1

Comparing nineteenth century imperialism and twenty

first century globalisation: the political economy of ‘North-
South’ relations

If the 1990s was dominated by talk about globalisation, then the 2000s have seen the

return of the concept of imperialism. While there is a growing literature which

attempts to provide some analysis of the relationship between these two concepts1,

and the respective utility of their analyses, there is much less work done on historical

analysis.2 The purpose of this paper is first to provide a critical comparison of

nineteenth century imperialism and late twentieth/early twenty first century

globalisation, and relate these to the question of ‘development’. This is done by

assessing the arguments that there are considerable commonalities between the late

nineteenth century and early twenty first century, first by those advocating the

continued relevance of classical Marxist theories of imperialism, and second by those

on the face of it diametrically opposed to this school of thought, namely those

advocating (neo-liberal) globalization based on the removal of trade, investment and

financial barriers in the world economy. The paper argues that despite significant

differences, both theories share a common fallacious assumption, namely that capital

flows are increasingly moving from developed to less developed capitalist countries.

In showing how this argument is fallacious for both the nineteenth century and the

current period, I then go on to present an alternative understanding of contemporary

imperialism and globalization. Insofar as there are similarities (as well as significant
 2

differences) between the two periods, these are different from those suggested by

either of the two theories. The implications for understanding imperialism in the

current era of globalisation are then drawn from the discussion.

The argument is outlined in three main sections and a conclusion. First, a comparison

of the two eras is made. Second, this comparison is then assessed, and both the neo-

liberal and classical Marxist views are challenged. Third, in showing how these

opposed views actually share some fallacious assumptions concerning ‘development’,

the paper outlines an alternative understanding of contemporary imperialism and

development in the current era of globalisation. Finally, some conclusions are made,

including some tentative assessments concerning nineteenth century (British)

imperialism as well as twentieth and twenty first century globalisation.

1. Comparing nineteenth and twenty first century

imperialism/globalisation.

One prominent argument made by many neo-liberal writers, but also by some

maverick radicals who see globalization as a progressive force, suggests that the late

nineteenth century was one in which greater global integration led to a tendency

towards global convergence between countries. This progressive era of globalization

was interrupted in the years 1914-45, as nation-states went to war and carried out

disastrous policies that restricted integration, above all through international trade.

The post-1945 era opened up new possibilities, although these were limited by

continued protectionist policies such as import substitution industrialization in the

developing world, and communism in the former second world. Since the 1970s and

1980s, and accompanied by appropriate institutional changes in the 1990s, we are

 3

now witnessing a return to the progressive possibilities of the late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries.3

Less concerned with measuring the reality of globalization, this approach takes more

normative approach and suggests that growing economic interconnectedness and

integration are a force for good. It therefore needs to be differentiated from earlier

‘waves’ in the globalization debate, although this approach simultaneously draws on

the insights of these debates. In common with the globalization ‘sceptics’ it suggests

that twenty first century globalization may not be as novel as ‘hyper-globalists’ and

‘transformationalists’ suggest.4 But on the other hand, this approach accepts that

global market forces are increasingly outgrowing the nation state, as hyper-globalizers

contend. Also, like transformationalists, this approach accepts some important

changes in the contemporary world economy, such as the rise of manufacturing in the

South, perhaps most clearly illustrated by the rise of China (see below). But most

crucially, the increased openness associated with globalization is regarded as

desirable, not least for the poorest countries, and it is this contention that clearly

differentiates it from earlier accounts of globalization, where such normative positions

cut across the different contentions made concerning the ‘measurement’ of

globalization. In other words, for these theorists, globalization essentially means

trade, investment and (perhaps) financial liberalization, which said to be good for all

countries, including the poorest ones.

Thus, describing the period from 1870-1913, Lindert and Williamson5 argue that

“globalization probably mitigated the steep rise in income gaps between nations. The

nations that gained most from globalization are those poor ones that changed their
 4

policies to exploit it.” This argument is similar to Anthony Giddens’ assessment of the

positive relationship between globalization and development in the early twenty first

century. He argues that argues that the main problems of underdevelopment “don’t

come from the global economy itself, or from the self-seeking behaviour on the part

of the richer nations. They lie mainly in the societies themselves – in authoritarian

government, corruption, conflict, over-regulation and the low level of emancipation of

women.”6 In fairness to Lindert and Williamson, they qualify their argument

somewhat, and even suggest that the fact that capital tended to flow between rich

countries, rather than from rich to poor countries, acted as an “anti-convergence

force”7, but their general conclusions are upbeat, suggesting that pre-1914

globalization “looks like a force equalizing average incomes between participating

countries.”8 These very general arguments are largely backed up by the specific – and

somewhat more convincing – claim that there was some convergence between wages

and per capita income in Western Europe and the North Atlantic from around 1850 to

1914.9

These arguments have recently been supplemented by attempts to revive the idea of

benevolent, liberal empire, and the idea that US liberalism of the present represents a

natural successor to the British liberalism of the past. Niall Ferguson has argued that

from around 1850, Britain became an empire that championed liberal idea of progress.

He argues that from 1850 to the 1930s “(f)ree trade, free capital movements and free

migration were fostered. Colonial governments balanced their budgets, kept tariffs

low and maintained stable currencies. The rule of law was institutionalized.

Administration was relatively free of corruption, especially at the top. Power was

granted to representative assemblies only gradually once economic and social

 5

development had reached a level judged to be propitious. This policy ‘mix’

encouraged British investors to put a substantial portion of their capital in poor

countries and to demand relatively low-risk premiums in return.”10

Ferguson is certainly not unaware of the failings of liberal empire, but he essentially

argues that it was (and is) a force for good, particularly for the poorest countries. It

represents the best means of promoting political stability through liberal democracy

and economic growth through free markets, albeit under the tutelage of a benevolent

empire. Indeed, under ‘Anglobalization’, capital was more evenly dispersed across the

globe than it is under contemporary globalisation.11 Ferguson’s case for Empire is

echoed by Deepak Lal12, who argues that progressive empires – including nineteenth

century British and twenty-first century American - provide the ‘public goods’ of civil

order, which is hugely beneficial to the world, particularly the poorest, as they benefit

from an increasingly integrated global market. Lal suggests that the liberal

international order first developed under the British Empire “was hugely beneficial

for the world, particularly its poorest. It saw the integration for the first time of many

countries in the Third World into a global economy and the first stirring of modern

intensive growth.”13

The suggestion that (British or American-led) globalization was and is a force for

good also pervades the more specific, but no less upbeat conclusions concerning

poverty reduction in the current era of globalization. The World Bank has argued that

poverty and income inequality have fallen in the last twenty years. In 1980, there were

1.4 billion people living in absolute poverty, and by 1998 this had fallen to 1.2

billion.14 Bank researchers have since revised this figure upward, and suggested that
 6

the number of people living in absolute poverty may have fallen by as much as 400

million.15 Elsewhere, it suggests that the proportion of the world’s population living in

absolute poverty has fallen from 28 per cent to 24 per cent of the world’s

population.16

This (alleged) poverty reduction is said to be caused by countries adopting the best

policies for promoting economic growth. These policies are characterized as being

‘globalization friendly’, in that they promote openness, and thus access to the

opportunities presented by global market forces, as supposedly occurred in the period

1880-1914. Alongside the work of prominent Bank economists such as David Dollar

and Aart Kraay, the 2002 Bank report, Globalization, Growth and Poverty: Building

an Inclusive World Economy,17 attempts to establish a causal relationship between

globalization friendly policies and economic growth and poverty reduction. Based on

a study of 92 countries over four decades, the report differentiates more and less

globalized countries. This is measured by examining trade tariffs from 1985 to 1997

and trade volumes (based on trade/GDP ratios) from 1975-97. The top third of

countries are designated as more globalized, and the bottom two-thirds as less

globalized. The key argument is that the more globalized countries had higher rates of

growth then the less globalized, with the former having annual average growth rates

of 5 per cent and the latter rates of growth of just 1.4 per cent per year. The report

therefore reaches the conclusion that growth is good for the poor, and that market

friendly, pro-globalization policies are good for growth. The clear implication is that,

following Lindert and Williamson’s account of the nineteenth century, developing

countries are poor because they are ‘insufficiently globalized’.18

 7

On the face of it, a diametrically opposed argument comes from the classical Marxist

tradition, and its attempt to theorise the new imperialism of the period from around

1880-1914. These theories linked the rivalry between imperialist powers before 1914

to what they perceived to be a new stage of capitalism. Lenin of course saw

imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism, and Bukharin19 argued that

“(i)mperialist annexation is only a case of the general capitalist tendency towards

centralisation of capital, a case of its centralisation at that maximum scale which

corresponds to the competition of state capitalist trusts.” Central to these theories was

the idea that inter-imperialist rivalries played an important part in colonial annexation

and war. Some Marxists suggest that these rivalries have not disappeared, and that

today intervention by the core powers in states or in wars in the periphery actually

reflect continued inter-imperialist rivalry.20 John Rees21 suggests that such an analysis

remains central to understanding imperialism in the twenty first century, and

concludes his recent book by suggesting that “interstate rivalry is now both more

volatile and is actually resulting in more wars when compared to the relative stasis of

Cold War imperialism.” Chris Harman appears to suggest something similar when he

argues that increased inter-dependence between developed capitalist states provides

some incentive to alleviate conflict, but at the same time such conflict is bound to

occur, and thus these powers “settle their differences in less industrialised parts of the

world. Hence the years since 1945 have been marked by war after war, but away from

Western Europe, North America and Japan. And often the wars have been ‘proxy

wars’ involving local regimes to a greater or lesser extent beholden to, but not

completely dependent on, particular great powers.”22

 8

The focus on inter-imperialist rivalries is usually supplemented by a further

contention, central to the argument of this article, namely that surplus capital must

search for new areas of capital accumulation, and must therefore exercise war in order

to find new ‘spatial fixes’, and this may simultaneously involve the search for new,

essential resources to sustain capital accumulation.23 David Harvey has therefore

attempted to develop a theory of the ‘new imperialism’ based on capital’s search for

new spatial fixes in the context of over-accumulation, and the related the possibility of

“the ever-present danger of military confrontations (of the sort that gave us two world

wars between capitalist powers in the twentieth century) lurking in the background.”24

The war in Iraq is therefore interpreted by Harvey as a project by US neo-

conservatives which was designed to control global oil supplies and in the process

establish leverage over (actual and potential) competitors. It is therefore interpreted

through the lens of accumulation and geo-political rivalries. In Harvey’s words,

“whoever controls the Middle East controls the global oil spigot and whoever controls

the global oil spigot can control the global economy, at least for the near future.”25

Clearly, and despite Harvey’s clear awareness of the specificity of US imperialism

(see below), this is a position that owes a great deal to the classical theories. This is

not dissimilar to the argument made by ‘Retort’, which claims that the post-2001

world is based on the shift in neo-liberalism from “an epoch of ‘agreements’ and

austerity programmes to one of outright war.”26

Earlier, and despite their own data, both Lenin and Bukharin linked nineteenth

century imperialism – including the export of capital to the colonies and semi-

colonies – to the necessity of renewed capital accumulation, suggesting that this

opened up new fields for surplus capital in search of new profits. Bukharin27 was
 9

actually quite explicit that the direction of capital flows would increasingly be from

the developed to the developing capitalist countries. He argued that the location of

capital exports “is, of course, indicated by the difference in the rate of profit (or the

rate of interest): the more developed the country, the lower is the rate of profit, the

greater is the ‘overproduction’ of capital, and consequently the lower is the demand

for capital and the stronger the expulsion process. Conversely, the higher the rate of

profit, the lower the organic composition of capital, the greater is the demand for it

and the stronger is the attraction.”

Some of the more ‘sophisticated’ would-be defenders of the Bukharin-Lenin legacy

have attempted to recognize important changes that have taken place since 1914. For

instance, Callinicos28 has even admitted that he wrongly saw the potential of a return

to older inter-imperialist rivalries, when it is clear that geo-political competition of a

comparable form is unlikely in an era of greater economic integration between

advanced capitalist states and overwhelming military dominance by one state.

Certainly, it is the case that he has moved further away from his earlier position,

which in his own words, effectively endorsed “a simple repetition of earlier historical

patterns without taking into account the effects of the concrete forms taken by

economic and geopolitical competition.”29 But his contention here contrasts with his

other recent assertions that the Bukharin-Lenin approach is the theory that “provides

the best framework for understanding the contemporary American war drive”,

although he simultaneously qualifies this by rejecting the notion that states act in

ways that can simply be read off from economic motives, while recognizing that the

Lenin and Bukharin view tends to collapse the two together.30 Even more confusingly,

after accepting the view that there has been a ‘severing’ of geopolitics and economics
 10

since 1914, Callinicos concludes of the Bush doctrine that it “is based on an accurate

reading of the long term economic and geopolitical threats facing US capitalism, and

involves the decision to exploit 11 September and the US’s current military

supremacy to shift the global balance of economic and political power further to its

advantage.”31 Clearly, within these statements there are substantial qualifications to

the view that simply uses Lenin and Bukharin’s theories to understand contemporary

realities, but equally they also read like someone wanting to hold on to the view that

such theories remain an “indispensable instrument for understanding the

contemporary world.”32

2. Assessing the comparison.

Section one broadly outlined two schools of thought, each of which suggests that

there are important similarities between the 1880-1914 period, and one from the

1980s to the present. The neo-liberal school regards both periods as eras of

globalisation, as measured by enhanced global integration, which in turn is said to

provide the basis for enhanced growth and poverty reduction. On the other hand, the

classical Marxist tradition suggests that the similarities of the two eras are causes for

regret, as both are characterized by inter-imperialist rivalries and resultant wars. Part

of this process of imperialist rivalry is characterised by increases in the export of

capital, including to the developing world. This in turn is linked to Lenin’s idea that

there was a capital surplus in the advanced countries, and in some respects at least

David Harvey’s concept of capital’s ongoing search for spatial fixes. This concept

emphasizes how capital endlessly searches for new locations for expansion in the

context of over-accumulation, which is caused by the limits of the market to sustain

profitable expansion.33
 11

The idea that the inter-imperialist rivalries of the pre-1914 period are simply repeating

themselves – as Rees (above) contends – is highly problematic, as it abstracts from a

number of important changes in the world economy since that time. These include

increased co-operation between developed capitalist countries, and increased

integration between capitalist states which – in the early twenty first century - all have

relatively open policies towards foreign investment. The full implications of these

changes should become apparent as the argument unfolds. My main focus in this

section however, is to look at the nature and direction of capital flows, in order to

challenge central claims made by both neo-liberal accounts of globalization and

classical Marxist accounts of imperialism. Indeed, I will suggest that despite their

enormous differences, both theories share similar fallacious assumptions about capital

flows, which undermine their contentions – and which therefore undermine their

accounts of both imperialism and globalization, both in the 1880-1914 period and in

the current era.

A few observations on classical Marxist theories of imperialism demonstrate the

fallacy. The relationship between a new era of capital export and colonial expansion

were not as great as Lenin implied. The proportion of investment in the Empire

increased from 36 per cent from 1860-70 to 47 per cent by 1901-10 and then slightly

declined to 46 per cent from 1911-13. However, the Dominions and India (existing

colonies) accounted for most of this investment. The proportion of total investment in

Africa (excluding South Africa) stood at only 2.5 per cent in 1913. From 1900-13, the

US accounted for 20 per cent, Latin America around 22 per cent, and Europe 6 per

cent of foreign investment. In terms of British exports, the Empire accounted for 34
 12

per cent from 1881-90, 34 per cent (1901-10) and 36 per cent (1911-13), but again the

Dominions (18 per cent in 1911-13) and India (11.5 per cent in 1911-13) were far

more important than Africa (2 per cent). On the eve of war, Europe (36 per cent),

South America (12 per cent) and the US (9 per cent), were also more important.34

In the case of other imperialist powers, trade between these countries was more

important than trade with the colonies. In 1913, 68 per cent of France’s trade was with

other ‘Northern’ countries, while the figure for Germany was 53 per cent, the US 74

per cent, and other Western European countries 70 per cent. As a whole, in the period

from 1880 to 1938, only 17 per cent of total developed world exports went to the

periphery, and of these, only half went to the colonies.35 In terms of investment,

Lenin36 accepted that most French and German capital was invested in Europe and the

US and not in their colonies, but he wrongly argued that the “principle spheres of

investment of British capital are its colonial possessions.” Moreover, his recognition

of the realities of French and German investment undermined the theoretical claims

Lenin made for over-ripe surplus capital in the metropolitan countries.37 Indeed, most

European foreign investment in the 1880-1914 period hardly fits the clichés of either

surplus capital export or modernising colonialism; rather, investors, often through

financial intermediaries, tended to focus on low risk securities backed by real

property, located mainly in the developed countries, the dominions, and a few richer

Latin America economies.38

These shares took place in the context of growing international trade, which from

1870-1913 grew at an annual average of 3.5 per cent.39 This growth is central to the

neo-liberal case for nineteenth century globalisation, which its advocates claim was

characterised by open trade and high rates of growth. But the evidence for an open
 13

economy in the nineteenth century is unconvincing. In 1913, average tariff rates were

high in all the advanced capitalist countries except Britain, which had a free trade

policy of open access and therefore zero tariff rates. In contrast, average tariffs on

manufactured goods in Austria-Hungary were 18-20 per cent, France 20 per cent,

Germany 13 per cent, Sweden 20-25 per cent, and the United States 44 per cent.40

This is an important point and is central to understanding the nature of imperialism –

both in the late nineteenth century, but perhaps even more crucially, in the current era

of globalization, as I will argue below.

Given these levels of protection, the argument that the pre-1914 period was an early

period of globalization – at least in the ways characterized by neo-liberals - is

seriously mistaken. The implicit notion that states simply exercise a free choice in

their capacity to globalize pervades much of the optimistic analyses of contemporary

globalization. While it is true that there was some convergence among developed

countries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this only occurred

among a few North West European countries and the US, not the world as a whole.

Indeed, this point is accepted by at least one of the most prominent advocates of the

benefits of globalization, John Williamson.41 Moreover, much of this convergence can

be explained by migration from land-scarce Europe to land-abundant North America,

rather than being the product of any simple causal link between openness and factor

price convergence, as assumed by orthodox trade theory, and particularly the

Heckscher-Ohlin interpretation of the theory of comparative advantage.42

Furthermore, in any case, as we have seen, the period from 1880-1913 was hardly one

of increased openness, as Northern Europe and the US protected their economies from

import competition from established producers in Britain.

 14

Similarly, much of the optimism concerning the positive links between contemporary

globalization and development rests on some highly dubious claims made for poverty

reduction. The headline figures for poverty reduction in the current era of

globalization actually refer to different sets of data, which reflect less a real reduction

in poverty rates and more a change in the way that extreme poverty was calculated.

Briefly, the declines in poverty outlined above in part reflect a shift away from

poverty counts made on the basis of international price comparisons in two different

periods – 1985 in the case of the first figure, and 1993 in the case of the second, lower

figure.43 The World Bank’s World Development Report on 1999/2000 was actually far

more pessimistic than the optimistic assertions cited above, as it used the 1985 base

year calculations to argue that absolute poverty had increased from 1.2 billion in 1987

to 1.5 billion in 1999.44 The shift from the 1985 count to the 1993 count had the effect

of lowering the poverty line in 77 out of 92 countries for which data were available,

and these countries contained 82 per cent of the total population of the 92 countries.45

If there has been poverty reduction in recent years, then it can be explained by the

rapid growth of India and especially China. The question then arises over causality,

and in particularly whether these two countries have been more ‘globalization

friendly’ than other developing countries with worse records on economic growth and

poverty reduction. And it is here that the weakness of the neo-liberal case again

becomes clear.

The Bank’s Globalization, Growth and Poverty report measures openness on the basis

of trade/GDP ratios, and how these have changed in the period from 1977 to 1997.
 15

However, such ratios measure the trade outcomes, not trade policy. Indeed, some of

the poorest countries in the world actually have high trade/GDP ratios. Thus, in 1997-

8, the trade/GDP ratio for 39 of the poorest, least developed countries averaged 43 per

cent, around the same as the world average, but their in world exports from 1980 to

1999 declined by 47 per cent.46 In the period from 1999-2001, trade/GDP ratios of the

least developed countries averaged 51 per cent, which was actually higher than that in

the most developed countries.47 If we turn to trade policy, over this same period, least

developed countries actually went further than other developing countries in

dismantling trade barriers.48 Indeed, if nation states are weighted on a one to one

basis, and India and China only count as two countries rather than counting more

according to their higher population, then the growth rate differentials between high

and low globalizers is statistically very small (1.5 per cent a year for the former, 1.5

per cent for the latter).49 Given that liberalization is a policy adopted by each

individual state, there is a strong case that there should indeed be no population

weighting across nation states.

Furthermore, measuring changes in the trade/GDP ratio is an even less useful way of

measuring trade openness. The most globalized countries tend to be ones that initially

had a low trade/GDP ratio in 1977, but whose ratios have increased since that time.

This measurement therefore excludes countries with high but not rising trade/GDP

ratios from the category of more globalized, particularly those very poor countries

dependent on the export of a few primary commodities, and which have had very low

and sometimes negative rates of growth.50 Indeed, a falling trade/GDP ratio may

simply reflect falling prices for economies overly dependent on a small number of
 16

primary commodities, which in turn is exacerbated by the consequent need to cut

imports in the face of ongoing trade deficits.51

An exaggeration of the relationship between high growth and growing openness also

occurs when one critically examines the evidence for China and India, which both

make the list of more globalized countries, even though their trade and investment

policies remain less open than some of the low globalizing countries. This is justified

by the assertion that “as they reformed and integrated with the world market, the

‘more globalized’ developing countries started to grow rapidly, accelerating steadily

from 2.9 per cent in the 1970s to 5 per cent through the 1990.”52 But this claim does

not conform to the reality of growth in China or India, which pre-dated their growing

openness, and indeed in India, there was little change in growth rates once

liberalization were implemented in the 1990s.53 Moreover, despite liberalization, such

as the lifting of some restrictions on foreign capital investment, they remain far from

open economies. Like the first tier East Asian NICs, capital controls remain strong,

subsidies still exist and there are still relatively high tariffs on selected imports.

Average tariff rates in India did decline from 80 per cent at the start of the 1990s to 40

per cent at the end of the decade, while China’s declined from 42.4 per cent to 31.2

per cent in the same period, but the latter figures remain higher than the average for

developing countries.54 Thus, the idea that growth has been caused by neo-liberal

policies should be treated with suspicion, and it is clear that attempts to draw general

conclusions from the policies of China and India is misguided.

Indeed, when we do attempt to generalize, it is clear that the Bank’s own data suggest

that if we measure openness not by trade/GDP ratios or changes in these ratios since
 17

1975, and instead focus on trade and investment policies in 1997, allegedly high

globalizers had higher average tariffs (35 per cent) than low globalizers (20 per

cent).55 The IMF index of trade restrictiveness measures trade policy through

quantifying average tariff rates and non-tariff barriers, and there is no evidence of

greater trade restrictiveness on the part of the poorest countries. We can therefore

conclude, along with UNCTAD56, that, “The policy problem for the LDCs is not the

level of integration with the world economy but rather the form the form of

integration. The current form of integration is not supporting sustained economic

growth and poverty reduction.”

In short the neo-liberal case for globalisation in both the 1880-1914 and the current

period suffers from similar problems: trade outcomes and trade policy is conflated,

and the argument that globalization is simply an opportunity for poor countries turns

out to be just an assumption. This leads to a classic conflation of a correlation – the

poorest countries in the world tend to have lower shares of trade and investment,

measured in terms of values – with a causation – that this is because they have chosen

not to globalize. This critical discussion of neo-liberalism therefore suggests that

‘globalization’ is not simply a choice for states in the developing world, and it is this

observation that provides the basis for a different understanding of imperialism in the

current era of globalization.

A historical comparison with the nineteenth century is useful in this regard, but not in

the ways outlined by either classical Marxism or neo-liberalism. The final section

draws together some of these implications, in order to suggest a more convincing

 18

account of contemporary imperialism that takes seriously some of the arguments

concerning globalization.

3. Re-thinking Globalization, Imperialism and the Centrality

of ‘North-South’ Relations.

It should be clear from the previous two sections that, despite their considerable

differences, both neo-liberal and classical Marxist accounts regard the export of

capital from advanced capitalist societies to the developing world as central to their

argument. For the neo-liberals, this is the principal mechanism for promoting

convergence between countries, while for the classical Marxists it is central to

continued capital accumulation in the context of surplus capital in the developed

world. This article has suggested that both accounts are incorrect, and that capital

continues to flow mainly between the advanced capitalist countries.

Where then does that leave an understanding of imperialism, particularly in the

current era of globalization. The main focus in this paper is how the question of

imperialism relates to the political economy of North-South relations, but first a few

comments are necessary concerning the question of inter-imperialist rivalries. As we

saw in the first section, most Marxists today accept that “the classical theories of

imperialism, whose accounts are now nearly a hundred years old, may be important

reference points but they are not an adequate guide to the contemporary world – and

for some, they were not an adequate guide to the world of their time”57 Where

contemporary Marxists disagree is over the significance of contemporary geo-political

conflicts, and how these relate to the internationalization of capital. As we saw above,

Rees is the strongest advocate of the continued relevance of the Lenin-Bukharin

 19

thesis, while Harvey interprets the Iraq war in a way that certainly owes something to

this thesis. This is not to say that Harvey directly acknowledges classical theories, and

indeed at times his contentions seem to owe more to the writings of Hannah Arendt.

For instance, he approvingly cites her argument that “(a) never ending accumulation

of property must be based on a never ending accumulation of power.”58 Equally, he

draws heavily on Giovanni Arrighi’s notion of cycles of capitalist accumulation

accompanied by the rise and fall of successive hegemonic powers.59

But on the other hand, Harvey quite rightly points to the specificity of US hegemony,

which has relied on sovereign states and (relatively) open borders, which is very

different from earlier hegemonic powers.60 QUOTE HARVEY ON NEOCONS

HERE This brings Harvey closer to the argument made by a number of writers,

including in the 1950s by the conservative Carl Schmitt, that the rise of the United

States, and the extension of its ‘manifest destiny’ beyond the western hemisphere, was

transforming the nature of sovereignty, war and international law.61 The old

European-dominated world was based on a clear diplomatic order, where war was

regarded as an instrument for resolving conflicts between sovereign states with

comparatively similar levels of political and military power. This was the basis for the

rise of realist theories of international relations, based on the idea that rational,

calculating, self-interested states played off against each other in the context of

international anarchy.62 After 1945, this notion of balancing became less relevant in

the capitalist world as the United States emerged as by far the most powerful state,

both economically and militarily.

 20

This approach is associated with the argument that the period from 1941 onwards

represented a new American century. A new hegemonic strategy for the US was

promoted by the editor of Life magazine, Henry Luce, in an article entitled ‘The

American Century’. Alongside concerns about Roosevelt’s New Deal and US

isolationism, Luce argued that there should be US involvement in the war and the

expansion of US ideals beyond its national borders.63 Luce was particularly keen for

western expansion into Pacific Asia, but two years earlier former Roosevelt

administration official Dean Acheson had promoted a far more global sense of

‘Americanization’. In his ‘An American Attitude Towards Foreign Affairs’, Acheson

rejected isolationism and neutrality in the war, and argued that the US must take a

leading role in finding new ways to promote peace, including a commitment to free

trade, a stable international monetary system, and the creation of “a navy and air force

adequate to secure us in both oceans simultaneously and with striking power

sufficient to reach the outer side of each of them.”64

Such views were isolated prior to Pearl Harbour, but the period from 1941-50 saw the

development of the Bretton Woods agreement, the Marshall Plan and Truman

Doctrine, alongside a massive military build up. Acheson himself returned to

government in 1940, and played a prominent role at Bretton Woods and later under

Truman as Secretary of State influenced the George Kennan strategy of containment,

and led the US formation of NATO in 1949. NSC-6865, the National Security Council

document which formulated Cold War strategy, was agreed in 1950, under the Chair

of Paul Nitze, but was clearly influenced by Acheson. In 1939, the US had a military

personnel numbering just 185, 000 and an annual budget of $500 million. A few years

after Pearl Harbour, the numbers in the army stood at 1 million, with an air force and
 21

navy almost as large, a defence budget (at comparable prices) of over $100 billion and

a military presence in 119 countries.66

The doctrine of US hegemony was sold to an isolationist Congress and electorate as

one of containment rather than liberal expansion. One result was that in the context of

the heightening of a Cold War that was visible before 1945, but was relatively muted

in the context of continued inter-imperialist rivalries between capitalist powers67,

realism continued to flourish particularly in the United States.68 Bi-polar conflict

between two mutually incompatible socio-economic orders thus effectively served to

obscure the specificity of US power within the capitalist core.69 In the context of the

post-Cold War world, this became more apparent, especially “when American

strategic planners scotched any talk of returning to the Western hemisphere after their

victory over the last great contender for European hegemony.”70 It was thus only after

1989 that the expansionist nature of US hegemony became completely transparent

(notwithstanding considerable military interventions in the Cold War era), and one

which has been the source of considerable debate since then. What is clear however,

is that the post-1989 order saw the realization of the Acheson dream, based on the

“unfolding of an internationalist telos yielding the liberal hegemony that the

internationalists envisioned.”71 This was not then, a return to the pre-1945 conflicts

that characterized European powers, but neither was it the conflict free world

conjured up by many theorists of globalization.

Much of the debate since 1989 (and 2001) around US foreign policy making circles

has been over how hegemony should be used in a unipolar world. As we have seen,

realists have generally been wrong-footed by continued US engagement with the

 22

international order in this new context, while liberals have welcomed continued

engagement, but argue that the hegemonic order can only be maintained provided that

the US continues to use its power wisely, which amounts to working through

international cooperation and multilateralism. For all the claims to novelty, much of

the academic literature on global governance shares this view.72 Neoconservatives are

also committed to this international engagement in order to promote liberal expansion,

but are far more prepared to use hard, military power and unilateral methods in order

to facilitate this process.73 What is clear however is that all those committed to

continued US primacy in the international order believe that this can only be achieved

through the expansion of liberal democracies and so-called free markets, and they do

not envisage a return to the formal empires of old Europe.74 While some neo-

conservatives are more prepared than others to call this empire,75 and indeed a few on

the fringes even openly advocate some return to formal colonialism,76 this is

exceptional and would still involve ‘free market’ relations between states (or

colonizer and colonized), rather than the protectionist polices that characterized the

European empires apart from Britain.

How then does the specificity of the US state in the international order relate to

Harvey’s account, and to understanding imperialism more generally? In terms of the

classical theories and his conception of the new imperialism, Harvey tends to vacillate

between two positions. The first, paying some allegiance to Lenin and Bukharin,

suggests that despite the changes that have occurred since 1914, geo-political

competition remains significant. This is the position taken by Rees, but also in a

qualified form by Callinicos and Ashman.77 The second position is usefully

summarized (though not necessarily supported) by Brenner, in an admirable article

 23

that identifies what is at stake in these debates. Brenner asks the following question:

“can the use of force among advanced capitalist states be advantageous for any of

them, even the US, given the extraordinary degree to which the processes of

economic internationalisation have rendered capitals inextricably interdependent,

wherever they are located?”78 In other words, in the context of greater global

integration that has resulted from the internationalization or even the

transnationalization of capital, how effective is the use of force in promoting the

interests of any single state? In explicitly referring back to another classic, Brenner

calls this the Kautskyan view, which suggests that co-operation between the advanced

capitalist states is now greater than (geo-political) competition between them.79

Today, this is associated with those who argue that geo-political competition has been

eroded by globalization, or at least takes new, and less significant, forms which render

the Leninist view redundant.80

This debate cannot be settled in the abstract. More important is how the conflicting

sides bring their analysis to bear on current international relations. It should be clear

what is at stake in the debate: the ‘Leninists’ interpret any sign of disagreement

between the major powers as evidence of heightened conflict, while the ‘Kautskyites’

argue (to my mind, far more convincingly) that these conflicts exist alongside

continued co-operation. What needs to be addressed is the question of the significance

of geo-political conflict in the context of an international capitalist order that is very

different from the period from 1880-1914. Brenner again cuts to the chase, suggesting

a potentially very different scenario from that envisaged by contemporary

‘Kautskyites’. For Brenner, even if economic internationalization has undermined the

utility of military power, “in view of the abiding and still very major conflicts of
 24

interests among national capitals – and given how easily the mechanisms enforcing

the dependence of the state on capital can malfunction – should we not expect

attempts by powerful states, above all the US, to tip economic advantage in their own

favour through the application of force short of war or through ‘limited war’.”81

We thus arrive back at Harvey’s argument that the war in Iraq represents an attempt,

in part at least, to discipline (potential) competitors such as China through controlling

Iraqi (and wider) oil supplies. This argument has some merit – US neo-conservatives,

in their ongoing search for a post-Cold War ‘politics with enemies’, have clearly

identified China, alongside various enemies in the Middle East, as a strategic

competitor to the US.82 But equally, we are entitled to address the utility of this

strategy in the context of greater global integration in the current period. In the 1880-

1914 period, attempts to secure supplies of specific raw materials were closely linked

to territorial acquisition and relatively closed economic links between colonizer and

colonized. As Brenner83 himself suggests, it is hard to see how such a strategy can

work in the context of state sovereignty and open borders today. For as Bromley

points out, “the form of control that the United States is now seeking to fashion is one

that is open to the capital, commodities and trade of many states and firms. It cannot

be seen as an economically exclusive strategy, as part of a predatory form of

hegemony. Rather, the United States is seeking to use its military power to fashion a

geopolitical order that provides the political underpinning for its preferred model of

the world economy: that is, an increasingly open liberal international order.”84 In

other words, even if the US gained exclusive access to and control over Iraqi oil, this

is not sufficient for them to exercise significant leverage over China, either

economically or geo-politically. In this respect, even if oil was a motive for the war in
 25

Iraq, it was one that was unlikely to have the desired effects, irrespective of

opposition to the US-led occupation in Iraq. The ‘Leninist’ response that this view

ignores the strains and tensions that characterize US hegemony, and the likely

response by state managers85 is, in terms of assessing the rationality of the invasion,

either an evasion of the issue or simply irrelevant. While this view at least pays lip

service to the notion that the invasion was unlikely to work in either economic or geo-

political terms, and is a welcome contrast to Callinicos’ earlier assertions concerning

the economic and geo-political rationality that the Bush doctrine was said to

represent,86 it still begs the question of the likely effectiveness of such a strategy. One

is left with the suspicion that this view is espousing a position whereby a particular

event (the invasion of Iraq) is simply read off as a functional necessity of a general

phenomenon (imperialism).

What I am suggesting then is closer to the ‘Kautskyan’ view: namely that the

relationship between military and economic imperialism is far more complex than the

‘Leninist’ view suggests. And here we arrive back at the centrality of North-South

relations in understanding contemporary forms of imperialism. For imperialism in the

twenty first century can be understood – in part at least - as imperialist powers

depriving developing countries of the means by which they may promote sustained

capitalist development. In the late nineteenth century, North-West Europe and the

United States developed in part through protectionist policies designed to develop

domestic industries in the face of British dominance.87 Such policies were not allowed

in the colonies, which (except in the British Empire) could only trade with their

colonial masters and were not allowed to develop industries that could compete with

the ‘mother country’. From 1860-1913, the share of developing countries in total
 26

global manufacturing output fell from 36.6 per cent to just 7.5 per cent.88 In terms of

relations between Britain and the new developed countries, these developments reflect

the fact that unlike post-1945 US hegemony, British primacy was only briefly

hegemonic among European powers.89 Indeed, although there are clear problems with

the resilience of US hegemony today, not least under the failed unilateralism of the

Bush II administration, it has historically been far more successful than British

hegemony.

This leaves us with a theory of imperialism based on US leadership of the capitalist

world, in a context of sovereign states and a far less intense geo-political conflict

between the advanced capitalist powers than has historically been the case. If we

return to Schmitt’s observations (above) concerning the specificity of the US state in

the international order, a number of political positions may follow. These include

those that see US hegemony as largely benign, such as liberal internationalists or even

contemporary cosmopolitans who do not necessarily support the unilateral turn of the

Bush II administration.90 It also of course includes neo-conservatives who have had

some influence on the Bush administration, and who regard manifest destiny as

sufficient grounds for the US to behave in an unaccountable way in the international

order, which is seen as part of a cultural project designed to defeat enemies both at

home and abroad and revive republican virtue through the universal but exceptional

US state, in contrast to the old European order.91

More critical accounts, like the one proposed here, accept the specificity of the US

state among capitalist states as advocated by both the liberal internationalist and the

neo-conservative positions. However, in contrast to these ‘diffusionist’ accounts

 27

which regard liberal democratic expansion as ‘developmental’, my argument is that

the nature of this expansion involves an intensification rather than alleviation of

uneven development. The current US-led liberal order is indeed imperialist, but rather

than seeing geo-political conflict as central as the classical theories do, my argument

is that North-South relations are now of far greater significance. Central to this

argument is an understanding of how this neo-liberal order differs from the

international order from 1880-1914 or even up to 1945, and in particular how the

development strategies of developed countries in the earlier period differ from the

strategies of developing countries today. Put more clearly, one could argue that the

liberal imperialism of today is less about sins of commission, and more about sins of

omission – that is, depriving developing countries of the right to develop protectionist

industrial policies and thereby generate dynamic comparative advantage.

This argument does however need some qualifications. First, there remain some

mechanisms which still give some room for protectionism, particularly for the poorest

developing countries. These apply for example to some exemptions allowed through

the WTO, and through European Union agreements with the poorest developing

countries.92 Nevertheless, the direction of change is certainly towards, rather than

away from, free trade and liberal foreign investment.93 Second, it is a mistake to

regard this as simply imposition by the developed over developing countries, or the

US over other developed countries. Hegemony may well be achieved by the active

support of dominant economic and political actors in the developing world and in

Europe, who want access to international circuits of capital, even if these are not then

deployed in a ‘developmental’ way. This may include access to foreign savings which

are used to finance luxury consumption, access to western-centred financial capital

 28

which may be used for purposes of speculation or unproductive investment, or in

cases of more productive investment, joint ventures or subcontracting agreements

with foreign companies which involve some forms of payments to the latter. Put

crudely, there may well be considerable domestic sources of support for neo-liberal

policies, at least among dominant actors, and in this respect at least, the search for a

return a capitalist developmental alternative appears to be out of date.94

But perhaps most important, the rigid division of sins of omission from sins of

commission under-estimates the ways in which states have to be restructured, above

all in developing countries, to conform to neo-liberal policies. This may be done

primarily through these domestic actors who support neo-liberalism, but this is also

accompanied by external sources, and particularly international institutions like the

World Bank and International Monetary Fund. While 1980s structural adjustment

naively believed that restructuring simply occurred through ‘freeing the market’ from

state regulation, the shift to the post-Washington consensus in the 1990s reflected a

belated recognition that ‘freeing the market’ rested on wider process of reform, and

particularly the development of enabling institutions to ensure successful neo-liberal

reform.95 While such reform is often couched in the language of participation and

empowerment, it remains clear that institutional change is still a means to the end of

neo-liberal, or ‘pro-globalization’ policies. The shift towards ‘pro-poor’ policies after

the publication of the 1990 World Development Report led to renewed attention being

paid to increasing agricultural opportunities, alongside training to promote labour

skills, and social safety nets.96 All these factors would supplement the market. The

state would also be reformed and good governance would be based on respect for the

rule of law, transparency and accountability in decision making, and good human
 29

rights practices, which in effect often meant the encouragement of liberal democracy,

particularly through bilateral aid conditions.97 The market would also be

supplemented by civil society, which was re-defined as a space that allows for the

development of entrepreneurial initiative, thereby promoting the social capital

necessary for the promotion of development.98 However, this turn away from neo-

liberalism was largely cosmetic, reflecting a new technocratic fix whereby the correct

balance was to be achieved between the state, private sector and civil society, in a

context in which neo-liberal policies were effectively taken for granted. This

culminated in the 1999 Comprehensive Development Framework, which drew on

older themes in development economics, but did so in an eclectic and largely

inconsistent way.99 The older 1980s agenda of macroeconomic stability, liberalization

and privatization remained in place, but were now enhanced by a whole new set of

policy instruments, which represented a more ‘holistic’ approach based on social

transformation.100 However, in practice, these policies were a means to an end, and

were still ultimately designed to ensure that the neo-liberal policies of the 1980s could

be implemented more effectively.101 Indeed, for all the talk of participation,

empowerment and partnership, in many respects the post-Washington Consensus

entailed a more interventionist stance than its 1980s predecessor, as supposedly

temporary stabilisation and adjustment measures are replaced by attempts to embed

neo-liberalism within the institutions of ‘governance states’. As Graham Harrison

suggests, “post-conditionality politics does not mean an end to donor intervention;

rather, it (means)…that intervention is not exercised solely through conditionality and

adjustment, but to a significant degree through a closer involvement in state

institutions and the employment of incentive finance.”102 Most crucially however, the

technical fix promoted by the post-Washington consensus may have envisaged social
 30

transformation and the shift to a more ‘developed’ capitalism, but like the Washington

consensus before it, the post-Washington consensus precluded the return of the kind

of developmental state that existed in nineteenth century Europe and the US, and

indeed in the developing world, particularly East Asia, in the 1960s and 1970s. The

post-Washington consensus therefore promoted market friendly intervention, and not

interventions that more explicitly governed the market through developmental

states.103 Indeed, alongside his World Bank colleague Ravi Kanbur, Joseph Stiglitz is

often cited as the most influential figure in the promotion of this post-Washington

consensus, but their subsequent (forced) resignations and increasingly strong

criticisms of the IMF and the Bank, reflect the limitations of the break from neo-

liberalism.

This restructuring is also clear in the most extreme form of neo-liberal intervention,

namely military intervention against so-called rogue or failed states.104 Such

interventions are less about the accumulation needs of exporting capital105, or even

access to strategic raw materials, and more about (highly selective) attempts to

incorporate some states – the ‘non-integrating gap’106 - into the liberal core. The Bush

doctrine relies more heavily than its post-Cold War predecessors in using unilateral

methods and military force to promote such integration, effectively making the right

of sovereignty conditional on observing certain responsibilities to the international

community, from which the hegemonic state was itself exempt.107 The war in Iraq is

thus less about oil or disciplining strategic competitors, and more one that attempted

to integrate a particularly stubborn rogue state into a US-led, neo-liberal, international

order.108 Like other military interventions it was and remains unlikely to work

because it promotes nationalist resistance, and in proposing simplistic, quick fix

 31

solutions based on the imposition of liberal democracy as a technocratic model, they

ignore the conflict-ridden historical development of liberal, not least in the developed

countries.109 Contemporary post-conflict scenarios which suggest that all that is

needed is a minimal state, based on liberal democracy and good governance, and

ultimately promoting development through the leadership of ‘free markets’ is a

fantasy that bears no reality to development, either in the developed world or in the

developing world today.110

But equally, and of more relevance to the concerns of this article, the international

context also militates against incorporation into the liberal core. This is because ‘the

non-integrating gap’ is in part a product of marginalization. Rather than the gap being

‘insufficiently globalized’, their marginalization is actually a product of the specific

forms taken by globalization, and particularly neo-liberal policies which erode the

prospects for sustained capitalist development in the periphery and reinforce global

hierarchies based on capital concentration.111 While this marginalization cannot be

reduced to neo-liberal globalization, as there are also significant ‘domestic’ reasons

which exacerbate the problem (though these must be examined sociologically and not

simply as a failure of bad policies, and they also may in part reflect ways in which

domestic politics have been internationalized), neither can this wider context be

ignored, or regarded as simply benign. Those advocates who regard globalization as

the basis for development, like Giddens, are simply repeating the old mantras of

modernization theory, albeit with a neo-liberal twist.112 This marginalization thus

ultimately reflects the fact that there is a significant degree of capital concentration in

the international order – in contrast to liberal views and radical views that focus on

the export of surplus capital. In terms of military and economic imperialism, this
 32

points to the contradictory rather than complementary relationship between the two:

military intervention is designed to integrate in a context where neo-liberal economic

imperialism effectively marginalizes.113

There is one possible strong objection to the argument made in this section. This is the

fact that in recent years, the developing world has undergone a substantial process of

industrialization, unlike the de-industrialization experienced by the colonies in the late

nineteenth century. It could be argued that the first tier newly industrializing

countries, particularly in East Asia, developed their successful processes via a strategy

that combined export promotion with import substitution, led by a developmental

state that governed the market.114 But it is also the case that in the current period of

(neo-liberal) globalization, an increasing proportion of the value of exports from

developing countries comes from manufacturing. In 1970, 18.5 per cent of the total

exports from the developing world were manufactured goods; by 1994, this had risen

to 66.1 per cent.115 With the phenomenal rise of China since the early 1990s, this

figure had increased to over 80 per cent by the end of the 1990s.116 One possible

implication of this development is that the globalization of production alone is

sufficient to aid the industrial development of the developing world, in contrast to

older strategies of import-substitution industrialization that neo-liberals at least deem

to have failed.

However, as we saw above there are good grounds for questioning the idea that China

has adopted neo-liberal policies, even if it has undergone some process of economic

liberalization. But there is a broader, and more important argument, which focuses on

the form of industrialization that is taking place in much of the developing world. For
 33

it is clear that, apart from the older industrializers in the developing world,

industrialization since the 1970s and 1980s has been overwhelmingly concentrated in

lower value production characterized by low barriers to entry, intense competition and

diminishing returns. It is in these sectors – clothing, textiles, toys, and so on - that

developing countries have a cost advantage, particularly in low wages. But precisely

because they are characterized by low barriers to entry, they do not provide the basis

for upgrading to sectors with higher barriers to entry, where rents can be accrued to

the most dynamic producers.117 Indeed, since 1990, the growth of China’s exports in

absolute amounts has exceeded that of the rest of the top 10 leading manufacturing

exporters from the developing world, and since 2000, the latter nine countries

combined export share has fallen whilst China’s has risen.118 This reflects the fact that

competition in low value sectors is particularly intense and not necessarily a

springboard to further development. This is not lost on the Chinese Communist Party,

which combines a policy designed to draw on foreign investment while at the same

time trying to continue the promotion of industrial policy – ISI - in order to upgrade

into higher value activity.119 This begs the question of whether this can be compatible

with WTO membership in the long run (see further below).

The economic and geo-political significance of China’s rise is examined further

below. What needs further analysis here is the more general significance of the

industrialization of the former third world. As we have seen, the globalization of

production is often linked to liberalization policies since the early 1980s, which are

said to have rendered ISI policies redundant. Following earlier neo-liberal work which

attacked state-guided development in the third world,120 a number of writers have

suggested that export promotion of manufacturing has been a resounding success, and
 34

this is often linked to the case made for poverty reduction discussed above.121

Following an argument consistently made, albeit with some qualifications, by the

World Bank since at least 1987, the argument is that trade and investment (and

perhaps capital account) liberalization allow developing countries to exercise their

comparative advantage and attract foreign investment and savings.122 As we have

seen, this is the position also taken by Dollar and Kraay and the World Bank’s 2002

report, Globalization, Growth and Poverty. Given that we have already rejected those

claims above, the question that needs to be addressed here is how the critique already

made deals with the undoubted rise of manufacturing in developing countries. The

first point is that this varies across developing countries, and following the OECD123,

we can divide exporters into at least 5 categories of goods exported: primary

commodities, labour intensive and resource-based industries, and products of low to

medium, medium to high, and high levels of skill, technology and scale requirements.

On the face of it there is good news: developing countries’ exports in the high level

category increased from 11.6 per cent in 1980 to 31 per cent by 1998 of total

developing country exports, and their share in this sector in total world exports

increased from 20.2 per cent to 30.2 per cent over the same period.124

However, if we further breakdown these categories, then a rather different picture

emerges. Based on a detailed study of 46 developing countries at different stages of

industrial development, Shafaeddin125 suggests that around 40 per cent (20/46) of

these countries have experienced rapid export expansion, and 11 of these countries

have had high output growth. Of these 20 success stories, two had moderate output

growth and seven had low output growth. The next twenty countries had moderate

export growth and the bottom six had low levels of export growth. 50 per cent of the
 35

sample actually experienced a level of deindustrialization, which could not be

attributed to industrial maturity and diversification into services, but rather ‘forced

diversification’, based on the decline of some industries. Where new industries had

emerged, these was often in resource-based or labour intensive sectors, and where on

paper, developing countries did see a considerable increase in participation in medium

to high skill/technology/scale sectors, this was actually misleading as “for the most

part developing countries’ involvement in skill and technology intensive products is

confined to the labour intensive parts, frequently just assembly, of vertically

integrated production systems,” with the result that “while developing countries are

becoming increasingly similar to major industrial countries in the structure of their

exports, this is not the case for the structure of their manufacturing value-added.”126

By the end of the 1990s, the fifteen fastest growing exports from developed countries

were all in the top 20 of most dynamic global exports, while only eight of the top

twenty exports from developing countries were in the top 20 list of most dynamic

global exports – and in most of these cases (with the partial exception of east Asia),

these were concentrated in the labour intensive, assembly stages of production.127

Perhaps most tellingly, since the reform period started in the 1980s, while the

developed countries’ share of manufacturing exports fell (from 82.3 per cent in 1980

to 70.9 per cent by 1997), its share of manufacturing value added actually increased

over the same period, from 64.5 per cent to 73.3 per cent. Over the same period, Latin

America’s share of world manufacturing exports increased from 1.5 per cent to 3.5

per cent, but its share of manufacturing value added fell from 7.1 per cent to 6.7 per

cent.128 For developing countries as a whole, manufacturing output’s contribution to

GDP has barely changed since 1960: it stood at 21.5 per cent in 1960, and increased

to just 22.7 per cent in 2000. There was significant regional variation: sub-Saharan
 36

Africa saw a decline from 15.3 per cent to 14.9 per cent; West Asia and North Africa

increased from 10.9 per cent to 14.2 per cent; Latin America saw a decline from 28.1

per cent to 17.8 per cent (with the southern cone decline being 32.2 per cent to 17.3

per cent); South Asia’s increased from 13.8 per cent to 15.7 per cent; East Asia

(excluding China) increased from 14.6 per cent to 27 per cent; and China’s increased

from 23.7 to 34.5 per cent.129 By the end of the 1990s, developing countries as a

whole accounted for only 10 per cent of total world exports of goods with a high

Research and Development, technological complexity and/or scale component.130 In

many cases, participation in global production networks is negatively correlated with

manufacturing value added, while some countries with substantial rates of

manufacturing production but low rates of participation in global production networks

have higher rates of manufacturing value added.131

This analysis suggests that the Prebsich-Singer thesis132, which argued that there was

a tendency for the terms of trade to decline for primary producers against

manufacturing exporters, needs updating. The basic contention of this thesis was that

primary goods exporters tended to suffer because of the low income elasticity of

demand for their products, which essentially means that as average incomes increase,

so consumers spend a decreasing proportion of their income on primary products.

This argument was reinforced by the fact that there was intense competition between

primary producers, where barriers to entry into the marketplace were low, and by the

fact that industrialized countries had relatively fuller employment and higher wages,

as against low wages and ‘unlimited supplies of labour’ in the developing countries.

With the rise of manufacturing exports from the developing world, this argument

could be regarded as out of date, but in fact it can be fruitfully used to look at the
 37

terms of trade between different types of manufacturing exports.133 Based on a study

of trade in manufacturing goods from 1970 to 1987, Sarkar and Singer have claimed

the price of manufacturing exports from developing countries fell by an average of 1

per cent a year.134 This has been challenged on methodological grounds, and

particularly the use of the category of non-ferrous metals when examining price

movements135, but a further study has suggested that the price of this category made

no difference to the overall movement of manufacturing prices.136 Other studies have

supported the claim that the price of simple manufacturing exports from developing

countries have tended to fall against more complex manufacturing and services from

developed countries.137 One study of Chinese exports suggests that the net barter

terms of trade fell by 10 per cent against developed countries from 1993-2000, but

improved as against other developing countries.138 The reason for these movements

can easily be linked to the globalization of production. Essentially, developed

countries still tend to dominate in high value sectors, based on high barriers to entry,

high start up and running costs, and significant skill levels. In the developing world,

where there are large amounts of surplus labour, barriers to entry, skills and wages are

low. While this gives such countries considerable competitive advantages, at the same

time the fact that barriers to entry are low means that competition is particularly

intense and largely determined by costs price, which also means low wages. Thus, the

clothing industry, where developing countries have achieved considerable increases in

world export shares in recent years, has a very low degree of market concentration. In

contrast, sectors like machinery (such as non-electric engines, motors, steam engines)

and transport equipment (aircraft, ships, boats, motor cars and motor bikes) have very

high degrees of market concentration, and are mainly located in the developed

world.139 The neo-liberal argument is that production in these labour intensive sectors
 38

is only a starting point, allowing countries to upgrade as more developed countries

shift to higher value production. This flying geese model is thus seen as a useful

starting point for developing countries.140 However, it assumes that upgrading is a

more or less inevitable process, and one that can be driven by the ‘natural’ workings

of the market. But as we have seen, upgrading has occurred by states deliberately

protecting themselves from import competition from established producers, via a

process of import substitution industrialization. In the context of a tendency towards

free trade, upgrading is far from inevitable and indeed, faced with competition from

established overseas producers, is unlikely to occur. Furthermore, developing country

exporters still face considerable protectionism from developed countries. While there

has been considerable liberalization, for instance in the textiles and clothing sectors,

through the WTO, this has not eliminated practices such as the implementation of

non-tariff restrictions, including subsidies and various products standards, some of

which relate to safety issues, but some of which are open to abuse. Moreover, tariff

barriers in some products remain in place and it is likely that “the products of export

interest to developing countries face the highest barriers in developed country

markets.”141

At the same time, import intensity has grown, further encouraged by the high import

content of global production networks, a shift to high income luxury goods as

liberalization has intensified inequality, and cheap imports fuelled by (short-lived)

consumer booms on the back of financial flows entering a country encouraged by

high interest and exchange rates.142 At the same time as encouraging imports, these

inflows do little to stimulate investment in the context of high interest rates, and so

they eventually lead to deteriorating trade deficits, loss of confidence in local

 39

currencies and a flight of capital out of the country. In this sense then, the supposedly

failed import substitution policies of the 1950s and 1960s have been replaced by

policies of ‘production substitution’, based on new, short-lived neo-liberal ‘models’,

rapidly replaced by financial crashes that are blamed on insufficient liberalization,

when it is these very policies that contribute and exacerbate financial crises.

Moreover, apart from East Asia, though foreign investment levels had increased, this

had often reflected a shift in ownership from the state to private sector, rather than

genuinely new, greenfield investment. Indeed, investment/GDP ratios were lower

across the board since the reform process started in the early 1980s. Thus,

investment/GDP ratios for sub-Saharan Africa fell from a peak of around 23 per cent

in the early 1980s, down to around 15 per cent in 1985. By 2000, the figure stood at

around 17 per cent. For the big Latin America five (Argentina, Brazil, Chile,

Colombia and Mexico), the investment/GDP ratio of peak of close to 25 per cent in

1981 fell to 16 per cent by 1984. By 1989, just before the FDI boom, it stood at 19 per

cent, and by 2000, it had only increased to 20 per cent.143

For these reasons then, while the globalization of production does represent an

important shift from the international division of labour of the era of classical

imperialism, what has actually emerged is an international division of labour in which

older hierarchies have developed new forms, alongside the development of new

inequalities, which have led to new contradictions and new forms of uneven

development. Thus, while the globalization of production has led to important

changes in the international division of labour, these have not led to anything like

global convergence, or ended uneven, and unequal, development. The implications

 40

that follow are therefore different from Akamatsu’s flying geese model (see above),

or Raymond Vernon’s product cycle model144, which both tend to imply that some

form of convergence will eventually occur through industrialization, as early

industrializers dispense with earlier forms of industrialization, thus allowing later

developers to follow. It also differs from new trade theory, which suggests that the

developed countries should specialize in highly skilled production, and draw on the

state to promote skill and technology upgrading, while developing countries initially

specialize in labour intensive production, which will eventually facilitate a process of

industrial upgrading.145 Such a theory lies at the heart of social democracy’s current

accommodation to neo-liberalism, and particularly the strategy of progressive

competitiveness, which supposedly encourages win-win situations through free trade

and the exercise of comparative advantage.146 But the argument presented here

suggests something else altogether. Even if we leave aside the limited development of

skilled jobs in the developed countries, the fact is that an international division of

labour of this kind is not one that is as mutually beneficial as this scenario suggests.

The outcome may not be zero-sum, but it is highly unequal. Drawing on

Schumpeter’s theory of innovation, Arrighi et al. suggest that early innovators have

‘locked in’ advantages over later developers, and so they tend to accrue a

disproportionate amount of the benefits, for “it is the residents of the countries where

the innovation process starts who have the best chances to win (Schumpeter’s)

‘spectacular prizes’, that is, profits that are ‘much greater than would have been

necessary to call forth the particular effort’. The process tends to begin in the

wealthier countries because high incomes create a favorable environment for product

innovations; high costs create a favorable environment for innovations in techniques;

and cheap and abundant credit creates a favorable environment for financing these
 41

and all other kinds of innovations. Moreover, as innovators in wealthy countries reap

abnormally high rewards relative to effort, over time the environment for innovations

in these countries improves further, thereby generating a self-reinforcing virtuous

circle’ of high incomes and innovations.”147 In other words, we can re-interpret the

claims of the flying geese model, product cycle theory, and new trade theory, on the

grounds that convergence does not occur because the innovating country not only

‘refuses’ to stand still, but instead continues to innovate, but also because the earlier

process of innovation makes further innovation more likely in these locations. Once

the innovations are diffused, that is, “by the time the ‘new’ products and techniques

are adopted by the poorer countries”, such products “tend to be subject to intense

competition and no longer bring the high returns they did in the wealthier

countries.”148

Of course, this emphasis on uneven development and imperialist relations is in

marked contrast to those liberal internationalists, like Ikenberry,149 who regard US

hegemony as benevolent, so long as it is prepared to work through international

institutions and multilateral systems of governance. One possible implication is the

realist (or ‘Leninist’ - see above) scenario, which suggests that states are likely to

balance against US hegemony as it does not provide the public goods – in this case

development – that is often claimed for it.150 In this case, we are likely to see the

revival of the developmental state and import-substitution industrialization, alongside

regional strategies that challenge US hegemony. Recent events in Latin America show

some tendencies in this direction, but given the nature of the states involved, this

hardly constitutes an intensification of geo-political rivalries between developed

capitalist powers, but rather a left populist resistance to global neo-liberalism.

 42

This argument concerning intensified geo-political conflict is also made from a

Marxist perspective by Callinicos, who suggests that growing interdependence is not

sufficient to eradicate geo-political conflicts. Citing James’ study of an earlier period

of globalization (1880-1939), he suggests that the interdependence between advanced

states in that period was not sufficient to prevent heightened geo-political conflict and

ultimately war.151 Harman makes a similar point when he states that “(t)he capitalist

economy was highly internationalized in 1914, but this did not prevent all-out war.

Again, in 1941, the presence of Ford factories and Coca-Cola outlets in Germany did

not stop a US declaration of war after Pearl Harbour.”152

The clear implication is that just as earlier periods of globalization did not end geo-

political conflict, so contemporary globalization is unlikely to have the same results.

This is an important question, though of course it has already been argued that

interdependence per se does not mean the end of geopolitical conflict. But the use of

James’ book, which is in part a polemic against the contemporary ‘anti-globalization’

movement, is an odd choice for a Marxist. More important, James’ empirical

arguments concerning global integration are unconvincing. His basic argument is that

the era of openness from the 1860s to 1914 was eroded by the failure of institutions to

tackle the problems of globalism, so that they can no longer organize effectively, and

so they become “the major channels through which the resentments against

globalization work their destruction.”153 Interestingly, James draws on arguments

previously made by globalization sceptics in order to show that the current era of

globalization is not unprecedented. James accepts this argument, but rather than draw

the conclusion by sceptical accounts that national economic policy remains relevant,
 43

he instead suggests that both the nineteenth and twenty first centuries are

characterized by high levels of global integration. Thus, while Hirst and Thompson

suggest that trade/GDP ratios in the late twentieth century were not unprecedented in

order to show that national economic management remains a possibility, James uses

similar data to suggest that both eras had high levels of global integration, which were

eroded by a backlash against institutions that had the task of managing

globalization.154 However, in terms of characterizing the qualitative nature of global

inter-dependence this argument is unconvincing. As we have already seen, trade/GDP

ratios are useful in terms of measuring trade outcomes, but do not constitute useful

measures of trade policy. The period from 1880-1914 was characterized by increasing

rates of tariff protection in many of the colonizing countries, which were introduced

in order to promote national industrial development and catch up with Britain. James’

argument that “(t)rade was largely unhindered, even in apparently protectionist states

such as the German empire”155 is thus unconvincing. Indeed, the argument in James’

book is closely associated with those liberal writers outlined and discussed in the first

two sections, who argued that the period up to 1914 was one of free trade and open

competition, only to be eroded by the protectionist policies of the inter-war years. As

Bairoch has shown, even in those years there were some tendencies toward greater

openness prior to the 1929 crash.156 Moreover, measuring trade/GDP ratios across the

two eras is strictly limited as it does not tell us what kinds of goods are being traded,

and how this reflects significant changes in the globalization of production. In this

respect what is significant are not changing or constant trade/GDP ratios, but

increasing ratios between trade and value added goods, as “the disintegration of

production itself leads to more trade, as intermediate inputs cross borders several
 44

times during the manufacturing process.”157 There is a clear upward bias in the ratios

of merchandise trade to merchandise value added158:

Country 1913 1990

France 23.3% 53.5%
Germany 29.2% 57.8%
Japan 23.9% 18.9%
UK 76.3% 62.8%
US 13.2% 35.8%

The UK and Japan are outliers from a clear tendency towards increased trade/value

added ratios, the former reflecting its unusually high trade ratios, the latter an

unusually low ratio. But what is clear is an upward tendency that reflects the rise of

global networks of production, as discussed above. In fairness to Callinicos and

others, they are fully aware of the rise of such networks.159 The key question relates to

the geo-political implications of the rise of such networks. Clearly these are novel

compared to the 1880-1914 (or 1939) period, and so the qualitative nature of inter-

dependence has changed. This has led some to neo-liberal writers to claim that it is

not only an increase in international trade as envisaged by Richard Cobden, but also

the global interdependence that has arisen from the fragmentation of production,

which has laid the basis for a new era of liberal democratic peace.160 For many writers

who suggest that geo-political conflict is still of great relevance, this is politically

unacceptable as it means acceptance of Kautsky’s theory of ultra-imperialism, which

is dismissed as being just another version of the liberal democratic peace thesis, albeit

with a Marxist gloss.161 The liberal democratic peace thesis is itself full of problems,

not least its tendency to present a linear account of transition from a zone of (non-

liberal) war to that of liberal democratic peace. Instead of discretely separating zones

in this way, we need to focus on the international system as a whole, which “compels

recognition of the mutually constitutive relations between so-called zones of war and
 45

zones of peace.”162 This does not mean that the so-called zone of war is simply a

function of, or can be read off from, the zone of peace (as the Rees quote on inter-

imperialist rivalries above does), but it does mean that we need to recognize

interaction in these zones far more seriously than the democratic peace thesis allows.

But perhaps more important, we need to dispense with conceptualizations of war or

peace at such a general level of determination, a fault equally associated with those

that emphasize the inevitability of inter-imperialist war or indeed inevitable

democratic peace. Once we dispense with such over-generalizations, then we are in a

far better position to analyze the contemporary nature of international politics, and

identify sources of tension and of cooperation in that order. What is crucial though, is

not to assume that sources of tension in themselves represent a challenge to US

hegemony and neo-liberalism in the international order. One should indeed expect

considerable conflict in a world order of multiple nation-states, but one need not

assume that these are sufficient to constitute a credible challenge to the overall

structures of international power.163

In terms of focusing on contemporary geo-political tensions, the rise of China is of

some considerable significance. As we have seen, contemporary US neo-

conservatives are concerned with the rise of China and were dismayed by Clinton’s

policy of treating it as a strategic partner rather than competitor. There have also been

considerable sources of tension, ironically perhaps greater in the Clinton years than in

the period since 2001. These include closer US ties to Taiwan from 1995, including a

US show of force in the Taiwan Strait area, the Asian financial meltdown of 1997 and

particularly the IMF’s management of this crisis, the NATO intervention over Kosovo

and especially the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Serbia in 1999, and in the Bush
 46

II era, the notorious US spy plane incident over Hainan. Also in the Bush II era, China

has opposed the war in Iraq and joined the G-20 at the WTO, but in both cases it has

been more of a silent partner, rather than an active player.164 The US continues to

maintain a huge naval presence in the Pacific, and especially close to the coast of

China. This has led some to argue that the rise of China represents a revival of older

great power conflicts. For Hore,165 “as economic ties deepen between the US and

China, so too will political and military tensions. It is glaringly obvious that the

neoliberals’ dream of global economic integration leading to a decrease in military

competition is precisely the reverse of reality. We still live in the world of

imperialism as Bukharin and Lenin described it almost 100 years ago, where greater

economic integration and competition lead to a greater, not a lesser danger of wars.”

This position is not dissimilar to those conservative realists who also argue that the

US should “do what it can to slow the rise of China. In fact, the structural imperatives

of the international system, which are powerful, will probably force the United States

to abandon its policy of constructive engagement in the near future. Indeed, there are

signs that the new Bush administration has taken the first steps in this direction.”166

The war on terror has led to the expansion of US bases in Central Asia, not so far

from the Chinese border. Moreover, the National Security Strategy argued that the

war on terror would have an effect on those countries that were not the US’

immediate enemies, deterring them “from pursuing a military build up in the hope of

surpassing, or equaling the power of the United States.”167 There are also economic

tensions over trade, market access, and what the US regard as an undervalued Chinese

currency, which exacerbates the US trade deficit with China. China’s current account

surplus with the rest of the world increased from $30 billion in 1997, to $6 billion in

2003, $69 billion in 2004, to $161 billion in 2005.168 In a distinct but related
 47

argument, it has also been claimed that “China’s new ideas are having a gigantic

effect outside of China. China is marking a path for other nations around the world

who are trying to figure out not simply how to develop their countries, but also how to

fit into the international order in a way that allows them to be truly independent, to

protect their way of life and political choices in a world with a single massively

powerful centre of gravity.”169 There is also clearly something of a new ‘scramble for

Africa’ led by competing US and Chinese interests. Certainly China has turned to

Africa in search of resources, particularly oil, and has engaged in foreign investment

with national petroleum and gas interests in Sudan, Angola, Algeria and Gabon.170

But, it could equally be argued that while both economic and military tensions exist,

there are simultaneously strong grounds for cooperation. This is not an argument that

endorses the liberal democratic peace thesis, but rather one that suggests that relations

between states are more contingent than realists and Leninists contend. Indeed, some

have argued that the war on terror has increased US reliance on China. Arguing from

what I consider to be an unconvincing perspective which suggests that US hegemony

is declining as east Asia rises, Arrighi otherwise convincingly notes that argues that

“the more the US became entangled in the War on Terror and dependent on cheap

foreign credit and commodities, the more successful was China in bringing to bear a

different kind of ‘structural imperative’ to those envisaged by Mearsheimer.”171 The

expense of the war on terror, coupled with the ongoing twin deficits in the US has

meant that the US is increasingly dependent on foreign capital, including Chinese

capital. In 2005, the US imported goods and services from abroad of a value of $2

trillion, of which $243 billion came from China. By early 2006, China held $263

billion in US Treasury bonds, and had accumulated foreign currency reserves of $875
 48

billion. China is now the second largest exporter to the US (after Canada), the second

largest holder of US Treasury bonds (after Japan), and the largest holder of the dollar

as a foreign currency.172

However, these figures need to be put into context. Contrary to Arrighi’s argument

however, this does not necessarily reflect East Asia’s rise and the US’ decline, as the

dependence is mutual. Many significant US companies have out-sourced production

to China – in 2004, Wal-Mart imported $18 billion in goods from China, making it

the national equivalent of the fifth largest ‘national’ importer of Chinese goods. The

US Centre for Strategic and International Studies has estimated that China’s low cost

exports makes the US better off by about $70 billion a year, though of course such an

estimate rests on a number of assumptions. In the context of falling average real

wages and growing wage inequality, consumption levels have been maintained in part

through increasing high income consumption, but also through a combination of

increasing debt and low cost imports among lower income consumers.173 Moreover,

China’s build up of foreign exchange reserves in part reflects the continued strength

of US hegemony. The dollar remains the main international reserve currency, and this

gives the US considerable leverage over other countries. It allows the US considerable

autonomy in terms of financing trade deficits, thus further facilitating high

consumption levels. Of course other states could switch from the dollar, thus causing

devaluation as has periodically occurred (unplanned in the late 1970s, and planned in

the mid-1980s) since the collapse of Bretton Woods. However, as the main

international reserve currency, the dollar acts as a form of risk insurance “since it

provides the opportunity to generate capital movements in financial markets towards

US assets.”174 The US thus gains as the main site of financial trading, through profits
 49

from speculation and through flows of investment capital. This is reinforced through

the ‘structural power’ of the US as it acts as a market of last resort for the world

economy, thus further extending US leverage over other states.175 China’s

accumulation of dollar reserves should be seen in this light, as “it is China who bares

the risk of the gambler’s scenario of generating large dollar reserves and the purchase

of dollar-denominated assets because it is China that must accept the losses of a

sudden dollar destabilization or of a speculative attack on its own currency.”176 In this

sense then, though of course the US twin deficits do matter, and reflect tensions in the

international order, they also reflect the fact that the US manages to maintain its

hegemony in part because of the capital inflow that finances such deficits.177

Moreover, in more specifically geo-political relations, cooperation has increased in

the war on terror, and the Chinese political elite tend to pursue a strategy that cannot

be easily accommodated by theories which suggest an inevitable intensification of

geopolitical conflict. In particular, the Chinese leadership has moved towards a

strategy which accepts, albeit reluctantly, the fact of US primacy, and wants to find

ways of accommodating to it. While the most significant section of the Chinese

leadership remains pessimistic about such prospects, an influential minority regard

cooperation as both desirable and feasible.178 Therefore, while pursuing a strategy that

attempts an increase in cooperation with the US, such as the construction of a

common counter-terrorist stance, the Communist Party elite has simultaneously

hedged against the prospects of failure by developing bilateral and regional ties with

the different parts of the developing world, which has been facilitated by closer trade

and investment ties and increased aid. These relationships are therefore of some

significance, but at present at least, they do not constitute a new coalition of forces
 50

united by a challenge to US hegemony at the level of the international state system.179

In short, while there is considerable evidence of conflict for the ‘realist’ and

‘Leninists’ to emphasize, there is also much to back the ‘Kautskyite’ and ‘liberal’

views which focus on cooperation. Thus, growing interdependence between China

and US does give rise to tensions, but equally provides the impetus for co-operation.

How these operate in a particular period is far more contingent than (Leninist and

realist) theories which suggest inevitable conflict or indeed (liberal theories) which

suggest growing pacification as commercial relations expand.

But we can go further than this, and challenge the idea that Chinese growth will

indeed lead to something like parity between the US and China in the near future.

This brings us back to the question concerning the forms of industrialization that are

occurring in much of the developing world. What is clear is that there is significant

section of US capital that has benefited enormously from Chinese growth, as have US

consumers, even if at the same time some US workers have lost their job through

competition for Chinese imports, particularly in labour intensive sectors. This leads

one to ask how significant the Chinese economic miracle is. China’s impressive

growth figures undoubtedly reflect an economic miracle in the country. However this

growth is highly uneven and there is a tendency to be easily impressed by the rapid

development that has occurred in a small number of big cities and export processing

zones. On a per capita basis, and adjusted for purchasing power parity, China is only

the 107th richest nation in the world (based on 2006 figures180). The great increases in

GNP growth are partly exaggerated by the new methods of calculation, and

particularly the fact that new sectors previously excluded have now been included,

such as passenger transport, finance and public administration.181 Rawski argues that
 51

“during the 1997-2001 period, China’s energy use, employment and prices all fell. So

how could real output have grown by one third, as Chinese officials claim.”182

But it is not only a question of exaggerated figures, for clearly there has still been

substantial growth in China in recent years, and per capita figures may be less

relevant given the fact of China’s enormous size. But perhaps more important is the

fact that, despite the efforts of the Chinese leadership, the country has not been

particularly successful in developing major global companies. Indeed, “in export

markets, China’s aspiring global giant corporations must content themselves mainly

with selling lower end sophisticated products (for example, power stations, steel mills,

fighter planes), mainly to other developing countries.”183 Otherwise, these firms

concentrate on the domestic market or export in low value sectors such as bicycles

and motor-bikes. China had just three firms in the Financial Times 500 (based on

market capitalization). These were the China National Offshore Oil Company

(CNOOC), China Mobile, and China Unicom, each of which operates in a protected

domestic market. In one category in the Fortune 500, China had six of the top 10

firms, but this was in terms of number of employees, and each one of these was

mainly state owned and protected – something which is likely to change with WTO

membership. For neo-liberals, these failings reflect the inefficiencies of industrial

policy and they contend that growth has occurred despite, rather than because of such

a policy. By implication, growth would be even greater if the Chinese state was

further liberalized and good governance and market friendly intervention was

extended by an enabling state. At the very least, China’s growth is attributable to its

market conforming policies, while future potential problems are attributable to

‘market supplanting’ policies.184 But this is based on a view challenged throughout

 52

this article, namely that industrial policy through import substitution is irrelevant in an

open international economy which is seen as a level playing field view. Such a view

under-estimates the ease with which dynamic, high value producing firms can break

into world markets, or indeed can develop in an unprotected domestic market, and

ignores the strong tendencies towards capital concentration at a global level. China’s

attempts to promote national champions is thus perfectly rational in this context, but

given the unequal context in which it takes place, there is no guarantee that such a

strategy can work. Thus, high income economies (with 16 per cent of the world’s

population) account for 91 per cent of stock market capitalization, 95 per cent of the

Fortune 500, 97 per cent of the FT 500, 99 per cent of Research and Development

spending of the top 300 firms, and 99 per cent of top brands. The developing world,

including China, with 84 per cent of the population, accounted for just 26 of the

Fortune 500 companies (about 5 per cent), sixteen of the FT 500 (about 3 per cent),

one of the top 100 brands, and none of the Research and Development 300. To get

some sort of perspective – and of considerable relevance in discussing US economic

hegemony – North America (with 5 per cent of the world’s population) makes up 40

per cent of the Fortune 500, 50 per cent of the FT 500, and 54 per cent of Morgan

Stanley Den Witter’s ‘global competitive edge’ firms (compared to 6 per cent for the

developing world).185

These strategic questions are also apparent in the context of China’s entry into the

WTO in 2001, for this has occurred “at the point at which the degree of unevenness of

business capability has never been greater.”186 China was given a five year adjustment

period before fuller implementation of WTO rules, which would include reduction in

average tariff levels from 24.6 per cent to 9.4 per cent, the observation of WTO rules
 53

on trade related investment measures (TRIMS), the elimination of local content

requirements for foreign investment, increases in guarantees for intellectual property,

and open access for foreign firms to sell to SOEs. In the automobiles sector tariffs

were to be reduced from 80 to 100 per cent to 25 per cent by 2006, and quotas were to

be phased out, chemicals from 15 to 7 per cent by 2005, and steel from 10.3 per cent

to 6.1 per cent by the end of 2002.187 Optimists argued that this would allow China to

specialize in its most competitive sectors and shed those high cost industries that

constitute a drain on the economy. Upgrading will occur as it did for earlier East

Asian miracle economies. Certainly, quota reductions have allowed China to increase

its market share in lower value activities – though this was likely to happen whether

or not China joined the WTO. This does not however mean that a transition to higher

value production will necessarily occur. The first tier NICs upgraded and developed

in a very different international environment, which gave far more room for the

interventions associated with the developmental state, something that WTO

membership has significantly eroded.188 These problems are likely to be exacerbated

by the gradual movement towards trade liberalization which will result from China’s

entry into the WTO, leading to cheap imports from overseas competitors.

Interestingly, despite the timetable for liberalization, there have been considerable

complaints that this process has been stalled. The annual Congressional-Executive

Commission Report of 2005, claimed that China was implementing policies that

sometimes contravened its WTO commitments, and included practices such as

preferential marketing access for Chinese firms, preferential loans from state banks

and privileged access to stock markets, and providing tax relief to domestic producers.

US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez claimed in 2006 that “(t)he bottom line is

that our companies do not have their rightful access under the terms of China’s WTO
 54

commitments” and suggested that this “only strengthens those who want to build

protectionist barriers around the US market.”189 The same year US Trade

Representative Susan Schwab complained that China was slow in implementing WTO

commitments on banking, financial services, and intellectual property and talked

openly of WTO litigation.190 This does mean economic conflict, but this is less

between two relatively equal ‘great powers’ and rather one that reflects China’s fears

that liberalization will undermine weaker sectors in its domestic economy. And in

terms of the US, the most vocal criticism has tended to come from the party of

opposition – the Republicans in the 1990s, and the Democrats under Bush – and this

tends to become more muted once the opposition party wins the presidency. This may

in part reflect the mutual inter-dependence between China and the US, which gives

rise to some conflict, but equally considerable areas of cooperation.

On the other hand of course there has been significant export-led growth in China,

which has not only caused concerns in the US, but increasingly within the EU too,

particularly from 2005 as China completed its textile quotas half way through that

year.191 But what is interesting about such growth is how it reflects changes in global

production networks. China’s percentage manufacturing exports to the US increased

from 9.1 per cent in 1992 to 22.9 per cent in 2000, and to the EU it increased from 9.5

per cent to 16.7 per cent for the same years. Over the same period, Thai export shares

to the US fell from 26.4 per cent to 22.9 per cent and the EU from 21.3 per cent to

17.7 per cent, and South Korea’s fell from 25.9 per cent to 23.9 per cent (US),

although they showed a small increase in shares to the EU, far bigger was the share of

exports to the rest of East Asia. With some small variations, there has been a

significant increase in shares by East Asian exporters to the rest of the region, while
 55

EU and US shares (either taken together or individually) have generally fallen or

stagnated.192 Even more significant has been the increase in shares in parts and

components rather than finished goods. Indeed, between 1992-2000, these accounted

for 55 per cent of the export growth of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the

Philippines and Vietnam.193 There was no clearly identifiable pattern in the share of

components and parts in trade to the US or EU from East Asian countries, with some

showing increases and some decreases, but generally the far bigger increases in shares

of parts and components was in East Asian countries trade with China. By 2000, the

shares were 50.6 per cent for Malaysia, 54 per cent for Thailand, 50.3 per cent for

Singapore, 81.8 per cent for the Philippines, 26.7 per cent for South Korea, and 29.8

per cent for Taiwan. At the same time, parts and components in China’s share of

exports to the US (4.3 per cent to 9.1 per cent) and EU (2.9 per cent to 10.9 per cent)

increased from 1992 to 2000, but from far lower bases and the total shares remained

low.194 In the period from 1992-2003, parts and components accounted for 52 per cent

(Taiwan), 44 per cent (Malaysia), 70 per cent (Philippines), 59 per cent (Singapore)

and 31 per cent (Thailand) of the total manufacturing export growth for particular

countries. For China, the figure was 17 per cent.195 Taken together, these figures

suggest that China has increased its role as a manufacturer of final goods produced

within the East Asian region, which are exported to the EU and US (and Japanese)

market.

The inequalities associated with oligopolistic competition and buying practices

alluded to above are reflected in the fact that firms “focus on activities with low

barriers to entry. Once the cost pressures become too intense, rather than moving

upward into higher end activities or taking time to develop proprietary skills, the firms
 56

diversify into other low entry barrier markets.”196 Indeed, these tensions reflect a key

contradiction in China’s miracle, as the national champion policy is “a story about a

government claiming as its ultimate policy aim precisely the type of firms that its

most high profile restructuring (and trade) policies militate against. In essence, the

government is seeking to create the very firms that comparative advantage, not to

mention global technological change, militate against.”197

These comments should not be mis-interpreted. I am not suggesting that the growth of

China is economically or indeed geo-politically irrelevant. Leaving aside the question

of calculations, China’s growth rates have been impressive, and combined with its

size, have great implications. But equally, China’s miracle cannot be theorized simply

in terms of its national development, and in part at least reflects the

transnationalization of capital, and the changing forms of uneven development that

have arisen out of this process. This brings us back to the two theories discussed at the

start of this article. The idea that imperialism is either based on the export of surplus

capital and intensified inter-imperialist rivalries, or it is a modernizing force based on

capitalist diffusion is implicit in much of the interpretations of China’s rise. The

radical view sees China’s rise as inevitably provoking intense (geopolitical and

economic) conflict between new great powers, while the liberal view sees China’s rise

as evidence of the modernizing force of neo-liberal globalization. The interpretation

here suggests that China’s rise must be situated in a very different context, based on

new patterns of global capitalism and uneven development, and these must be related

to an imperialism free trade, and not the imperialism identified by classical Marxists

at the turn of the nineteenth century.

 57

Conclusion: capitalist imperialisms and globalization.

This article has challenged some of the assumptions made by both neo-liberals and

classical Marxists when comparing two (supposed) eras of globalization and

imperialism. In particular it has briefly alluded to considerable differences between

the two eras based on state sovereignty, greater cooperation between core states, and

different forms of relationships between the core states and the developing world. The

main similarity between the two eras has been the continued concentration of capital

in the developed world, which undermines the assumptions of both theories discussed

in this article.

The paper has also suggested that contemporary imperialism is an era of free trade

imperialism, which undermines developmental policies in the developing world, even

if dominant actors there may actively accept this process. In this respect a more

pertinent comparison may be between the contemporary era of globalization and an

earlier period of the nineteenth century, which lasted from around 1860-1880. In this

brief era of British primacy, Britain successfully persuaded states in Europe to adopt

free trade policies. Ultimately however, British primacy failed, and free trade

imperialism was only revived under US hegemony after 1945, and then in a

compromised form until the neo-liberal turn of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Despite periodic foreign policy disasters which have tended to expose the ‘harder’

side of US imperialism, such as the post-2001 period, the US has been remarkably

successful at winning support for neo-liberal polices, in both the developed and

developing world. This may have implications for understanding – and re-assessing -

British imperialism in the nineteenth as well as US imperialism in the twentieth and

twenty first centuries. For it may be the case that rather than a ‘backward imperialism’
 58

of ‘gentlemanly capitalism’198, British imperialism from around 1860 was the first

mature capitalist imperialism in world history.199 Britain’s competitors embarked on a

new wave of imperialism in the context of their own efforts to catch up with Britain’s

lead, and did so as part of a developing and protectionist capitalism at home and an

exclusive and territorial expansion abroad. For these capitalist countries that followed

Britain, this was hardly an imperialism that was the ‘highest stage’ of capitalism, but

rather one that reflected a capitalism in a relatively early phase. In contrast,

contemporary US imperialism – and globalisation – has thus taken the lead where the

first (British) capitalist imperialism failed.200

But perhaps the main purpose of this paper is to challenge older theories of

imperialism that relate the phenomenon to either the necessity for expanded

accumulation, and/or the inevitability of inter-imperialist conflict. For all the

qualifications made to these theories, and the introduction of the concept of geo-

political conflict, I have argued that these theories remain too strongly committed to

defending elements of old and outmoded theories. What is lost in the process is an

emphasis on the crucial role that the US state has played in restructuring global

capitalism and, even if this has promoted conflict, it is qualitatively different from

older rivalries. Moreover, in shifting the analysis away from the necessity of

imperialism, my argument has suggested that there needs to be far more attention

instead to its effects. This of course is the focus of those suggesting a progressive,

modernizing role from imperialism, but in contrast to this approach, I have suggested

that there is a contradiction between military and economic imperialism, and the latter

undermines the effectiveness of the former. This argument at least implicitly entails a

call for the revival of the concerns of dependency theories, which were briefly in
 59

vogue within the development studies discipline in the 1960s and 1970s.201 There are

many problems with such theories, and in some forms – underdevelopment theory for

instance – deserve outright rejection. Many theories of dependency failed to

adequately explain the origins of, and mechanisms that continue to sustain,

subordination, in the world economy. Moreover, dependence was often theorized in a

static way, which implied that it was an eternal condition whose forms never

changed.202 But, given that neo-liberalism and US hegemony have in many respects

intensified uneven development and the relative marginalization of some nations and

regions in the international order, perhaps it is time to renew the idea of dependence.

This should be seen less as a general theory, and more in Palma’s sense, as a

methodology for the analysis of ‘concrete situations’.203

This reconceptualization of dependence as relative marginalization rather than

conscious underdevelopment then, is not new and not necessarily Marxist.204 But

where a Marxist analysis is very useful is in its attempt to move beyond the idea that

contemporary uneven development and dependence has causes purely external to

marginalized nation-states and regions, or that the technocracy of neo-liberalism can

be replaced by the technocracy of a revived developmental state. For it is far from

clear that the ISI policies that promoted development among already developed

countries, and East Asia in the 1960s to 1980s, can easily return. This is not only

because of the changed international context which militates against the revival of

developmentalism, whatever the current distrust of US military since 2001 and

especially 2003, but also because the domestic social basis for developmentalism has

declined. It has of course partly declined because of the changed international context,

but domestic factors have also been important (and partly account for the varieties of
 60

neo-liberalism in the world today). ISI policies were developed on the basis of

nationalist alliances that cut across social classes in the developing world in the 1950s

onwards, but these began to run out of steam – as early as the 1960s in some places,

but gradually in most places by the 1980s. These have now largely ended and while

developmentalism has been revived, in particular in Latin America, it is now more

unstable and is more openly resisted by dominant classes than was the case say, in the

1950s. Those advocates of a return to the developmental state, in opposition to neo-

liberalism, thus need to be far more aware of the different social alliances that have

promoted, and hinder, capitalist development in ‘the periphery’. Ultimately, the return

of development is a political issue, that cannot be divorced from social relations

within particular nation-states, and the wider, neo-liberal imperialist context in which

it takes place.

1
See for instance D. Harvey, The New Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); N. Smith,
The Endgame of Globalization (London: Routledge, 2005); R. Kiely, Empire in the Age of
Globalisation (London: Pluto, 2005).
2
For an important exception, if one slightly marred by a tendency to refer to the period from 1870-
1913 as one of laissez-faire, see D. Nayar, ‘Globalisation, history and development: a tale of two
centuries’, Cambridge Journal of Economics 30(1), pp.137-59.
3
The main neo-liberal arguments along these lines can be found in J. Sachs and Andrew Warner 1997,
‘Sources of Slow Growth in African Economies’, Journal of African Economies, 6(3), 1997, pp. 335-
76; World Bank, Globalization, Growth and Poverty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), and P.
Lindert and J. Williamson, ‘Does globalization make the world more unequal’, (Cambridge, Mass.:
NBER Working Paper, 2001, no.8228). For supposedly radical positions along these lines, see G.
Kitching, Seeking Social Justice through Economic Globalization (Pennsylvania: Penn State University
Press, 2001), M. Desai, Marx’s Revenge (London: Verso, 2002), and N. Harris, The Rise of
Cosmopolitan Capital (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004).
4
The notion of three waves in the globalization debate is presented in C. Hay and D. Marsh eds.,
Demystifying Globalisation (London: Palgrave, 2001). On the hyper-globalist, sceptical and
transformationalist positions, see Held, D., A. McGrew, D. Goldblatt and J. Perraton, Global
Transformations (Cambridge: Polity, 1999), and and subsequent works which have slightly altered the
positions, such as D. Held, and A. McGrew, ‘The Great Globalization Debate: An Introduction’, in D.
Held and A. McGrew eds., The Global Transformations Reader (Cambridge: Polity, 2003). The
limitations of this debate, and especially of the atheoretical ‘transformationalist’ position, which
essentially explains globalization by recourse to the concept of globalization, see J. Rosenberg (2005)
‘Globalization Theory: A Postmortem’, International Politics 42, 1, (2005), pp.2-74.
 61

5
P. Lindert and J. Williamson, ‘Does globalization make the world more unequal’, p.1
6
A. Giddens, The Third Way and its Critics (Cambridge: Polity, 2000), p.129.
7
Lindert and Williamson, p.17.
8
Lindert and Williamson, p.18.
9
Lindert and Williamson, p.13.
10
N. Ferguson, 2003, p.11
11
N. Ferguson, 2004, pp.186-93
12
D. Lal, In Praise of Empires (London: Palgrave, 2004), pp.205-07.
13
Lal, In Praise of Empires, p.147.
14
World Bank, Globalization, Growth and Poverty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p.30.
15
S. Chen and M. Ravallion, ‘How Have the World’s Poorest Fared since the Early 1980s’, World
Bank Policy Research Working Paper no.3341, 2004, http.econ.worldbank.org).
16
World Bank, World Development Report 2000/01 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p.3.
17
World Bank, Globalization, Growth and Poverty: Building an Inclusive World Economy; see also D.
Dollar and A. Kraay, ‘Growth is Good for the Poor’, Journal of Economic Growth 7 (2002), pp.195-
225.
18
A. Giddens, The Third Way and its Critics, p.129.
19
N. Bukharin, Imperialism and World Economy (London: Bookmarks, 2003, first published 1914),
p.127.
20
J. Rees, ‘Oil, Gas and NATO’s New Frontier’, New Political Economy 5(1), 2000, pp.100-04; J.
Rees, ‘Imperialism: Globalization, the state and war’, International Socialism no. 93, 2001, pp.3-34; J.
Rees, Imperialism and Resistance (London: Routledge, 2006), ch.3; and with some qualifications (on
which see the devastating critique by L. Panitch and S. Gindin [2006] ‘Imperialism: a reply to
Callinicos’, International Socialism no.109 [2006], pp.194-99), A. Callinicos, ‘Imperialism and global
political economy’, International Socialism no.108 (2005), pp. 109-37.
21
J. Rees, Imperialism and Resistance, p.215.
22
C. Harman, ‘Analysing Imperialism’, International Socialism no.99, p.65.
23
D. Harvey, The New Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); M. Klare, Resource Wars
(London: Palgrave, 2002) and Blood and Oil (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2004). See also, P. Morgan,
‘Iraq’, in F. Reza ed., Anti-Imperialism: a guide for the movement (London: Bookmarks, 2003),
pp.107-16; J. Rees, Imperialism and Resistance, ch.3. Oil is of course important, but the argument that
this can explain war or annexation is too overly general, assumes that such a strategy is rational and can
work (or can only not work because of ‘national resistance’), and fails to examine the way that the
international oil industry actually works. For a good discussion, see S. Bromley, ‘Blood for Oil’, New
Political Economy 11(3), pp.419-34.
24
D. Harvey, The New Imperialism, p.124.
25
Harvey, The New Imperialism, p.19.
26
Retort, Afflicted Powers (London: Verso, 2005), p.52.
27
N. Bukharin, Imperialism and World Economy, pp.45-6.
28
A. Callinicos, ‘Imperialism and global political economy’, p.117; A. Callinicos, ‘Making sense of
imperialism: a reply to Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin’, International Socialism no.110, p.20.
29
A. Callinicos, ‘Imperialism and global political economy, p.110. This is linked to Callinicos’
emphasis on economic and geopolitical competition, which, he contends merged in the late nineteenth
century. He accepts that since then a ‘separation’ of the two has taken place, but this begs the question
of what exactly is indispensable about the classical theory.
30
A. Callinicos, The New Mandarins of American Power (Cambridge: Polity, 2003), pp.104, 105; see
also A. Callinicos, ‘Marxism and Global Governance’, in D. Held and A. McGrew eds., Governing
Globalization (Cambridge: Polity, 2002), p.262.
31
A. Callinicos ‘The grand strategy of the American empire’, International Socialism no. 97, p.30 (my
emphasis).
32
A. Callinicos, ‘Imperialism and global political economy’, p.116.
33
D. Harvey, The Limits to Capital (London: Verso, 1999, second edition), The New Imperialism
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) and Spaces of Global Capitalism (London: Verso, 2006). In
fairness to Harvey, his notion of spatial fix is not identical to that of relocation of surplus capital to the
periphery, although it is one component. P. Bond, Looting Africa (London: Zed, 2006) tends to use the
idea in this way, in the process drawing him close to a position heavily influenced by theories of
underdevelopment. See the interesting discussion of Harvey’s concept of spatial fixes in Antipode 36,5
(2004).
34
M. Barratt-Brown, After Imperialism (London: Merlin, 1970), p.110.
 62

35
P. Bairoch, Economics and World History, pp.72-3
36
V. Lenin, ‘Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism’, in Selected Works (Moscow: Progress,
1977, first published 1916), pp.212-14.
37
M. Barratt Brown, The Economics of Imperialism (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), especially ch.8.
38
M. Barratt-Brown, After Imperialism; P. Bairoch and R. Kozul-Wright, Globalization Myths: Some
Historical Reflections on Integration, Industrialization and Growth in the World Economy (Geneva:
UNCTAD Discussion Paper no.113, 1996); P. O’Brien, ‘Colonies in a Globalizing Economy, 1815-
1948’ (London: LSE Working Paper no.08/04, 2004), pp.1-65.
39
P. Bairoch and R. Kozul-Wright, Globalization Myths: Some Historical Reflections on Integration,
Industrialization and Growth in the World Economy.
40
P. Bairoch and R. Kozul-Wright, Globalization Myths: Some Historical Reflections on Integration,
Industrialization and Growth in the World Economy, p.8
41
J. Williamson, ‘Land, labor and globalization in the Third World, 1870-1940’, Journal of Economic
History 62(1), 2002, pp.55-85.
42
Even those who argue that there was considerable factor price convergence in the nineteenth century
accept that commodity price convergence can only explain a small part of this process. See K. O’
Rourke, A. Taylor and J. Williamson, ‘Factor price convergence in the late nineteenth century’,
International Economic Review 37(4), pp.499-530. On the Heckscher-Ohlin model, see more or less
any standard economics text-book. But for one of the originals, see B. Ohlin, Inter-regional and
International Trade (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1933). For critiques, see A. Shaikh,
‘Foreign Trade and the Law of Value – Part Two’, Science and Society, no. 44, (1979/80), pp.27-57
and R. Kiely, The Clash of Globalisations (Leiden: Brill, 2005), ch.2.
43
Detailed analyses can be found at S. Reddy and T. Pogge, How Not to Count the Poor
(www.socialanalysis.org); R. Wade, ‘On the Causes of Increasing World Poverty and Inequality, or
Why the Matthew Effect Prevails’, New Political Economy 9(2), pp.163-88; R. Kiely ‘The World Bank
and “global poverty reduction”: good policies or bad data?’, Journal of Contemporary Asia 34(1), 2004,
pp.3-20.
44
World Bank, World Development Report 1999/2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p.25
45
S. Reddy and T. Pogge, How Not to Count the Poor, p.42, table 5.
46
UNCTAD, The Least Developed Countries Report 2002 (Geneva: UNCTAD, 2002), pp.103, 112.
47
UNCTAD, the Least Developed Countries Report 2004 (Geneva: UNCTAD, 2004), p.3
48
Ibid., p.114.
49
A. Sumner, ‘Epistemology and “evidence” in development studies: a review of Dollar and Kraay’,
p.1174
50
UNCTAD, The Least Developed Countries Report 2002, part 2, ch.3.
51
N. Birdsall and A. Hamoudi, ‘Commodity dependence, trade and growth: when “openness” is not
enough’, Centre for Global Development Working Paper, no.7 (available at
www.cgdev.org/rp/publications.html).
52
World Bank, Globalization, Growth and Poverty: Building an Inclusive World Economy, p.30
53
D. Rodrik, The Global Governance of Trade as if Development Really Mattered (Geneva: United
Nations Development Programme, 2001), p.24; D. Rodrik and A. Subramanian, ‘From “Hindu
Growth” to Productivity Surge: The Mystery of the Indian Growth Transition’, IMF Working Papers
04/77 (2001); R. Wade, ‘On the Causes of Increasing World Poverty and Inequality, or Why the
Matthew Effect Prevails’.
54
D. Rodrik, ‘Comments on “Trade, Growth and Poverty” by D. Dollar and A. Kraay’, table 1,
www.ksghome.harvard.edu
55
A. Sumner, ‘Epistemology and “evidence” in development studies: a review of Dollar and Kraay’,
p.1174
56
UNCTAD, The Least Developed Countries Report 2004, p.35
57
S. Ashman, ‘Editorial Introduction’, Historical Materialism 14(4), pp.3-4.
58
Harvey, The New Imperialism, p.34, citing H. Arendt, Imperialism (New York: Harcourt Brace
Janovich, 1968), p.23.
59
G. Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century (London: Verso, 1994). See Harvey, The New Imperialism,
pp.34-5, 74-5. For Arrighi’s critical commentary on Harvey, see G. Arrighi, ‘Hegemony Unravelling –
I’, New Left Review II/32 (2005), pp.23-80; and G. Arrighi, ‘Hegemony Unravelling – II’, New Left
Review II/33 (2005), pp.83-116.
60
Harvey, The New Imperialism, ch.2. See also J. Agnew, Hegemony (Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 2005), which argues that US hegemony is in decline, while L. Panitch and S. Gindin, ‘Global
Capitalism and American Empire’, in The Socialist Register 2004 (London: Merlin, 2003), pp.1-42,
 63

and L. Panitch and S. Gindin, ‘Finance and American Empire’, Socialist Register 2005 (London:
Merlin, 2004), pp.46-81, from a not dissimilar starting point to Agnew, conclude that US hegemony
has strengthened since 1982.
61
See C. Schmitt, ‘The New Nomos of the Earth’, in C. Schmitt, The nomos of the Earth in the
International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum (New York: Telos Press, 2003, first published
1955); also G. Balakrishnan, ‘States of War’, New Left Review II/36, pp.5-32; W. A. Williams, Empire
as a Way of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980); N. Smith, The Endgame of Globalization
(New York: Routledge, 2005).
62
The most famous pre-war statement is of course found in E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years Crisis, 1919-
39 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001, first published 1939).
63
See the excellent discussion in B. Cumings, ‘Still the American Century’, Review of International
Studies 25,5 (1999), pp.278-9.
64
Cited in B. Cumings, ‘Still the American Century’, p.281.
65
NSC-68, 1950 (declassified in 1977), available at www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-68.htm.
66
B. Cumings, ‘Still the American Century’, p.284.
67
On this point, and perhaps the most effective theorisation of the Cold War from a Marxist
perspective, see R. Saull, The Cold War and After (London: Pluto, 2007), esp. chs. 1 and 2.
68
Among many others, see K. Waltz, Man, the State and War (Columbia University Press, 2001, first
published 1954); H. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (New York: McGraw Hill, 1992, first
published 1948).
69
A point well made in various works by Peter Gowan. See for instance, P. Gowan, ‘The American
Campaign for Global Sovereignty’, in C. Leys and L. Panitch eds., The Socialist Register 2003
(London: Merlin, 2002), pp.1-27.
70
Balakrishnan, ‘States of War’, pp.9-10.
71
B. Cumings, ‘Still the American Century’, p.297.
72
See D. Held and T. McGrew eds., Governing Globalization (Cambridge: Polity, 2002). Compare the
editors’ introduction to R. Keohane and J. Nye, Transnational Relations and World Politics
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973) and Power and Interdependence:World Politics in
Transition (New York: Little Brown, 1977).
73
Project for the New American Century, ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses’, available at
www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasdefenses.pdf
74
M. Mazarr, ‘George W. Bush, Idealist’, International Affairs 79(3), pp.503-22.
75
N. Ferguson and R. Kagan, ‘The United States Is and Should Be, an Empire: A New Atlantic
Initiative Debate’, Washington: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 2003,
available at www.aei.org/events.
76
M. Boot, ‘The Case for American Empire’, Weekly Standard, October 15, 2003.
77
A. Callinicos, ‘Marxism and Global Governance’; S. Ashman and A. Callinicos, ‘Capital
Accumulation and the State System: Assessing David Harvey’s The New Imperialism’, Historical
Materialism 14,4 (2006), pp.107-31.
78
R. Brenner, ‘What Is, and What Is Not, Imperialism?’, Historical Materialism 14(4), p.91.
79
This is well theorised in a view that draws on game theory by S. Bromley, ‘The Logic of American
Power in the International Capitalist Order’, in A. Colas and R. Saull eds., The War on Terror and
American “Empire” after the Cold War (London: Routledge, 2006), pp.44-64.
80
The former view is represented by M. Hardt and T. Negri, Empire (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2000), Multitude (New York: Penguin, 2004) and B. Robinson, A Theory of Transnational
Capitalism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004). The latter view is represented by
Panitch and Gindin, ‘Global Capitalism and American Empire’, and ‘Finance and American Empire’,
and Kiely, Empire in the Age of Globalisation. Callinicos (‘Imperialism and Global Political
Economy’, p.111) wrongly suggests that these latter views, like the former, propose that geo-political
rivalries have ended. See Panitch and Gindin, ‘Imperialism and Global Political Economy – A Reply to
Callinicos’, p.195.
81
R. Brenner, ‘What Is, and What Is Not, Imperialism?’,p.91.
82
See especially the journalism of Gary Schmitt, the executive Director of the neo-conservative Project
for the New American Century. For a small sample, see G. Schmitt, ‘Our Ambivalent China Policy’,
Weekly Standard, July 15, 2002; ‘The Real Empire’, Weekly Standard, August 27, 2003, and G.
Schmitt and D. Blumenthal, ‘Wishful Thinking in our Time’, Weekly Standard, August 8, 2005. On
neo-conservativism and US foreign policy, see Kiely, Empire in the Age of Globalisation, chs.4 and 6.
On the links between neo-conservative domestic and foreign policy, see R. Kiely, ‘Neo-conservatism,
 64

liberal imperialism and cosmopolitanism: what are the differences, what are the similarities and (why)
do they matter?’, paper to SOAS workshop on Empire, March 2007. See also further below in the text.
83
R. Brenner, ‘What Is, and What Is Not, Imperialism?’,p.104.
84
S. Bromley, ‘Oil and United States Hegemony’, Government and Opposition 40,2 (2005), p.253.
85
See Ashman and Callinicos, ‘Capital Accumulation and the State System’, pp.127-8.
86
See note 29.
87
H. J. Chang, Kicking Away the Ladder (London: Anthem, 2002).
88
Nayyar, ‘Globalisation, history and development…’, p.152.
89
P. O’ Brien, ‘The Pax Britannica and American Hegemony: Precedent, antedecent or just Another
History?’, in P. O’ Brien and A. Clesse eds., Two Hegemonies (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp.3-64.
90
See J. Ikenberry, ‘American Power and the Empire of Democratic Capitalism’, Review of
International Studies 27, 2 (2001), pp.191-212; J. Nye, The Paradox of American Power (New York:
Public Affairs, 2004); M. Shaw, Theory of the Global State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2000); M. Kaldor, ‘American Power: From ‘Compellance’ to Cosmopolitanism?’, International Affairs
79(1), pp.1-22; and most of the papers in D. Held and M. Koening-Archibugi eds., American Power in
the Twenty First Century (Cambridge: Polity, 2004).
91
On neo-conservatism as a political outlook, see I. Kristol, Neo-Conservatism: The Autobiography of
an Idea (New York: Free Press, 1995); on neo-conservative approaches to foreign policy, see R. Kagan
and W. Kristol eds., Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Domestic
Policy (San Fancisco: Encounter, 2000); for an outstanding assessment of neo-conservatism and the
links between its domestic and foreign policy (generally under-theorized by IR), see M. Williams,
‘What is the National Interest? The Neoconservative Challenge to IR Theory’, European Journal of
International Relations 11,3 (2004), pp.307-37.
92
See S. Hurt, ‘Co-operation and Coercion? The Cotonou Agreement between the European Union and
ACP States and the End of the Lome Convention’, Third World Quarterly 24, 1 (2003), pp.161-76.
93
K. Gallagher ed., Putting Development First (London: Zed, 2005).
94
G. Albo, ‘The Old and New Economics of Imperialism’, The Socialist Register 2004 (London:
Merlin, 2003), pp.88-113.
95
World Bank, World Development Report 1997 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); for a strong
critique, see D. Craig and D. Porter, Development beyond Neoliberalism? (London: Routledge, 2006).
96
World Bank, World Development Report 1990 (Washington: World Bank, 1990).
97
World Bank, Governance and Development (Washington: World Bank, 1992).
98
World Bank, ‘The Initiative on Defining, Measuring and Monitoring Social Capital’, at
www.worldbank.org/socialcapital; for critiques, see B. Fine, Social Capital versus Social Theory
(London: Routledge, 2001); J. Harriss, Depoliticizing Development (London: Anthem, 2002).
99
World Bank, ‘A Proposal for a Comprehensive Development Framework’, at
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/CDF/Resources/cdf.pdf.
100
J. Stiglitz, ‘More Instruments and Broader Goals: Towards the Post-Washington Consensus’,
Helsinki: WIDER Annual Lecture, 7 January, 1998.
101
B. Fine, C. Lapavitsas and J. Pincus eds., Development Policy in the Twenty First Century (London:
Routledge, 2001); J. Pincus and J. Winters eds., Reinventing the World Bank (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2002); Jomo, K. S. and B. Fine eds., The New Development Economics (London:
Zed, 2006).
102
G. Harrison, The World Bank and Africa (London: Routledge, 2004), p.77. See also,
Jomo and Fine, The New Development Economics.
103
World Bank, The East Asian Miracle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). For critiques, see A.
Amsden, ‘Why isn’t the whole world experimenting with the East Asian model to develop?’, World
Development 22,4 (1994), pp.627-33; R. Kiely, Industrialization and Development: A Comparative
Analysis (London: UCL Press, 1998), ch.8. On governing the market, see R. Wade, Governing the
Market (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), a convincing critique of neo-liberal accounts of
the rise of East Asia, but as later arguments in the text makes clear, a less convincing celebration of the
continued relevance, or call for the restoration, of the developmental state.
104
L. Panitch and S. Gindin, ‘Theorizing American Empire’, in A. Bartholomew ed., Empire’s Law,
pp.21-43; A. Hanieh, ‘Praising Empire: Neoliberalism under Pax Americana’, in C. Mooers ed., The
New Imperialists (Oxford: One World, 2006), pp.167-98. Specifically on Iraq, see T. Dodge, ‘Iraqi
Transitions: from regime change to state collapse’, Third World Quarterly 26(4/5), 2005, pp.705-21
and ‘The Sardinian, the Texan and the Tikriti: Gramsci, the Comparative Autonomy of the Middle East
State and Regional Change’, International Politics 43(4), pp.453-73.
 65

105
The clear implication – and one of the main arguments of this article – is that the export of capital
should not play such a central role in theories of imperialism. See the very useful comments in this
regard by Jomo, K. S., ‘Introduction’, in Jomo, K. S. ed., Globalization Under Hegemony (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2006), p.21.
106
T. Barnett, ‘The Pentagon’s New Map’, Esquire, March, 2003; for a European version of this
argument, see R. Cooper, The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty First Century
(London: Atlantic).
107
G. Bush, ‘Remarks by the President at the 2002 Graduation Exercise of the US Military Academy,
West Point, New York’, available at www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html;
National Security S, ‘The National Security strategy of the United States of America’, available at
www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html; J. L. Gaddis, ‘A Grand Strategy of Transformation’, Foreign
Policy, Nov/Dec 2002.
108
T. Dodge, ‘Iraqi Transitions: from regime change to state collapse’, and ‘The Sardinian, the Texan
and the Tikriti: Gramsci, the Comparative Autonomy of the Middle East State and Regional Change’.
109
C. Cramer, Civil War is not a Stupid Thing (London: Hurst); P. Bilgin and A. D. Morton, ‘From
“Rogue” to “Failed” States? The Fallacy of “Short-Termism”’, Politics 24, 3 (2004), pp.169-80; M.
Berger and H. Weber, ‘Beyond state-Building: Global Governance and the Crisis of the Nation-State
System in the 21st Century’, Third World Quarterly 27, 1 (2006), pp.201-08.
110
Cramer, Civil War is Not a Stupid Thing, ch.7.
111
Michael Mann (‘Globalization and September 11th’, New Left Review II/11, pp.51-72) calls this an
‘ostracising imperialism’, a position endorsed by Ashman and Callinicos, (‘Capital Accumulation and
the State System’, pp.115-29, esp. 124-5), especially in relation to their (convincing) critique of
Harvey’s too general idea of accumulation by dispossession, but they draw different implications from
those made in this article.
112
See A. Giddens, The Third Way and its Critics (Cambridge: Polity, 2000). On modernization theory,
see W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960).
113
M. Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars (London: Zed, 2001); R. Kiely, the New
Political Economy of Development (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
114
R. Wade, Governing the Market.
115
D. Baker, G. Epstein and R. Pollin, ‘Introduction’, in D.Baker, G. Epstein and R. Pollin eds.,
Globalization and Progressive Economic Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p.7.
116
UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2002 (Geneva: UNCTAD, 2002), p.5.
117
R. Kaplinsky, Globalization, Poverty and Inequality (Cambridge: Polity, 2005); R. Kiely, The New
Political Economy of Development, esp. chs.1, 7 and 9.
118
B. Eichengreen, Y. Rhee and H. Tong, ‘The Impact of China on the Exports of Other Asian
Countries’ (Washington: NBER Working Paper no.10768, 2004).
119
P. Nolan, China and the Global Economy (London: Palgrave, 2001).
120
I. Little, T. Scitovsky and M. Scott, Industry and Trade in some Developing Countries (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1970); A. Krueger, ‘The Political Economy of the Rent Seeking society’,
American Economic Review 64, 3 (1974), pp.291-303; D. Lal, The Poverty of ‘Development
Economics’ (London: Institute of economic Affairs, 1983).
121
A. Krueger, ‘Why trade liberalisation is good for growth’, The Economic Journal no.108 (1998),
pp.1513-22.D. Ben-David and B. Loewy, ‘’Free trade, growth and convergence’, Journal of Economic
Growth 3,1 (1998), pp.143-70; J. Bhagwati and T. Srinivasan, ‘Outward Orientation and Development:
Are revisionists right?’, Yale University Economic Growth Center Discussion Paper no.806 (1999),
pp.1-40. J. Bhagwati, In Defence of Globalization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
122
World Bank, World Development Report 1987 (Washington: World Bank, 1987); World Bank, The
east Asian Miracle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); World Bank, Adjustment in Africa
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
123
See UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2002 (Geneva: UNCTAD, 2002), p.65
124
UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2002, p.68.
125
S. M. Shafaeddin, ‘Trade liberalization and economic reform in developing countries’, UNCTAD
Discussion Papers no.179, pp.25; S. M. Shafaeddin, Trade Policy at the Crossroads (Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
126
R. Kozul-Wright and P. Rayment, ‘Globalization Reloaded: An UNCTAD Perspective’, UNCTAD
Discussion Papers no.167, pp.11-12.
127
UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2002, p.71.
128
Kozul-Wright and Rayment, ‘Globalization Reloaded: An UNCTAD Perspective’, p.14.
129
Kozul-Wright and Rayment, ‘Globalization Reloaded: An UNCTAD Perspective’, p.32.
 66

130
UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2002, p.56.
131
UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2002, pp.78-80.
132
H. Singer, ‘The Distribution of Gains from Trade between Investing and Borrowing Countries’,
American Economic Review vol. 40 (1950), pp.473-85; R. Prebisch, ‘Commercial policy in the
underdeveloped countries’, American Economic Review vol.44 (1959), pp.251-73. See also P. Sarkar
and H. Singer, ‘Manufactured Exports of Developing countries and their Terms of Trade’, World
Development 19,4 (1991), pp.pp.333-40; A. Maizels, T. Palaskas and T. Crowe, ‘The Prebisch Singer
Hypothesis Revisited’, in D. Sapford and J. Chen eds., Development Economics and Policy
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998); P. Robbins, Stolen Fruit (London: Zed, 2003).
133
UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2002, p.118; R. Kaplinsky and A. Santos-Paulinho,
‘Innovation and Competitiveness: Trends in unit prices in global trade’, Oxford Development Studies
33, 3/4 (2005), pp.333-55.
134
Sarkar and Singer, ‘Manufactured Exports of Developing countries and their Terms of Trade’.
135
P. Athukorala, ‘Manufactured exports from developing countries and their terms of trade: A re-
examination of the Sarkar-Singer thesis’, World Development 21, 10 (1993), pp.1607-13.
136
B. Rowthorn, ‘Replicating the Experience of the NIEs on a Large Scale’, in Jomo, K. S. and S.
Nagaraj eds., Globalization versus Development (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), pp.85-112.
137
P. Minford, J. Riley and E. Nowell, ‘Trade, technology and labour markets in the world economy,
1970-90: A computable General Equilibrium Analysis’, Journal of Development Studies 34(2), pp.1-
34; Maizels, Palaskas and Crowe, ‘The Prebisch Singer Hypothesis Revisited’.
138
Z. Zheng, ‘China’s terms of trade in world manufactures, 1993-2000’, UNCTAD Discussion Paper
no.161 (2002), pp.1-61.
139
UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2002, pp.120-3.
140
The flying geese model, based on the idea of East Asian states flying in unison, was first developed
in the 1930s, but it was not until the 1960s that the main English language publication of its pioneer
first came out. See K. Akamatsu, ‘A historical pattern of economic growth in developing countries’,
Journal of Developing Economies 1,1 (1962), pp.3-25; B. Balassa, New Directions in the World
Economy (New York: New York University Press, 1989), gave the idea a more explicitly neo-liberal
theoretical direction. For a critique, see S. Kasahara, ‘The Flying Geese Paradigm: A Critical Study of
its Application to East Asian Regional Development’, UNCTAD Discussion Paper no.169 (2004),
pp.1-34.
141
UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2006 (Geneva: UNCTAD, 2006), p.75.
142
A. Santos-Paulino and A. Thirlwall, ‘The Impact of Trade Liberalisation on Exports, Imports and
the Balance of Payments of Developing Countries’, The Economic Journal no.114, February (2004),
f.50-72; A. Saad-Filho, ‘The Political Economy of Neoliberalism in Latin America’, in A. Saad-Filho
and D. Johnston eds., Neoliberalism: A Critical Reader (London: Pluto, 2005), pp.222-9.
143
Kozul-Wright and Rayment, ‘Globalization Reloaded: An UNCTAD Perspective’, p.30
144
R. Vernon, ‘International Investment and International Trade in the Product Cycle’, Quarterly
Journal of Economics 80, 2 (1966), pp.190-207.
145
G. Grossman and E. Helpman, Innovation and Growth in the Global Economy (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1991); P. Krugman, Strategic Trade Policy and the New International Economics (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1986). For a critique of this theory’s failure to adequately break from neo-liberalism, see H.
Goodacre, ‘Development and Geography: Current Debates in Historical Perspective’, in Jomo and
Fine, The New Development Economics, pp.249-68.
146
For an outstanding critique, see G. Albo, ‘A World Market of Opportunities? Capitalist Obstacles
and Left Economic Policy’, in L. Panitch, C. Leys, A. Zuege and M. Konings eds., The Globalization
Decade (London: Merlin, 2004), pp.111-52.
147
G. Arrighi, B. Silver and B. Brewer, ‘Industrial convergence, Globalization, and the Persistence of
the North-South Divide’, Studies in Comparative International Development 38(1), pp.17-18. The
quote within the quote is from J. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (London: Allen
and Unwin, 1954).
148
Arrighi, Silver and Brewer, ‘Industrial convergence, Globalization, and the Persistence of the North-
South Divide’, p.18.
149
J. Ikenberry, ‘Liberalism and empire: logics of order in the American unipolar age’, Review of
International Studies 30, 4 (2004), pp.609-30; and After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraints and
the Rebuilding of Order after Major War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). See also note
89.
150
J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, 2001).
 67

151
A. Callinicos, ‘Globalization, Imperialism and the Capitalist World system’, in D. Held and T.
McGrew eds., Globalization Theory (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), p.72; H. James, The End of
Globalization (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001).
152
C. Harman, ‘Analysing Imperialism’, p.65.
153
James, The End of Globalization, p.5.
154
P. Hirst and G. Thompson, Globalization in Question (Cambridge: Polity, 1996), p.27; James, The
End of Globalization, p.12.
155
H. James, The Endgame of Globalization, p.11.
156
Bairoch, Economics and World History, ch.1.
157
R. Feenstra, ‘Integration of Trade and Disintegration of Production in the Global Economy’,
Journal of Economic Perspectives 12,4 (1998), p. 34.
158
Feenstra, ‘Integration of Trade and Disintegration of Production in the Global Economy’, p.34
159
See for instance, Ashman and Callinicos, ‘Capital Accumulation and the State System’, p.126.
160
T. Friedman, The World is Flat (New York: Allen Lane, 2005); T. Friedman, ‘Global is good’, The
Guardian, April 21, 2005, though of course the same writer has made the much quoted claim that there
“can be no McDonald’s without McDonnell-Douglas” (cited in J. Rees, “Foreword: Nikolai Bukharin
and modern imperialism’, in N. Bukharin, Imperialism and World Economy, p.5), though one should
add that this is applied only to rogue states and not other ‘Great Powers’.
161
Rees, ‘Foreword: Nikolai Bukharin and modern imperialism’, p.5.
162
T. Barkawi and M. Laffey ‘The Imperial Peace: Democracy, Force and Globalization’, European
Journal of International Relations 5(4), 1999, p.404
163
Albo, ‘The Old and New Economics of Imperialism’.
164
R. Foot, ‘Chinese strategies in a US-hegemonic global order: accommodating and hedging’,
International Affairs 82,1, 2006, pp.77-94; A. Narlikar and D. Tussie, ‘The G20 at the Cancun
ministerial: developing countries and their evolving coalitions in the WTO’, The World Economy 27,7
(2004), pp.952-3.
165
C. Hore, ‘China’s Century?’, International Socialism no.103, (2004), pp.3-48.
166
Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, p.402.
167
National Security Strategy, ‘The National Security Strategy of the United States of America’ (2002),
at www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html
168
J. Morgan, ‘The US-China Trade Assymetry in Context’, Helsinki: University of Helsinki Centre of
?Excellence in Global Governance, Working Paper no.2, p.3.
169
J. Ramo, The Beijing Consenus: Notes on the New Physics of Chinese Power (London: Foreign
Policy Centre, 2004), p.3.
170
C. Alden, ‘China in Africa’, Survival 47,3 (2005), pp.147-64; P. Rogers, ‘The United States vs.
China: the war for oil’, at www.opendemocracy.net (15.06.2006); P. Rogers, ‘The United States and
Africa: eyes on the prize’, at www.opendemocracy.net (15.03.2007).
171
G. Arrighi, ‘Hegemony Unravelling – I’, New Left Review II/32 (2005), p.76; see also G. Arrighi,
‘Hegemony Unravelling – II’, New Left Review II/33 (2005), pp.83-116.
172
Morgan,, ‘The US-China Trade Assymetry in context’, p.4.
173
This paragraph owes much to the argument of the excellent paper by Morgan, ‘The US-China Trade
Assymetry’.
174
Morgan, ‘The US-China Trade Assymetry’, p.32.
175
S. Gill, ‘The Contradictions of US Supremacy’ in L. Panitch and C. Leys eds., The Socialist
Register 2005 (London: Merlin, 2004), pp.23-45.
176
Morgan, ‘The US-China Trade Assymetry’,p.32.
177
L. Panitch and S. Gindin, ‘Finance and American Empire’, in L. Panitch and C. Leys eds., The
Socialist Register 2005 (London: Merlin), pp.46-81.
178
S. Yinhong, ‘The rising China: essential disposition, secular grand strategy and current prime
problems’, Sasakawa Peace Foundation Programme, at www.spfusa/program/av2002/feb1202.pdf; G.
Gong, ‘The international strategy of China’s new leaders’, in Y-H. Chu, C-C. Lo and R. Myers eds.,
The New Chinese Leadership: Challenges and Opportunities after the 16th Party Congress
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp.156-79.
179
Foot, ‘Chinese strategies in a US-hegemonic global order: accommodating and hedging’.
180
See these and other figures in S. Breslin, China and the Global Economy (Basingstoke: Palgrave,
2007), ch.1.
181
A. Young, ‘Gold into Base Metals: Productivity Growth in the PRC during the Reform Period’
(Washington: NBER Working Paper no.7856, 2000).
182
T. Rawski, ‘Beijing’s Fuzzy Math’, Wall Street Journal, 2002, April 22.
 68

183
P. Nolan, China and the Global Economy (London: Palgrave, 2001), p.91.
184
G. Fan. and W. Woo, ‘State enterprise reform as a source of macroeconomic instability: the case of
China’, Asian Economic Journal 10(3), pp.207-24; World Bank, Globalization, Growth and Poverty.
185
P. Nolan, China at the Crossroads (Cambridge: Polity, 2004), p.23
186
Nolan, China and the Global Economy, p.187.
187
Nolan, China and the Global Economy, pp.198-205.
188
Though critics disagree on the extent of erosion, it is agreed that this has taken place. See the essays
in K. Gallagher, ed., Putting Development First (London: Zed, 2005).
189
See Breslin, China and the Global Economy, ch.3.
190
J. Morgan, ‘The US-China Trade Assymetry in Context’, p.69.
191
Breslin, China and the Global Economy, chs.3 and 5.
192
P. Athukorala, ‘Product Fragmentation and Trade Integration: East Asia in a Global Context’
(Australian National University Working Paper 2003/21), pp.40-1.
193
Athukorala, ‘Product Fragmentation and Trade Integration: East Asia in a Global Context’, p.33.
194
Athukorala, ‘Product Fragmentation and Trade Integration: East Asia in a Global Context’, pp.48-9.
195
P. Athukorala and N. Yamashita, ‘Product Fragmentation and Trade Integration: East Asia in a
Global Context’ (Australian National University paper, 2003), p.33.
196
E. Steinfeld, ‘China’s Shallow Integration: Networked Production and the New Challenges for Late
Industrialisation’ World Development 32, 11 (2004), pp.1976.
197
E. Steinfeld, ‘China’s Shallow Integration: Networked Production and the New Challenges for Late
Industrialisation’, pp.1980-1
198
See among others, P. Cain and A. Hopkins, British Imperialism (London: Longman, 1993, 2
volumes); more generally, see P. Anderson, English Questions (London: Verso, 1993). For general
critiques, see M. Barratt-Brown, ‘Away with all Great Arches: Anderson’s History of British
Capitalism’, New Left Review I/167, 1988, pp.22-51, and E. M. Wood, The Pristine Culture of
Capitalism (London: Verso, 1991). Specifically on imperialism, see E. M. Wood, Empire of Capital
(London: Verso, 2003).
199
Wood, Empire of Capital.
200
Panitch and Gindin, ‘Global Capitalism and American Empire’; Kiely, Empire in the Age of
Globalisation; N. Smith, The Endgame of Globalization (New York: Routledge, 2005).
201
For a survey, see C. Kay, Latin American Theories of Development and Underdevelopment
(London: Routledge, 1989).
202
This was one of the main weaknesses of the work of Andre Gunder Frank. See A. G. Frank,
Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969). For a
critique, see R. Kiely, Sociology and Development: The Impasse and Beyond (London: UCL Press,
1995), ch.3.
203
G. Palma, ‘Dependency and development: a formal theory of underdevelopment or a methodology
for the analysis of concrete situations of underdevelopment?’, World Development 6, pp.881-924; see
also C. Leys and J. Saul, ‘Dependency’, in J. Saul, Development after Globalization (London: Zed,
2006), pp.9-17.
204
See among others, B. Semmel, ‘On the Economics of “Imperialism”, in B. Hoselitz ed., Economics
and the Idea of Mankind (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), pp.192-232; The Rise of Free
Trade Imperialism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); J. Gallagher and R. Robinson,
‘The Imperialism of Free Trade’, Economic History Review 6,1 (1953), pp.1-18; H. J. Chang, Kicking
Away the Ladder; F. List, The National System of Political Economy (New York: Augustus Kelley,
1966, first published in English 1885); R. Aron, The Imperial Republic: The United States and the
World, 1945-1973 (Cambridge: Winthrop, 1974).