist mode of
production” (Callinicos 2009, 83) leading to the combination of two forms of
competition, one among capitals and a geopolitical competition between states
(Callinicos 2005; 2007; 2009). Gonzalo Pozo-Martin (2007) has shown that this
‘realist’ or geopolitical moment needs much more theoretical elaboration, if we
want to avoid the theoretical shortcomings of traditional realist
conceptualizations of international relations. Peter Gowan’s (1999) attempted
towards a Marxist geopolitics of American dominance, notwithstanding the
accuracy of many of his conclusions and despite his insistence that American
foreign policy is based on the promotion of American capitalist interests as
national interest.
However, Realism cannot account for the complexity of the international system.
Realism has been the defining theoretical tradition in mainstream International
Relations theory (Carr 1939, Wight 1994, Waltz 1979, Frankel (ed.) 1996. For a
criticism of traditional International Relations Theory see Rosenberg 1994).
While realism is seen as having merit when contrasted with the idealist rhetoric
of most of current globalization or cosmopolitan democracy theories, the
simplistic Hobbesian conceptions of political power and Great Power rivalry that
are the backbone of realist theories of International Relations do not offer a
possible way to theorize the complexity of determinations within the
international plane and the interrelation between economic, political and
ideological antagonisms. Moreover, it remains a theoretical paradigm that leads
to a rather schematic territorial conception of the stakes in international
conflicts and antagonisms.
However, of the problems in contemporary Marxist theory of imperialism is the
persistence of the territorial logic. On example has been David Harvey’s theory of
accumulation as dispossession. (Harvey 2003). For Harvey, capitalism not only
induces a logic of endless flows of capital but also brings forward the particular
importance of spatio-temporal fixes in a social process of production of space
that leads to the historical geography of imperialism. This is also the basis of a
certain territorial logic that grounds the tendency towards imperialism under
capitalism. Here accumulation by discpossession acquires importance, especially
in a period of capitalist overaccumulation, in the sense of a predatory imperialist
quest for assets all over the world, enhanced by both financialization and
privatization.
Harvey links this to both Luxembourg’s theory of imperialism and to Marx’s
theory of primitive accumulation. However, he insists that it is not limited to a
particular historical period
The disadvantage of these assumptions is that they relegate accumulation
based upon predation, fraud, and violence to an 'original stage' that is
considered no longer relevant or, as with Luxemburg, as being somehow
'outside of capitalism as a closed system. A general reevaluation of the
continuous role and persistence of the predatory practices of 'primitive' or
'original' accumulation within the long historical geography of capital
accumulation is, therefore, very much in order, as several commentators
have recently observed. Since it seems peculiar to call an ongoing process
'primitive' or 'original' I shall, in what follows, substitute these terms by the
concept of'accumulation by dispossession'. (Harvey 2003, p. 144)
For Harvey accumulation by dispossession leads to neoliberalism
Accumulation by dispossession became increasingly more salient after 1973,
in part as compensation for the chronic problems of overaccumulation
arising within expanded reproduction. The primary vehicle for this
development was financialization and the orchestration, largely at the
behest of the United States, of an international financial system that could,
from time to time, visit anything from mild to savage bouts of devaluation
and accumulation by dispossession on certain sectors or even whole
territories. But the opening up of new territories to capitalist development
and to capitalistic forms of market behaviour also played a role, as did the
primitive accumulations accomplished in those countries (such as South
Korea, Taiwan, and now, even more dramatically, China) that sought to
insert themselves into global capitalism as active players. For all of this to
occur required not only financialization and freer trade, but a radically
different approach to how state power, always a major player in
accumulation by dispossession, should be deployed. The rise of neo-liberal
theory and its associated politics of privatization symbolized much of what
this shift was about. (Harvey 2003, p. 156)
It also leads to the contemporary version of imperialism
The rise in importance of accumulation by dispossession as an answer,
symbolized by the rise of an internationalist politics of neoliberalism and
privatization, correlates with the visitation. Accumulation by Dispossession
of periodic bouts of predatory devaluation of assets in one part of the world
or another. And this seems to be the heart of what contemporary imperialist
practice is about. (Harvey 2003, pp. 181-82)
In this context it is really interesting to go back to the Rosa Luxemburg in order
to see the origins of the territorial logic regarding imperialism along with a
conception of imperialism as inherently prone to crisis.
Imperialism is the political expression of the accumulation of capital in its
competitive struggle for what remains still open of the noncapitalist
environment. Still the largest part of the world in terms of geography, this
remaining field for the expansion of capital is yet insignificant as against the
high level of development already attained by the productive forces of capital;
witness the immense masses of capital accumulated in the old countries which
seek an outlet for their surplus product and strive to capitalise their surplus
value, and the rapid change-over to capitalism of the pre-capitalist civilisations.
On the international stage, then, capital must take appropriate measures. With
the high development of the capitalist countries and their increasingly severe
competition in acquiring non-capitalist areas, imperialism grows in lawlessness
and violence, both in aggression against the non-capitalist world and in ever
more serious conflicts among the competing capitalist countries. But the more
violently, ruthlessly and thoroughly imperialism brings about the decline of
non-capitalist civilisations, the more rapidly it cuts the very ground from under
the feet of capitalist accumulation. Though imperialism is the historical method
for prolonging the career of capitalism, it is also a sure means of bringing it to a
swift conclusion. This is not to say that capitalist development must be actually
driven to this extreme: the mere tendency towards imperialism of itself takes
forms which make the final phase of capitalism a period of catastrophe.
(Luxemburg 2003, pp. 426-7)
And again here is Luxemburg on the relation between imperialism and war
The other aspect of the accumulation of capital concerns the relations
between capitalism and the non-capitalist modes of production which start
making their appearance on the international stage. Its predominant
methods are colonial policy, an international loan system—a policy of
spheres of interest—and war. Force, fraud, oppression, looting are openly
displayed without any attempt at concealment, and it requires an effort to
discover within this tangle of political violence and contests of power the
stern laws of the economic process. (Luxembourg 2003, p. 432)
What is also important in Luxemburg’s conception is a certain teleology of
capitalism’s inevitable collapse.
the deep and fundamental antagonism between the capacity to consume and
the capacity to produce in a capitalist society, a conflict resulting from the very
accumulation of capital which periodically bursts out in crises and spurs capital
on to a continual of the market. (Luxemburg 2003, p. 327)
Such a position leads to the assumption that capitalism will collapse the moment
capitalist social relations prevail all over the world. And it is here where we can
find the relation between capitalism, crisis and territorial expansion. In the 1915
Anti-critique Rosa Luxemburg described in the following manner capital’s
tendency towards expansion:
Accumulation is impossible in an exclusively capitalist environment. Therefore,
we find that capital has been driven since its very inception to expand into
non..capitalist strata and nations, ruin artisans and peasantry, proletarianize
the intermediate strata, the politics of colonialism, the politics of' opening-up'
andthe export of capital. The development of capitalism has been possible only
through constant expansion into new domains of production and new countries.
But the global drive to expand leads to a collision between capital and pre-
capitalist forms of society, resulting in violence, war, revol ution: in brief,
catastrophes from start to finish, the vital element of capitalism. (Luxemburg /
Bukharin 1972, p. 145)
One early critic of the territorial logic was Bukharin. In his reply to
Luxembourg Bukharin followed a twofold strategy: On the one hand he
deconstructed the core of Luxembourg’s argument insisting that expanded
reproduction of capitalism is contingent upon the dynamics of class struggle
and it is wrong to assume an absolute limit, as Luxembourg did.
In other words: a conflict between production and consumption, or,
which amounts to the same thing, a general over-production, is nothing
other than a crisis. This position is basically different from that held by
Rosa Luxemburg, according to which over-production must manifest
itself at all times in a purely capitalist society, since an expanded
reproduction is absolutely) impossible. (Luxemburg / Bukharin 1972, p.
225)
On the other hand, Bukharin insisted that the motive for capitalist expansion
is not realization of value, but the search for profit. This insistence on
capitalist profit is an important break with the logic of territorial expansion
either as need for the extraction of assets or as need for finding new outlets
for inherent capitalist over-production. According to Bukharin the driving
force behind capital exports is not the problem of realization (the basis of
under-consumption theories) but the search for higher profit rates and this
can explain why imperialist policies are not directed solely against the non-
capitalist periphery but also against the capitalist centre and he cites the
French occupation of Ruhr as an example.
The reader will have noticed how strangely Rosa Luxemburg formulates
the question of the economic roots of capital expansion. As she overlooks
the factor of the search for larger profits, she reduces everything to the
bare formula of the possibility of realization. Why does capital need a
non-capitalist milieu? (Luxembourg / Bukharin 1972, p. 246)
The expansion of capital is conditioned by the movement of profit, its
amount and rate, on which the amount depends. The movement of
commodities and capital follows the law of the averaging out of the rate
of profit. There is no doubt that this process must be seen from the
standpoint of the reproduction of the total social capital. (Luxembourg /
Bukharin 1972, p. 255)
Consequently, he offers a novel way to treat imperialism as an expression of
capital expansion.
Accordingly, the objective content of capital expansion changes also - within
certain limits. We saw that the forms of expansion changed towards a
sharpening of the methods of fighting. Further we have seen that this again is
caused by a change of the forms of capital itself. As war is nothing but 'the
continuation of politics with other means', so is politics nothing but the method
of the reproduction of certain conditions of production. So the modem
expansion of capital differs from the previous in the fact that it reproduces the
new historical type of the conditions of production on an extended level, i.e. the
type of the conditions of finance capitalism. In this rests the basic constitutive
characteristic of imperialism, which Rosa Luxemburg completely overlooked.
What is the point of all this talk about imperialism, if one does not understand
its specific historical characteristics? It means a misunderstanding of the
demands of Marxist methodology as well as of the 'concrete historical process',
which is so often called as a witness against the 'soulless formulae' in Marx's
Capital. (Luxemburg / Bukharin 1971, p. 257)
There are two possible readings of Lenin’s theory of Imperialism. One is to
consider it a Marxist version of classical theories of colonial empire-building,
either those that related imperialism to an overabundance of capital in tandem
with growing social instability, or those that considered imperialism an
expression of certain fractions of the ruling block that had to gain from overseas
expansion and military build up (Hobson 1902). According to this view, Lenin
presents a theory of irremediable capitalist stagnation and overproduction
which can only be temporarily dealt with by colonization, the latter providing the
necessary outlet for idle capital and a means of social pacification, through the
creation of a labour aristocracy. This is a wrong reading
This does not deny that there are indeed problems with Lenin’s theory of
Imperialism. Lenin’s endorsement of Bukharin’s book on world capitalism.
Bukharin, although not a theorist of a global unified capitalist system in the strict
sense, tended to present an image of a global capitalism as an integral system in
which the antagonistic relations between big capitalist trusts represented by
states, thus underestimating specificity of the role of the state. This is evident in
texts like the following.
At present, when the competition and the centralisation of capital are being
reproduced on a world scale, we find the same two types. When one country,
one state capitalist trust, absorbs another, a weaker one possessed of
comparatively the same economic structure, we have a horizontal
centralisation of capital. Where, however, the state capitalist trust includes
an economically supplementary unit, an agrarian country for instance, we
have the formation of a combine. Substantially the same contradictions and
the same moving forces are reflected here as within the limits of "national
economies"; to be specific, the rise of prices of raw materials leads to the rise
of combined enterprises. Thus on the higher stage of the struggle there is
reproduced the same contradiction between the various branches, but on a
considerably wider scale. (Bukharin n.d., pp. 120-21)
Moreover, Lenin’s emphasis on the formation of monopolies as a distinctive
feature of the imperialist stage sometimes underestimated competition between
capitals.
But this is not the case. Not in every branch of industry are there large-scale
enterprises; and moreover, a very important feature of capitalism in its
highest stage of development is so-called combination of production, that is
to say, the grouping in a single enterprise of different branches of industry
(Lenin v. 22, 198)
There is also Lenin’s tendency towards an instrumentalist theory of the state as a
tool in the hands of monopoly capital and big trusts. There is also the problem
with his definition of imperialism (and monopoly capital) as inherently parasitic
and crisis-prone.
From all that has been said in this book on the economic essence of
imperialism, it follows that we must define it as capitalism in transition, or,
more precisely, as moribund capitalism. (Lenin, v.22, p. 302)
Also problematic is Lenin’s agreement with Hilferding’s original position that the
export of capital towards the periphery was the result of limits to capital
accumulation in the imperialist centre and with Hilferding’s conception of the
predominance of monopolies and cartels (Hilferding 1981).
However, there is also the possibility of another reading of Lenin. In this reading,
Lenin’s theory of imperialism revolutionizes the theory of the international
system, giving imperialism a wholly different meaning than simple empire
building. Lenin tried to think of the international system as a complex unity of
economic, social and political contradictions, as a hierarchy of social formations,
engaged not only in economic competition, but also in political and military
antagonism.
Of particular importance is Lenin’s conception of unequal development. ‘Uneven
economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism.’ (Lenin,
v.21, p. 342). Uneven development is not just a description of the world system.
It is an acknowledgement of the constant and overdetermined efficacy of class
struggles. Global tendencies, both economic and ‘geopolitical, are uneven
because class struggles and their dynamics are uneven. In this his description of
the antagonisms in the world scene in the introductory speech at the Second
Congress of the Communist International (Lenin, v. 31), is of great theoretical
importance
Uneven development is not simply about the non-linear character of
development in the international system. It is a more general statement on the
complexity of social and political antagonism, on the singularity of each
particular historical conjuncture, on the uneven an even decentred character of
the condensation of contradictions at a given social formation, in a particular
moment of its development and its relation to the international system. The
following two extracts from Lenin highlight this:
That the revolution succeeded so quickly and—seemingly, at the first superficial
glance—so radically, is only due to the fact that, as a result of an extremely
unique historical situation, absolutely dissimilar currents, absolutely
heterogeneous class interests, absolutely contrary political and social strivings
have merged, and in a strikingly “harmonious” manner. (Lenin vol. 23, p. 302)
As long as national and state distinctions exist among peoples and countries—
and these will continue to exist for a very long time to come, even after the
dictatorship of the proletariat has been established on a world-wide scale—the
unity of the international tactics of the communist working-class movement in
all countries demands, not the elimination of variety of the suppression of
national distinctions (which is a pipe dream at present), but an application of
the fundamental principles of communism (Soviet power and the dictatorship
of the proletariat), which will correctly modify these principles in certain
particulars, correctly adapt and apply them to national and national-state
distinctions. (Lenin vol. 31, p. 92)
Uneven development is not merely about quantitative differences between social
formations but describes the necessarily singular and overdetermined character
of both. In the international plane, uneven development is the necessary
outcome of the complex history of the emergence and domination of capitalism
in different parts of the world. It refers to the consequent creation of antagonistic
total social capitals, and the fragmentation into different and mostly national
polities. In this process, different class histories led to different balances of forces
between dominant and subaltern classes (but also among power blocs), and
consequently different paths for state formation, and also domestic and
international strategies. Uneven development, and the different strategies for
capital accumulation, not only in terms of international market antagonism but
also in terms of states promoting the interests of antagonistic total social capitals
and bourgeoisies, create the material conditions for conflict. It is exactly this
articulation of the economic and the political, itself uneven, contradictory and
contingent on the dynamics of the conjuncture, that leads to inter-imperialist
rivalry and war
One might say that of the important theoretical advances of Lenin’s theory of
Imperialism, is exactly its conception of the specificity of capitalist imperialism.
The emphasis on class relations and antagonisms marks a sharp difference
between Lenin’s theory of imperialism and proponents of American
expansionism in the form of ‘economic imperialism’ as a solution for the over-
abundance of capital, such as Charles Conant (1898). Lenin’s intervention goes
far beyond a theory of idle capitals, the difficulty of wealth redistribution and the
unavailability of domestic productive outlets. The fundamental issue for Lenin
was not capital exports as such, but capital exports as part of a broader
tendency: the expansion of capitalist social relations on a global scale, the
political and military antagonisms that followed this expansion, the violent
character of this process, and the resulting challenges for the revolutionary
movement. Beginning with his early work on the development of capitalism in
Russia (Lenin, v. 3) Lenin insisted on capitalism transforming all social forms it
gets into contact with. Although Lenin lacked a theory of the articulation of
modes of production that could help explain the symbiotic relation of capitalism
with many non-capitalist modes of exploitation, we think that he managed to
grasp the particular way capitalism may emerge within specific conjunctures not
simply as a dominant mode of production, but as the central node around which
other modes and forms of production can be articulated. Such a conception of
capitalist imperialism can explain why especially during colonial expansion
forms of capitalist and non-capitalist exploitation could co-exist, co-emerge and
even co-develop. David Ruccio has stressed exactly this point:
Imperialism, in turn, is the set of conditions that shape and are shaped by
the existence of this exploitation. Yes capitalist imperialism – not because
capitalists get what they want, nor because forms of colonial expansion and
domination did not predate the emergence and development of capitalism,
nor finally because imperialism can be reduced to or explained entirely in
terms of the economy (capitalist or otherwise) – but because the particular
forms of imperialism I am referring to, from the British annexation of India
to the US military barrage on Iraqi forces and the new ‘war on terrorism’
cannot be divorced from those (complex, changing) conditions and effects of
capitalism to which I just referred. (Ruccio 2003, 87).
In this sense, we can say that Lenin revolutionized the theorization of the
international system by giving internal class relations and contradictions
analytical priority over interstate relations. Contrary to most theories of
international relations, both realist and ‘idealist’, which have their origins in
classical political philosophy and 19th century diplomatic history and tend to
view states as subjects that act out of their own will, Lenin insisted that the
policies of states are governed by their internal class balance of forces, the
degree of capitalist development and the particular class strategies around it.
Lenin’s emphasis on capital exports – not simply as productive investments
abroad but as the expansion of capitalist social relations – as the predominant
form of the internationalization of capital, and on the internationalization of
capital as the material basis of imperialism also had revolutionizing effects.
Contrary to the traditional conception of international power politics as
expressions of conflicting national interests, Lenin insisted on the
internationalization of capital as a contradictory expansion of capitalist social
relations resulting to singular articulations of capitalist and non capitalist modes
and forms of production, but with capitalist social forms being dominant not
necessarily quantitatively but surely qualitatively in the sense of inducing the
transformation of all social relations and practices. International conflicts must
be viewed as class antagonisms mediated by the nation-states as expressions of
the long-term interest of the power blocs in these states, namely alliances of the
dominant classes, in which capitalist classes play a leading role. This is evident in
the following two passages from Lenin.
Typical of the old capitalism, when free competition held undivided sway,
was the export of goods. Typical of the latest stage of capitalism, when
monopolies rule, is the export of capital. (Lenin, v. 22, p. 240)
The export of capital influences and greatly accelerates the development of
capitalism in those countries to which it is exported. While, therefore, the
export of capital may tend to a certain extent to arrest development in the
capital exporting countries, it can only do so by expanding and deepening
the further development of capitalism throughout the world. (Lenin, v.22, p.
243
We can say that Lenin’s emphasis on the internationalization of capital through
capital exports dealt a decisive blow to the notion of imperialism as simply
territorial expansion. Despite Lenin’s many references to the ‘division of the
world among the Great Powers’, the core of his argument regarding capital
exports is that the expansion of capital no longer requires territorial annexation
or formal empire, but the articulation of capital accumulation and political
power. Moreover, his insistence on antagonism and conflict and on the
particular, non-uniform and related to a given conjuncture dynamics of
interimperialist rivalry prevent his position from falling into the teleology of a
uniform transition and development.
We can also say that in Lenin we have a political theory of imperialism. Lenin’s
emphasis on the role of states in imperialist dynamics and rivalries and on the
necessity of the state apparatuses for the expression and mediation of capitalist
interests in the international system, leads also to a political theory of
imperialism. Imperialism presupposes political power as a condensation of class
interests and inter-imperialist rivalries are political rivalries, struggles between
different power blocks, including struggles between alliances of states,
something that can also account for the importance of international
organizations. This emphasis on the relative autonomy of the political protects
Lenin’s argument from economistic reductionism and keeps capital
accumulation and capitalist class interests as the necessary material ground of
the whole process. That is why Lenin proposed a possible explanation for World
War I as the culmination of rival strategies for leadership and dominance in the
imperialist system. It can also explain the possibility that the international is also
the plane where internal contradictions and political strategies are being played
out, from the many examples of aggressive military campaigns to galvanize
domestic consent in nationalist lines, to the current use of international
economic organizations such as the IMF to promote political agendas that were
initially domestically articulated.
In its turn, this political conception of imperialism is also based upon the
theoretical revolution Marxism brings regarding the theory of the political. n
contrast to the tautologies used in traditional political science, in which political
power is just taken as given, Marxism offers a definition of power as the
“capacity of a social class to realize its specific objective interests” (Poulantzas
1978, 104). This priority of exploitation over domination offers an explanation of
power as class power, ability of social groups to control the extraction and
distribution of surplus labour because of their specific objective structural class
position. It offers a possible explanation of the class character of power relations
and struggles and therefore also of state apparatuses. The key point, in our
opinion, is to stress at the same time the analytical priority of exploitation over
repression and domination, and the importance of the fact that political practice
has as its object the condensation of all the contradictions of the various levels of
a social formation (Poulantzas 1978, 41). This notion of the political escapes the
shortcomings of both the mainstream political science’s notion of political power
as administrative command, and of the portrayal of political power as direct
control of the state by capitalist factions that characterizes many varieties of
economistic Marxism. In this non-economistic reading of Marxism, the insistence
on the class character of political power is combined with the position that class
strategies are also necessarily political strategies, strategies aimed at
reproducing or destabilizing social formations as complex and contradictory
unities of economic, political, ideological relations and practises. This is a
dialectical conception of politics that allows us to accept both Marx’s insistence
that the “specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out
of direct producers” is the “innermost secret” of every social structure (Marx
1894, 778) and Althusser’s warning that although the economic relations are
determinant in the last instance, the “lonely hour of the ‘last instance’ never
comes” (Althusser 1969, 113). It is a conception of political power that manages
to maintain the link between politics and the economy and at the same time
ground the necessary relative autonomy of the political. It was Marx that in a
certain way expressed exactly this dialectical approach:
The complexity of Lenin’s theory of imperialism is also evident in his theory of
the imperialist chain. The emergence of the concept of the imperialist chain as
the suitable description of the hierarchal, uneven and contradictory character of
the international system, and of the combination of hierarchy and
interdependence in the international plane and the concept of weakest link as an
attempt to describe the potential condensation of contradictions in a specific
social formation, are also important. Class struggle within each social formation
determines its position in the hierarchy of the imperialist chain. The form of
social alliances, the stage of capitalist development, the level of capitalist
productivity, its military and political force, as well as its ideological influence,
can reinforce or undermine the relative international power of a capitalist social
formation. A social formation’s position in the imperialist chain is not based only
on its level of economic development but also on the entirety of its political and
military power. This is evident in Lenin’s theorization of antagonism in the
imperialist chain:
the fact that the world is already partitioned obliges those contemplating a
redivision to reach out for every kind of territory, and (2) an essential
feature of imperialism is the rivalry between several great powers in the
striving for hegemony, i.e., for the conquest of territory, not so much directly
for themselves as to weaken the adversary and undermine his hegemony.
(Lenin, v.22, 269)
Nicos Poulantzas has stressed the importance of this conception of the
antagonism in the imperialist chain
The new index of the power of politics which characterizes monopoly
capitalism within each national formation is translated into the new index
of the power of politics which marks international relations in the
imperialist stage. […] The concrete form and the degreee of the strength of
politics within each national formation, depend on its ‘historical position as
a link in the chain: this depends in turn on the uneven development of the
chain and on its mode of existence within each link (Poulantzas 1979 p. 24)
The theory of the imperialist chain along with the imagery of the weakest link in
the chain remain important for any thinking of revolutionary politics. It
describes the complex articulation of national and international determinations
and the overdetermination of class antagonism. It offers the possibility of a
theory of the revolutionary conjuncture, a theory the ‘moment’(and not of the
‘event’), a theory of the singularity of social and political determination of each
particular historical period. This how Louis Althusser stressed exactly this point:
But here we should pay careful attention: if it is obvious that the theory of
the weakest link guided Lenin in his theory of the revolutionary party (it
was to be faultlessly united in consciousness and organization to avoid
adverse exposure and to destroy the enemy), it was also the inspiration for
his reflections on the revolution itself. How was this revolution possible in
Russia, why was it victorious there? It was possible in Russia for a reason
that went beyond Russia: because with the unleashing of imperialist war
humanity entered into an objectively revolutionary situation.Imperialism
tore off the 'peaceful' mask of the old capitalism. The concentration of
industrial monopolies, their subordination to financial monopolies, had
increased the exploitation of the workers and of the colonies. Competition
between the monopolies made war inevitable. But this same war, which
dragged vast masses, even colonial peoples from whom troops were drawn,
into limitless suffering, drove its cannon-fodder not only into massacres, but
also into history. Everywhere the experience, the horrors of war, were a
revelation and confirmation of a whole century's protest against capitalist
exploitation; a focusing-point, too, for hand in hand with this shattering
exposure went the effective means of action. […] Why this paradoxical
exception? For this basic reason: in the 'system of imperialist
states'[8] Russia represented the weakest point. The Great War had, of
course, precipitated and aggravated this weakness, but it had not by itself
created it. Already, even in defeat, the 1905 Revolution had demonstrated
and measured the weakness of Tsarist Russia. This weakness was the
product of this special feature: the accumulation and exacerbation of all the
historical contradictions. (Althusser 1969, pp. 95-96)
However, if we want to elaborate on a potential Marxist theory of imperialism,
the theoretical contribution of Gramsci must also be included, particularly the
theoretically fruitful Gramscian concept of Hegemony (Gramsci 1971; Buci-
Glucksmann 1980; Bootham 2008; Thomas 2009). It does not simply imply the
combination of coercion and consent. Rather, it refers to the complex modalities
of social and political power in capitalist societies that make a social class
become the leading social force in a society. Moreover, the concepts of hegemony
and hegemonic apparatus, as part of Gramsci’s theorization of the Integral State
(Gramsci 1971, 239; Thomas 2009, 137-141) also offer a way to theorize the
extent and complexity of State apparatuses and their economic, political, and
ideological practices and interventions. Along with Althusser’s conception of the
Ideological State Apparatuses (Althusser 1971; Althusser 1995) and their role in
social reproduction and Poulantzas’ relational conception of the State as a
condensation of social forces (Poulantzas 1980), this theoretical direction
maintains the relation between State functioning and social class formations,
brings forward the role of the State in the elaboration of class strategies and the
transformation of class interests into political projects, and stresses how the
State is being traversed and conditioned by class struggles and antagonisms.
On the basis of the above theoretical elaboration, it is obvious that a Marxist
theory of Imperialism is beyond a more critical version of geopolitics theory. We
cannot take states as self-sufficient actors in shaping the international plane, but
we must look at the different class alliances and power blocs and how these
affect the formation of capitalist class strategy, state policy and consequently
international policy. This is in sharp contrast to traditional ‘realist’ geopolitical
theory with its emphasis on States as self-sufficient actors in the international
system. States’ behaviour in the international plane is itself conditioned by the
articulation of class contradictions and political strategies and the emergence of
hegemonic power blocs. Interstate relations can be viewed as class based
relations, as relations (and conflicts) between different power blocs. The current
return of ‘geopolitics’ is a welcome refusal of the economistic idealism of the
‘globalization’ rhetoric. However, it poses the danger of a return to a pre-Marxist
conception of political power. Of course, if ‘geopolitics’ is a metonymic reference
to the State’s relative autonomy vis-à-vis the economy or the relative autonomy
of the political in general, then we do not disagree in principle, but we still insist
on a terminology that underlines the conceptual break between Marxist and non-
Marxist theories of Imperialism.
We must treat Imperialism as class political strategy in an inherently
antagonistic international plane, where the antagonism between capitals is also
mediated through the antagonism of power blocs and where States as potential
representatives of collective capitalist interests constantly intervene, by
economic, ideological, political and military means, in order not simply to
promote specific capitalist interests but also the more general conditions for
capitalist accumulation through strategies that are also over-determined by
political and ideological considerations having to do with their specific class
balance of forces and the articulation of modes and forms of production. This is
the problem with the territorial or geopolitical logic expressed in many recent
interventions. It is not that capitalists and capitalist states do not preoccupy
themselves with territorial or spatial questions (for example natural resources)
or with geopolitical questions (for example regional military balance of forces),
but that this is not the basic ‘logic’ of capitalist imperialism. But to substantiate
this position and to distance it from a teleological or deterministic conception we
will proceed, in the next section, to an alternative theorization of capitalist
imperialism.
It is exactly here that we find the non-territorial character of the specifically
capitalist form of imperialism. Direct territorial domination and expansion is a
characteristic, in particular in Europe, of pre-capitalist modes of production
where direct access and possession of land and scarce resources and the ability
to exercise direct physical force on populations in order to extract surpluses
(‘extra-economic’ coercion) were structural aspects of social reproduction. The
emergence of capitalism as a dominant mode of production, and of an
international system based on territorially sovereign nation-states, the evolution
of social and political struggles, and the growing importance of productivity,
technological change, and real subsumption of labour, meant that territorial
gains of colonial dominions were no longer essential conditions for the
reproduction of the system. On the contrary what emerges as the main aspect of
modern capitalist imperialism is the internationalization of capital. By
internationalization we refer to all forms of product and capital exports, of
capital movements, of trade and financial transactions, of global relocation of
production, of lowering of barriers to trade and investment, of international
agreements, policy initiatives and organizations facilitating theses procedures,
including forms of international coordination and even creation of forms of
supranational integration such as the EU. The internationalization of capital is
indeed inducing the expansion of specifically capitalist social relations of
production, in articulation with non-capitalist modes and forms of production in
complex processes of reproduction and transformation.
This can account for the political dimension in capitalist imperialism. The
tendency of capital to transcend national borders and search all over the world
for better profitability is not an unmediated purely economic process. If political
power and bourgeois hegemony are necessary conditions for the reproduction of
capitalist social relations, the same goes for the internationalization of capital:
some form of political intervention (and ideological legitimization) is necessary
for it. This is a structural necessity; the specific form of this political and
ideological guarantee is subject to historical contingencies. This can explain the
move from imperialism in the form of rival colonial empires to the more
‘modern’ imperialism of a hierarchy of imperialist formations, with the US in the
hegemonic role of politically and militarily guaranteeing the global collective
capitalist interest.
Competition between capitals is an “organic” aspect of capitalism, in the sense
that it is inscribed in the very structure of the capitalist market. However,
competition between different capitals in the international plane takes the form
not only of competition between different national capitals but also to
competition and antagonism between different states representing different
collective capitalist interests. That is why the notion of the imperialist chain is
still an accurate description of the uneven and complex relations of
interdependence between different social formations and power blocks. When
we talk about political intervention as a prerequisite for the internationalization
of capital we do not refer only to ‘classical’ forms of military intervention or
‘gunboat diplomacy’. For example, the formation of the current international
financial architecture was not just a spontaneous process and same goes for the
lowering of barriers to the free flow of products and capital and the political
decision to expose capitalist social formations to the competitive pressure of
world markets and capital movements. Etienne Balibar suggested that Marx
performs a theoretical short circuit between economics and politics, by
grounding the political in class strategies within production and at the same time
treating the economical as a terrain of conflicting political class strategies
(Balibar 1994). A theory of imperialism must perform the same theoretical short
circuit.
In this light, we must tackle the question of the causes of war. If one sees war,
especially imperialist war, as a form of territorial expansion, then the evolution
of capitalism and the importance of capital exports make this sort of expansion
(and any military preparation for it) unnecessary. But one should not forget that
two World Wars were mainly not the outcome of territorial disputes. It is true
that the question of the dissolution of Empires acted as a catalyst for WWI, and
one should not underestimate the initial importance of Nazi Germany’s claim
over all of the territories with German-speaking minorities in the outbreak of
WWII. But it is also obvious that in both World Wars the scale of the mobilization
and the extent of the conflict were beyond simple territorial claims. It was a fight
for leadership and hegemony in the capitalist world. These wars were mainly
forms of escalating political antagonism, due to condensed contradictions
concerning the hegemonic position in the imperialist chain. If one sees war as an
extreme case of political confrontation, then we can insist on the position that
antagonism remains the structural aspect of interstate relations. Whether this
antagonism takes the form of military confrontation or remains in political terms
(namely within the limits of current international law and custom) depends on
the conjuncture, on the scale of the interests and strategies at stake, on the
balance of forces both regionally and globally, on the domestic social and
political configuration and whether war effort will galvanize or destabilize
hegemony.
What about theories that suggest that we have moved beyond the era of the
nation-state and of the imperialist chain as a chain of national social formations?
Is there any basis in theories of globalization? Most ‘globalization’ theories are
either simple descriptions of tendencies and o observable phenomena, lacking
theoretical rigour. Other theories, such as the one presented in Empire (Hardt –
Negri 2000) are simple metaphorical rewritings of traditional global capitalism
theories. Hardt and Negri in Empire (2000) in fact, despite the references to
biopolitics etc, in fact return to a very classical conception of a global capitalism
system, in certain aspects reminiscent of Luxembourg’s positions. Their
reference to Empire has the extra problem of confusing the capitalist and pre-
capitalist conception of empire. Consequently, it is more a radical theory of
globalization rather than a Marxist theory of imperialism
The most interesting theories are the one suggesting that we are dealing with
transnational capitals, transnational social formations and transnational political
forms, such as the theory presented by William I. Robinson. According to this
theory,
‘globalization is establishing the material conditions for the rise of a
bourgeoisie whose coordinates are no longer national. In this process of
transnational class formation dominant groups fuse into a class (or class
fraction) within transnational space. The organic composition, objective
position and subjective constitution of these groups are no longer tied to
nation-states.’ (Robinson and Harris 2000).
According to Robinson is on the basis of such a conception that we are
witnessing the profound transformation of the nation-state and how it its
subsumed to larger transnational structures.
[T]he national state is being transformed and increasingly absorbed
functionally into a larger transnational institutional structure that involves
complex new relations between national states and supra or transnational
institutions, on the one hand, and diverse class and social forces, on the
other.” (Robinson 2007a, p. 83)
Consequently, new forms of domination of transnational capital emerge.
We are witness to new forms of global capitalist domination, whereby
intervention is intended to create conditions favorable to the penetration of
transnational capital and the renewed integration of the intervened region
into the global system. Robinson 2007b, p. 19)
However, there is a problem with thinking in terms of transnational class
formations.On the one hand the reproduction of the subaltern classes is not
‘transnational’. There is no transnational proletariat, nor can we treat migration
as an expression of some nation-less nomadic ‘multitude’. In contrast, the
working classes are still reproduced at the national level. There are no
transnational bourgeoisies. All ‘transnational’ corporations always rely on the
support of the country of origin. Even the most aggressive attempts towards
‘supra-national’ political arrangements, such as the EU, are not ‘supra-states’
despite the ceding of aspects of sovereignty.
It is here that another question emerges. How are we to theorize hierarchy in the
imperialist chain. Can the role of the US be described as simply world dominance
or power supremacy, through the use of force and the ability to guaranty trade
and capital flows and have access to contested territories and scarce resources?
Such a view regresses to a more traditionally Realist view of international
relations and a more territorial logic of interstate relations. Moreover, the
Hobbesian view of power antagonism between self-sufficient and ‘selfish’ agents
that characterizes Realism is inadequate to theorize the complex dialectic of
competition and cooperation, antagonism and interdependence, conflict and
alliance building in the international system. The US has not been simply
imposing its will on unwilling subjects (despite the occasional twist of arms) but
manages (at least up to now) to assume a position of leadership in what is at the
same time a terrain of antagonisms and an imperialist block. What can be
described as the more ‘geopolitical’ moment of current imperialism, namely the
safeguarding of the flow of oil towards the West, cannot be theorized iwn
territorial terms, since the aim of the current American military interventionism
in the Middle East is performed in the name of the collective interest of the
capitalist world to have access to energy resources, and not in the name of direct
American colonization. This notion of hegemony in the imperialist chain should
not be seen as an altruistic attitude. Rather, it refers to those historically specific
conjunctures when fulfilling the prerequisites for the long-term interest of the
ruling bloc of the leading imperialist formation also induces the safeguarding of
certain of the class interests of the ruling classes in the other formations in the
imperialist chain.
Therefore we must think in terms of hegemony in the imperialist chain.
Hegemony presents political power and class domination as the dialectic of
direction, coercion and consent and offers a wider sense of class antagonisms
and political struggles that goes beyond both realist cynicism and idealistic
legalism. Hegemony, in this view, comprises political direction, social class
alliance building, social political and military repression, ideological
misrecognition and material concessions. Hegemony is not simply coercion plus
legitimization, but an attempt to theorize the complexity of class antagonism and
political power, thus offering a better description both of social antagonism and
of the hierarchies arising in the international plane. Moreover, since hegemony
refers to a power relation and consequently entails conflict and antagonism.
If the notion of the imperialist chain is accurate as a description of the
contradictory, hierarchical, uneven and interdependent character of an
international system based upon the enlarged reproduction of capitalist social
relations in nation-states, the notion of hegemony can help explain the
mechanisms of leadership in the imperialist chain. The leading social formation
is not just the more powerful economically or politico-militarily; above all it must
be able to offer plausible strategies for the collective capital interest of the whole
imperialist chain. Hegemony can account for the dialectic between antagonism
and hierarchy better than traditional power-politics approaches that can account
only for contingent balance of force hierarchies, but not for cases of strategic
political and ‘moral’ leadership.
In this sense, inter-imperialist rivalry is in fact a struggle for hegemony. In this
sense current developments are not simply about geopolitics or ‘open markets’
or access to natural resources, however important these aspects are. The
question is what are the hegemonic project arising. The new hegemon for the
21st century will not be simply the most powerful military force, but the country
that will articulate the dominant narrative.
It is in light of the above considerations that we must think about American
hegemony. American foreign policy after 1945 aimed not only at guarantying
American supremacy but also at offering elements of a collective strategy for the
whole imperialist chain (rapid industrialization, ‘fordist’ accumulation strategies,
mass consumerism and individualism, a combination between anti-communism
and technocratic ideology). Even the most openly ‘geopolitical’ forms of
American political and military interventions, which can indeed be used as an
illustration of an attempt towards world domination, such as the extended
network of military bases, Air-Force bases and CIA stations, can be best
interpretated by reference to a hegemonic strategy. They are not imperial
outposts, but mainly make manifest to ability of the US to militarily guarantee
capitalist social order all over the world. American political and military
intervention during the past 60 years did not aim solely at guaranteeing
American interests, nor did they aimed at creating colonies, but at safeguarding
the reproduction of capitalist social relations, bourgeois rule and capitalist
accumulation.
This complexity of hegemony in the imperialist chain means that we should
always be very careful when talking about imperial decline. Crisis of hegemony
cannot be a simple factor process. In the 1970s the US suffered actual military
defeats in South-east Asia, capital over-accumulation, fiscal crisis, and the
economic challenge posed by Japan and West Germany. Yet the US not only
managed to retain global leadership but also to eventually offer in the 1980s and
1990s an hegemonic strategy that combined neoliberalism, capitalist
restructuring, the intensification of the internationalization of capital and the
lowering of barriers to the free flow of capitals and products, the incorporation
in the imperialist chain of former socialist formations, the authoritarian backlash
against labour, and a more aggressive form of imperialist interventionism. In this
sense, the current conjuncture of a global capitalist crisis surely poses a test and
challenge for US hegemony but should not be considered as automatically
leading to imperial decline.
American strategy is still a combination between opening up of markets,
securing access to resources (for the entire imperialist chain) and military
interventionism. It also includes the use of what can be described as the
‘management of destabilization’ which also means using situations of crisis
escalation as part of the strategy to pre-empt the emergence of other
antagonistic poles. Ukraine offers an example. At the same time, American
economic policies after 2008 and in particular measure such as ‘quantitative
easing’ are also attempts at guaranteeing the global economy against the crisis
(in contrast to German-inspired austerity that until now has only induced
recessionary tendencies), and in this sense they have also been attempts at
maintaining hegemony. Moreover, the re-establishment of the ‘Euroatlantic’ axis
after 2003 and the TTIP negotiations have also strengthened the American
position. However, there are also open questions regarding whether other poles
of accumulation that have emerged can still recognize themselves within
American Hegemony, or whether they will challenge it. In this sense, it is an open
question whether the increased economic and political role of China (in its
alliance also to a certain extent with Russia) will be transformed into a challenge
of US hegemony. This has not to do only with economic, technological, military
power. Mainly it has to do with the possibility to articulate a different hegemonic
narrative, in all its economic, political and cultural aspects, and in particularly
with the ability to enforce and safeguard it.
At the same time, a non-territorial theory of imperialism can help us understand
the process of EU integration. The EU has been an expression of increased
internationalization of capital. At the same time it has been the most advanced
case of the voluntary ceding of aspects sovereignty (such as currency) and of
imposing forms of supra-national economic governance. This reduced
sovereignty and along with EU institutions’ ‘constitutionalism without popular
sovereignty’ has been a means to aggressively make neoliberalism and capitalist
restructuring irreversible for European social formations. At the same time, the
architecture of the Eurozone has been from the beginning inherently unequal –
expressed in the fact that German growth has been at the expense of European
periphery.
In light of the above, the current crisis in the Eurozone is exactly the result of the
fact that EU is not transforming itself into a supra-state: the inability to counter
regional imbalances, the economic, political and cultural barriers to full labour
and resources mobility, the impossibility of ever becoming an ‘optimum currency
area’, all attest to this fact. It is also evident in the fact that reduced sovereignty
has not been accompanied by redistribution or solidarity. In this sense, the crisis
of the Euro and the acute social and political crisis especially in the European
periphery, are also elements that point towards a certain crisis of Hegemony in
the European Union.
All major aspects of Eurozone and the European Union’s monetary, financial and
institutional architecture, suggest that attempts towards ‘reform from inside’
will fail. The embedded neoliberalism of European Integration along with its
structural democratic deficit have led to a major legitimacy crisis of the
‘European’ Project. Positions such as the one by Negri and Mezzandra (2014)
that European integration is ‘’well beyond the threshold of irreversibility’ are off
the mark. Moreover, the inability of EU Left to stand up to the challenge has left
the political space open for Far-Right ‘euroscepticism’. Therefore, a strategy of
rupture more necessary than ever. To take Greece as a test case, necessary
measures such as correcting the exchange rate are about protecting Greek
society from the systemic violence inherent in international capital and
commodity flows. Single currencies such as the euro always lead to real wage
reductions, austerity measures, privatisations and constant pressure for
neoliberal reforms in the name of responding to competitive pressures. Exiting
such monetary configurations is not a strategy for ‘isolation’, but a necessary
defence against aggressive capitalist policies. Moreover, it would a mistake to
accept, in the name of ‘internationalism’, the current form of capitalist
internationalization of production, where a product has to travel around the
world, go through ‘social dumping’ areas and ‘special economic zones’ and have a
negative environmental impact, in order to arrive to our market place.
Resistance to imperialism today not simply about ‘independence’ or ‘delinking’
from internationalization of capital. It is also about rethinking the possibility of
working-class hegemony as part of a new historical bloc of the subaltern classes.
This can also imply a different articulation of relations of (counter)hegemony at
the international level: solidarity, struggle, ‘diplomacy of movements’. We
urgently need to reopen the debate!
From the fight against war, military interventionism and the ‘counter-terrorist’
undermining of democratic freedoms to the struggle against the systemic social
violence of the internationalization of capital and austerity, we confront
contemporary imperialism in all its forms. It is imperative that we fight against
imperialism and the capitalist social relations that give rise to it. The fight is far
from over!
References
Althusser, L. 1969. For Marx. London: Allen Lane / The Penguin Press.
Althusser, L. 1971. Lenin and Philosophy and other essays. New York: Monthly
Review Press.
Althusser, L. 1995. Sur la reproduction. Paris: PUF
Balibar, É. 1994b. Masses, Classes, Ideas. Studies on Politics and Philosophy Before
and After Marx. London: Routledge.
Bootham, D. 2008. The Sources for Gramsci’s Concept of Hegemony. Rethinking
Marxism 20 (2), 201-215.
Brewer, A. 1990. Marxist Theories of Imperialism. A Critical Survey. London:
Routledge.
Buci – Glucksmann, C. 1980. Gramsci and the State. London: Lawrence and
Wishart.
Bukharin. N. 1972. Imperialism and the Accumulation of Capital. In R. Luxemburg
and N. Bukharin, Imperialism and the Accumulation of Capital, ed. K. J.
Tarbuck. London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press.
Bukharin, N (n.d.), Imperialism and World Economy. London: Martin Lawrence
Callinicos, A. 2003. The New Mandarins of American Power: The Bush
Administration's Plans for the World. London: Polity.
Callinicos, A. 2005. Imperialism and Global Political Economy. International
Socialism Journal 108: 109-127.
Callinicos, A. 2007. Does capitalism need the state system?, Cambridge Review of
International Affairs 20:4: 533-549
Callinicos, A. 2009. Imperialism and Global Political Economy. London: Polity
Carr, E.H. 1939. The Twenty Years’ Crisis. London: Macmillan
Cooper, R. 2002. The post-modern state. in M. Leonard (ed.), Re- Orderimg the
World, London: The Foreign Policy Centre: 11-20.
Frankel, B. (ed.)1996. Realism: Restatements and Renewals. London: Frank Cass
Gowan, P. 1999. The Global Gamble. London: Verso
Gramsci, A. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence and
Wishart
Hardt, M. And A. Negri 2000. Empire. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Harvey, D. 2003. The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hobson, J. A. 1903. Imperialism: A Study. New York: James Pott and Co.
Kagan, R. 1998, “The Benevolent Empire”,
http://www.ceip.org/people/kagbenev.htm.
Lenin, V.I. 1964-1974, Collected Works, Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Luxemburg, R. 2003, The Accumulation of Capital, London: Routledge.
Luxemburg, R. 1972. Anti-critique. In R. Luxemburg and N. Bukharin, Imperialism
and the Accumulation of Capital, ed. K. J. Tarbuck. London: Allen Lane.
Marx, K. 1887. Capital vol 1. Trans, by S. Moore and E. Aveling,
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Capital_
Vol_1.pdf
Marx, K. [1894], Capital vol 3, in Marx - Engels Collected Works, vol. 37, London.
Lawrence and Wishart.
Mezzandra, S. and T. Negri 2014. Breaking the Neoliberal Spell: Europe as the
Battleground. http://www.euronomade.info/?p=1417.
Poulantzas, N.1978. Political Power and Social Classes. London: Verso.
Poulantzas N. 1979. Fascism and Dictatorship. London: Verso.
Poulantzas N. 1980. State, Power, and Socialism. London Verso.
Pozo-Martin, G. 2007. Autonomous or materialist geopolitics?, Cambridge Review
of International Affairs 20:4: 551-563
Robinson, W.I. 2007a. The Pitfalls of Realist Analysis of Global Capitalism: A
Critique of Ellen Meiksins Wood’s Empire of Capital. Historical Materialism
15: 3, 71-93
Robinson, W.I. 2007a. Beyond the Theory of Imperialism: Global Capitalism and
the Transnational State. Societies Without Borders 2: 5-26.
Robinson, W.I and J. Harris 2000. Towards A Global Ruling Class? Globalization
and the Transnational Capitalist Class. Science & Society, Vol. 64, No. 1, Spring
2000, 11–54.
Rosenberg, J. 1994. The Empire of Civil Society. A Critique of the Realist Theory of
International Relations. London: Verso.
Ruccio, D. 2003. Globalization and Imperialism. Rethinking Marxism 15 (1): 75-
94.
Thomas, P. 2009. The Gramscian Moment. Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism.
Leiden and Boston: Brill.
Waltz, K. 1979. Theory of International Relations. Boston: McGraw Hill
Wight, M. 1994. International Relations: The three traditions. London: Leicester
University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs
Wood, Ellen Meksins 2003. Empire of Capital. London: Verso.