Advanced capital has globalized beyond the nation-state’s control
Evidence
For the first time in over a century, this system no longer faces a major, fundamental challenge from organized labour movements, and for the first time in roughly half a century it no longer faces a systemic challenge from a global space largely outside its control. Conversely, advanced capital has now reached a level of global self-organization where conflicts between its national units cannot be settled through warfare because supranational interpenetrations of its national capitals are now such that the nation-state has ceased to be the discrete site for the reproduction of advanced capital, which must now survive as a global system or not at all. This factor has given the imperialist countries a kind of unity that was inconceivable even fifty years ago, let alone in Lenin’s time, thus producing what one may legitimately call, in the Kautskyian language of the Second International, a ‘Super Imperialism’. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 590
Categorization
- DEFINE: Introduces and defines ‘Super Imperialism’, a Kautskyian formulation revived for the post-Cold War conjuncture.
- QUESTION: The ‘Super Imperialism’ claim — that advanced capital’s national units cannot now fight wars against each other — is contestable given the persistence of inter-imperialist rivalry; worth revisiting against later Asia-Pacific tensions.
- XREF: connects to: Global finance has escaped the collective control of advanced capitalist states. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 985; Indebted states now answer to transnational currency and stock markets — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 495