Global Capitalism, Global War, Global Crisis

Description

This book assesses the forces of social struggle shaping the past and present of the global political economy from the perspective of historical materialism. Based on the philosophy of internal relations, the character of capital is understood in such a way that the ties between the relations of production, state-civil society, and conditions of class struggle can be realised. By conceiving the internal relationship of global capitalism, global war, global crisis as a struggle-driven process, the book provides a novel intervention on debates within theories of 'the international'. Through a set of conceptual reflections, on agency, structure and the role of discourses embedded in the economy, class struggle is established as our point of departure. This involves analysing historical and contemporary themes on the expansion of capitalism through uneven and combined development, the role of the state and geopolitics, and conditions of exploitation and resistance. These conceptual reflections and thematic considerations are then extended in a series of empirical interventions, including a focus on the 'rising powers' of the BRICS, conditions of the 'new imperialism', and the ongoing financial crisis. The book delivers a radically open-ended dialectical consideration of ruptures of resistance within the global political economy.

Andreas Bieler is Professor of Political Economy and Fellow of the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ) in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham. He is the author of Globalisation and Enlargement of the European Union: Austrian and Swedish Social Forces in the Struggle over Membership (2000) and The Struggle for a Social Europe: Trade Unions and EMU in Times of Global Restructuring (2006) as well as co-editor (with Bruno Ciccaglione, Ingemar Lindberg and John Hilary) of Free Trade and Transnational Labour (2015) and (with Chun-Yi Lee) of Chinese Labour in the Global Economy (2017). His personal website is http://andreasbieler.net and he maintains a blog on trade unions and global restructuring at http://andreasbieler.blogspot.co.uk. Adam David Morton is Professor of Political Economy in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney. His research interests are shaped through interdisciplinary concerns across political economy, state theory, development, geographical studies, and historical sociology. He is the author of Unravelling Gramsci: Hegemony and Passive Revolution in the Global Political Economy (2007) and Revolution and State in Modern Mexico: The Political Economy of Uneven Development (2011), which was awarded the 2012 Book Prize of the British International Studies Association (BISA) International Political Economy Group (IPEG). He edits the blog Progress in Political Economy (PPE) that was awarded the 2016 International Studies Association (ISA) Online Media Caucus Award for the Best Blog (Group) and the 2017 International Studies Association (ISA) Online Media Caucus Award for Special Achievement in International Studies Online Media: http://ppesydney.net/.

'A glorious debate on ways of seeing capital and state hegemony as relational and material, from global capitalism in China, to global war in Iraq and the new Bomb-and-Build imperialism, to global crisis in the Eurozone. Andreas Bieler and Adam Morton deliver a rigorous and uncompromising geopolitical text. They also honour the insights of ecological and reproduction feminists on appropriation-accumulation by non-economic means-identifying expanded forms of class struggle emergent today in the grassroots contestation of neoliberalism.' Ariel Salleh, University of Sydney 'Marx's dialectics prioritise the relational and evolving qualities of literally everything over the logically separate and static parts into which most people divide our world. The authors of this book give dialectics the attention it deserves in understanding global capitalism, taking you on a mind-stretching voyage you do not want to miss. Highly recommended.' Bertell Ollman, New York University 'As tensions and confrontations rise, it is incumbent upon us to understand the intrinsic relations of global capitalism, global war, and global crisis. Feminist political economists share with historical materialists the concern for the increasing reach of capitalist exploitation within households, states, at the border and in zones of conflict and post-conflict. A holistic, explanatory account has never been more important and Andreas Bieler and Adam Morton have produced that account for our time. All serious analysts of world order looking for answers about 'how we got here' and 'where we are going' should take heed.' Jacqui True, Monash University, Melbourne 'Andreas Bieler and Adam Morton offer an original, tightly-argued and extraordinarily rich analytical panorama of the emergence and unevenness of global capitalism, the geopolitical conflicts entailed, and its crisis conditions provoking sources of resistance. The ground-breaking approach developed in this book will shape debates in and beyond political economy for years to come.' Alfredo Saad-Filho, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London