Dr. Richard Barbrook
Room 408 Wells Street
Extension 2313
R.Barbrook (a) wmin.ac.uk

Option: International Political Economy

Code: 1POL547

Staff: Richard Barbrook and Nik Howard

Time and Location: Thursdays 2.00pm – 5.00pm
Fyvie Lecture Theatre

Assessment Scheme: Essay (2,500 – 3,000 words): 30%
Unseen Examination: 70%

Assessment Criteria: Full Details in your handbook.

Synopsis: Criteria for grading assessed work will include the following:

Structure and Quality of Argument
Use of Evidence
Contents
Writing, Presentation and Communication Skills

Assignment Deadline: Tuesday 8th January 2008

Office Hours: Please email or phone to make an appointment

Room 408 Wells Street

Website: http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/author/ipe/

There is a link in the blogroll on the bottom right-hand side of the Imaginary Futures website.

Key text: Meghnad Desai, Marx’s Revenge: the resurgence of capitalism and the death of statist socialism, Verso, London 2002.

The quickest and easiest way to obtain a copy of this book is from abebooks.

Essay Questions

LECTURE PROGRAMME

1. 27th September
Introduction: What is International Political Economy and why does it determine your life? (RB)

2. 4th October
The Lessons of History: the East Asian miracle and Japan’s bubble economy of the late 1980s. (NH)

3. 11th October
The 18th and 19th Century Theories of the Global Political Economy: Liberalism versus Nationalism versus Marxism. (RB)

4. 18th October
The 20th Century Theories of the Global Political Economy:
Leninism versus Keynesianism versus Neo-Liberalism. (RB)

5. 25th October
Theory into Practice: North Korea and South Korea. (NH)

6. 1st November
Building the World Market: the rise and fall of the British empire 1649– 1914. (RB)

7. 8th November
Private Study Week

8. 15th November
Managing the Global Economy: the ascendancy and decline of the American empire 1914-2007. (RB)

9. 22nd November
Money as Command: chaos and order in the international financial system. (RB)

10. 29th November
The Carbon Economy: the affluent society and the limits to growth. (RB)

11. 6th December
The Global Village: the Net as dotcom capitalism and cybernetic communism. (RB)

12. 13th December
Think Locally, Act Globally: beyond the neo-liberal paradigm. (RB)

READING LIST

Michel Aglietta, M. (1979) A Theory of Capitalist Regulation: the US experience, Verso, London.

Albert, M. (1993) Capitalism vs. Capitalism, Four Wall Eight Windows, New York.

Ambrose, S. (1971) Rise to Globalism: American foreign policy 1938-1970, Penguin, London.

Aoki Masahiko, Kim Hyung-ki and Okuno-Fujiwara Masahiro (eds.) (1998) The Role of Government in East Asian Economic Development: Comparative Institutional Analysis, Oxford University Press. New York.

Atkinson, B and Johns S (2001) Studying Economics, Palgrave.

Bacevich, A. (2002) American Empire: the realities and consequences of U.S. diplomacy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass.

Barbrook, R. (1990) ‘Mistranslations: Lipietz in London and Paris’, http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/02/01/mistranslations-lipietz-in-london-and-paris-by-richard-barbrook/

Barbrook, R. (2006) The Class of the New, Open Mute, http://www.theclassofthenew.net

Barbrook, R. (2007), Imaginary Futures: from artificial intelligence to the global village, Pluto, London, http://www.imaginaryfutures.net

Bell, D. (1973) The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: a venture in social forecasting, Basic Books, New York.

Walden, B. and Rosenfeld, S. (1992) Dragons in Distress: Asia’s Miracle Economies in Crisis, Penguin Books. London.

Berry, C. (1997) Social Theory of the Scottish Enlightenment, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.

Bhagwati, J. (2004) In Defence of Globalisation, Oxford University Press.

Brenner, R. (2002) The Boom and the Bubble: the US in the world economy, Verso, London.

Buchan, J. (2006) Adam Smith and The Pursuit of Perfect Liberty, Profile.

Cain, P.J. and Hopkins, A.G. (1993) British Imperialism: innovation and expansion 1688-1914, Longman, London.

Cassidy, J. (2002) dot.con: the greatest story ever sold, Penguin, London.

Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society: the information age – economy, society and culture volume 1, Blackwell, Oxford.

Chiu, Stephen W.K. and So, Alvin Y. (1995) East Asia and the World Economy, Sage Publications. California, London and New Delhi.

Crump, J. (2003) Nikkeiren and Japanese Capitalism, Routledge/Curzon. Richmond, England.

Cumings, B. (2004) North Korea: Another Country, New Press.

Meadows, D and the Club of Rome (1972) The Limits to Growth, Earth Island, London.

Desai, M. (2002) Marx’s Revenge: the resurgence of capitalism and the death of statist socialism, Verso, London.

Diamond, J (1997) Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, New York: Norton.

Earle E M (ed) Adam Smith, Alexander Hamilton and Friedrich List, The Economic Foundations of Military Power, Makers of Modern Strategy.

Eckert, C. J. et al. (1990) Korea Old and New: A History, Ilchokak Publishers. Seoul.

Economides, S and Wilson, P (2001) The Economic Factor in International Relations.

Fallows, J. (1994) Looking at the Sun: The Rise of the New East Asian Economic and Political System, Vintage.

Florida, R. (2002) The Rise of the Creative Class: and how it’s transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life, Basic, New York.

Frieden, J and Lake, D (eds) (2001) International Political Economy: Perspectives on Global Power and Wealth, New York: St Martins Press.

Fukuyama, F. (1992) The End of History and the Last Man, Penguin, London.

Galbraith, J.K. (1961) The Great Crash 1929, Penguin, London.

Galbraith, J.K. (1970) The Affluent Society, Penguin, London.

Gilpin, R (2001) Global Political Economy, Princeton University Press.

Gittings, J. (2006) The Changing Face of China: from Mao to market, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Godard, R and Cronin, P (ed) (2003) International Political Economy, Palgrave.

Gruber, H. (1991) Red Vienna: experiment in working-class culture 1919-1934, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Gundar Frank, A. (1969) Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America: historical studies of Chile and Brazil, Monthly Review, New York.

Halliday, J. and McCormack, G. (1973) Japanese Imperialism Today: ‘Co-Prosperity in Greater East Asia’, Penguin Books.

Harris, N. (1987) The End of the Third World: newly industrialising countries and the decline of an ideology, Penguin, London.

Hayek, F. A. (1944) The Road to Serfdom, Routledge, London.

Held, D and McGrew, A. (1999) Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Helleiner, E. (1994) States and the Re-Emergence of Global Finance, Cornell.

Hersh, J. (1993) The USA and the Rise of East Asia since 1945: Dilemmas of the Postwar International Political Economy, Macmillan, London.

Hettine, B. (ed) (2001) International Political Economy, London: Zed Books.

Hilferding, R. (1981) Finance Capital: a study of the latest phase of capitalist development, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.

Hirst, P. and Thompson, G. (2000) Globalisation in Question, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Hobsbawm, E. (1968) Industry and Empire: an economic history of Britain since 1750, Penguin, London.

Hobson, J.A. (1902) Imperialism: a study, George Allen & Unwin, London.

Huntington, S. (2002) The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order, Free Press, London.

Hyam, R. (2002) Britain’s Imperial Century 1815-1914: a study of empire and expansion, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.

Irwin, D. A. (1996) Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade, Princeton University Press.

Johnson, C. (1982). MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975, Stanford University Press.

Jones, G. S. (2005) An End to Poverty: A Historical Debate, Profile Books.

Kalecki, M. (1972) The Last Phase in the Transformation of Capitalism, Monthly Review, New York.

Kant, I. (1983 ) ‘To Perpetual Peace: a philosophical sketch’, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, Hackett, Indianapolis, pages 107-143.

Kelly, K. (1998) New Rules for the New Economy: 10 ways that the network economy is changing everything, Fourth Estate, London.

Kennedy, P. (1989) The Rise and Fall of Great Powers: economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000, Fontana, London.

Keynes, J.M. (1936) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, MacMillan, London.

Kihl, Young Whan, ed (1994) Korea and the World: Beyond the Cold War, Westview Press, Boulder Colorado.

Krugman, P. (November 1994). “The Myth of Asia’s Miracle: A Cautionary Fable�. Foreign Affairs.

Landes, D. (1998) The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, New York: W W Norton.

Lenin, V.I. (1965) Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism, Progress, Moscow.

Lipietz, A. (1987) Mirages and Miracles: the crises of global Fordism, Verso, London.

Luxemburg, R. (1963) The Accumulation of Capital, Routledge, London.

Madison, A (2001) The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective, OECD 2001.

Mandel, E. (1980) Long Waves of Capitalist Development, CUP, Cambridge.

Mao, Z. (1967) ‘Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society’, Selected Works of Mao Zedong Volume 1, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, pages 13-21.

Marx, K. (1976) Capital Volume 1: a critique of political economy, Penguin, London.

Marx, K. (1978) Capital Volume 2: a critique of political economy, Penguin/New Left Review, London.

Marx, K. (1981) Capital Volume 3: a critique of political economy, Penguin/New Left Review, London.
McLean, B. and Elkind, P. (2004) The Smartest Guys in the Room: the amazing rise and scandalous fall of Enron, Portfolio, New York.

McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding Media: the extensions of man, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.

Meiskens Wood, E. (2003) Empire of Capital, Verso, London.

von Mises, L. (1947) Planned Chaos, Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-On-Hudson.
Negri, T. (1988) ‘Keynes and the Capitalist Theory of the State’, Revolution Retrieved: selected writings on Marx, Keynes, capitalist crisis & new social subjects 1967-83, Red Notes, London, pages 9-42.

Negri T. and Hardt, M. (2000) Empire, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass.

Ocalan, A. (2007) Prison Writings: the roots of civilisation, Pluto, London.

Odell, J. S. (2000) Negotiating the World Economy, Cornell University Press.

Okina Y., Shirakawa M., and Shiratsuka S., ‘The Asset Price Bubble and Monetary Policy: Japan’s Experience in the Late 1980s and the Lessons’, Monetary and Economic Studies (February 2001).

Pilbeam, K. (2006) Finance and Financial Markets, Palgrave.

Phillips, N. (2006) Globalising International Political Economy, Palgrave.

Pressman, S. (1999) Fifty Major Economists, Routledge, London.

Reich, R. (1991) The Work of Nations: a blueprint for the future, Simon &
Schuster, London.

Ricardo, D. (1911) The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Everyman, London.

Richardson, B. (1997) Japanese Democracy: Power, Coordination, and Performance, Yale University Press. New Haven and London.

Ridderstråle, J. and Nordström, K. (2000) Funky Business: talent makes capital dance, ft.com, London.

Roberts, P. (2004) The End of Oil, Bloomsbury.

Rostow, W.W. (1960) The Stages of Economic Growth: a non-communist manifesto, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Rubin, I.I. (1979) A History of Economic Thought, Ink Links, London.

Sachs, J. (2005) The End of Poverty, Penguin.

Scholte, J. (2000) Globalisation, Critical Introduction, London: Macmillan.

Schumpeter, J. (1976) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Harper, New York.

Smith, A. (1976) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations Volume 1 & Volume 2, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Stiglitz, Joseph and Yusuf S. eds. (2001) Rethinking the East Asian Miracle, World Bank and Oxford University Press, Washington DC and New York.

Stiglitz, Joseph (2003) Globalization and Its Discontents, Penguin Books, London.

Stubbs, S. and Underhill, G. (1999) Political Economy and the Changing Global Order, Palgrave.

Szporluk, R. (1988) Communism & Nationalism: Karl Marx versus Friedrich List, OUP, Oxford.

Todd, T. (2004) After the Empire: the breakdown of the American order, Constable, London.

Toynbee, A. (1946) A Study of History, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

van Wolferen, K. (1990) The Enigma of Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation, Random Books.

Wallerstein, I. (1979) The Capitalist World-Economy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Warren, B. (1980) Imperialism: Pioneer of Capitalism, Verso, London.

White, D. (1996) The American Century: the Rise & Decline of the United States as a World Power, Yale University Press, New Haven 1996.

Wood, C. (2005). The Bubble Economy: Japan’s Extraordinary Speculative Boom of the ‘80s and the Dramatic Bust of the ‘90s, Barnes and Noble.

World Bank (1993) The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy, Oxford University Press.

World Bank (2004) World Development Indicators, Washington DC: World Bank.

Yarborough, B. and Yarborough, Y. (1997) The World Economy: Trade and Finance, Dryden Press.

PERIODICALS

The Economist
Capital & Class
Journal of Political Economy
International Studies Perspectives
The World Economy
Third World Quarterly
Race and Class
New Left Review
Journal of World Trade
OPEC Review
Asian Pacific Review
World Development
The Journal of Asian Studies
The Journal of Japanese Studies
Japan Forum

WEBSITES

http://www.imf.org/external/data.htm

http://www.iccwbo.org/

http://www.europa.eu.int

http://worldbank.org/

http://eldis.org/

http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/

http://www.newunionism.net/

http://www.un.org/climatechange/

http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

Assignment

Answer ONE question, typed in 12 point or above and approximately 2,500 words in length.

Submit to the Assessment Letterbox in the SSHL Undergraduate Office, Wells Street by 6.00pm, Tuesday 8th January 2008.

Severe penalties will apply to late entries.

2. From the black ships of 1853 up to the bubble of the late 1980s, Japan’s path to modernity has been more exogenous (externally driven) than endogenous (internally generated). Discuss.

3. In what ways did Nationalism and Marxism offer persuasive theoretical alternatives to Liberalism in the 19th century?

4. Leninism, Keynesianism and Neo-Liberalism are all economic determinist theories. Discuss.

5. Why is Korean history so divisive and what actual systems developed out of the division? Can these entrenched divisions be overcome?

6. How does the concept of the “imperialism of free trade� explain the rise and fall of the British empire?

7. The global economic hegemony of the American empire was founded upon the military confrontation with its Russian rival. Discuss.

8. Does instability in the international financial system stimulate or hinder global economic growth?

9. Global warming is a price worth paying to raise the majority of humanity out of poverty. Discuss.

10. Why is the Net described both as the apotheosis of free market capitalism and as the harbinger of cybernetic communism?

11. Does the global justice movement propose any credible economic alternatives to the neo-liberal paradigm?

Adam Smith’s theory of social evolution = the greatest intellectual achievement of the 18th century Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment.

140,000 years ago: hunter-gatherer tribes;
12,000 years ago: agricultural villages;
4,000 years ago: market towns;
300 years ago: capitalist cities.

The duration of each successive stage of human civilisation has been shorter than its predecessor. The distinctive features of capitalism are rapid economic growth and accelerating technological innovation. The Red Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass: running fast to stay still. Driving forces for the emergence of the next stage of growth = social and ecological limitations of global neo-liberal capitalism: poverty, boredom, stress, insecurity, pollution and climate change. Evolutionary theory = promise of better future.

Three centuries of the grand narratives of history explained:

• Smith’s 1776 liberal original: hunting -> herding -> agriculture -> commerce.
• Friedrich List’s 1830s nationalist version: nomadic wandering -> agricultural settlements -> liberal capitalism -> state industrialism.
• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ 1848 socialist remix: tribalism -> feudalism -> liberalism -> democracy -> communism.
• Rudolf Hilferding’s 1910s update: liberal capitalism -> organised capitalism -> proletarian communism.
• John Maynard Keynes’ 1920s mandarin mix: feudalism -> free markets -> bureaucratic regulation.
• Joseph Stalin’s 1930s murderous version: monarchy -> totalitarianism -> industrialisation -> utopia.
• Walt Rostow’s 1950s CIA mix: traditional society -> “take-off” -> industrial society -> mass consumption society.
• Marshall McLuhan’s technological determinist version: oral culture of religious communities -> print culture of industrialised nation states -> Net culture of the global village.
• Daniel Bell’s 1970s computerised update: traditional society -> industrial society -> post-industrial society.
• George Gilder’s 1980s Silicon Valley version: Fordist big business and big government -> post-Fordist small firms and deregulated markets.
• Wired magazine’s 1990s dotcom hype: Wild West pioneers -> hippie radicals -> Net entrepreneurs.

The Establishment orthodoxy: “there is no alternative” to the Washington Consensus, privatisation, deregulation, welfare cuts, anti-union laws and the American way. Ideological crisis of the Left: 1970s disillusionment with Third World revolutions -> 1980s post-modernist pessimism -> 1989-91 implosion of Russian Communism -> 1990s Third Way, Clintonomics and the Californian Ideology. Neo-liberal globalisation = culmination of grand narrative of human progress: the digerati, evolutionary biology and post-humans.

Forward into the past: 2001 dotcom bubble bursts -> 9/11 Al-Qa’ida attacks v. USA -> 2002 invasion of Afghanistan -> 2003 invasion of Iraq -> neo-con dream of perpetual confrontation v. jihadist enemy. War on Terror as new Cold War: political repression, imperialist adventures, subservient satellites, military Keynesianism and cultural conformity. Neo-con boosters and leftie opponents believed that Iraq war = refighting the American-Vietnamese war. Hollywood geopolitics: Osama Bin Laden as evil mastermind in mountain hideout and Tony Blair as loyal sidekick with posh accent.

“Sir? Do we get to win this time?” Sylvester Stallone in Rambo 2 (1985).

1st January 1994: Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico v. NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement between USA, Canada and Mexico) = symbol of the end of the End of History. EZLN as revival of old Left: revolutionary intellectuals, rural guerrillas and armed struggle -> EZLN as pioneer of new Left: Subcomandante Marcos, base communities and Zapatista website. Escaping from the Cold War zero-sum game: Chiapas rebellion = hypermodern mash-up of Cuba and California.

Learning the painful lessons of the previous generation: Bolivia, Uruguay, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Peru. Chiapas uprising = military actions -> media coverage -> international solidarity -> political negotiations -> social experiments -> global alliance v. neo-liberal capitalism. Local difficulties in the South: land ownership, elite violence and endemic poverty -> world problems also afflicting the North: neo-liberal restructuring, crony capitalism and US imperialism. Rand Corporation’s dire warning: reemergence of old commie enemy in new hi-tech form. Pop icons of the funky revolution: Che Guevara = 1960s intransigent Leninism -> Subcomandante Marcos = 2000s poetic pragmatism.

John Holloway and Eloina Pelaez, Zapatista!: reinventing the revolution in Mexico (1998).
David Ronfeldt, John Arquilla, Graham Fuller, Melissa Fuller, The Zapatista “Social Netwar” in Mexico (1996).

‘The Zapatista Army of National Liberation speaks to all individuals, groups, collectives, movements, social, civic and political organizations, neighborhood associations, cooperatives, all the lefts known and to be known; non-governmental organizations, groups in solidarity with struggles of the world people, bands, tribes, intellectuals, indigenous people, students, musicians, workers, artists, teachers, peasants, cultural groups, youth movements, alternative communication media, ecologists, tenants, lesbians, homosexuals, feminists, pacifists.’ EZLN, 1st Declaration of Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and against Neo-liberalism (1996).

Zapatismo in the North = romantic fantasies: guerrilla war, rural primitivism and revolutionary tourism v. political inspiration: mass participation, Net activism and international solidarity. Learning the painful lessons of the previous generation: Maoism, anarchism and Trotskyism -> defeat and disillusionment -> post-modernism, neo-liberalism and managerialism. The 1990s revival of the 1960s New Left: direct action, tactical media and single issue campaigns v. corporate crimes and state repression. 1994 Chiapas uprising v. NAFTA -> 1999 Battle of Seattle v. WTO -> 2001 1st World Social Forum in Porte Alegre, Brazil v. Washington Consensus -> Global Justice movement = dialogue of North & South; workers & peasants; and reds & greens. Key divisions within alter-globalisation: development v. ecology; protest v. policy; intellectuals v. activists; and accountability v. spontaneity. 21st century socialism: Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela -> ‘pink tide’ governments in Latin America -> regional political and economic cooperation. The 2002-6 waxing and waning of the European Social Forums: ATTAC, Black Block anarchists, Trotskyist sects and Rifondazione Communista. Riots of disaffected youth: 2001 Genova -> -> 2007 Copenhagen -> 2008 Athens. Top achievements of the Global Justice movement: ideological pluralism, media attention and political optimism. 2003 international protests against the US invasion of Iraq: mass critical intelligence of demonstrators overwhelms ideological dogmatism of left sects. Open source software = prototype of open source politics.

John Barker, Frankenstein and the Chickenhawks (2003).

Seductive message of best selling alter-globalisation theory books: specific local struggles of social movements -> common global struggle of the new subject of history: the Multitude. The 1990s dotcom bubble as revolutionary politics: Fordism = nation states, factory proletariat and parliamentary reformism -> Post-Fordism = world empire, knowledge workers and community activism. Temporary Autonomous Zones: squatting, hacking, fanzines, festivals, cafes, raves and rioting = subversive premonitions of the new society in the present. Marxism-McLuhanism: the technological prophecy of the inevitable victory of the global multitude v. multinational capital.

Toni Negri and Michael Hardt, Empire (2000).
Naomi Klein, No Logo (2000).
Hakim Bey, T.A.Z. (1991).

‘The 1960s New Left might have lost the economic argument, but the Hippies had won the cultural war.’ Richard Barbrook, The Class of the New (2006).

Cognitive capitalism: DIY culture, alternative media, leftfield theories and participatory media = unpaid pioneers of new commercial products. Follow the free and self-managed exploitation = post-Fordist business strategy for cutting edge firms. The contradictions of copyright: intellectual property as essential and anachronistic within the knowledge economy. The antinomies of precarious labour: bohemian lifestyles as both neo-liberal exploitation and communist emancipation.

Financial and ecological crises in 2000s = political opportunity to question the dominant economic paradigm. Rethinking the grand narrative of history: sustainable development = escape from poverty in the South -> social liberation = escape from alienation in the North. Adam Smith’s 18th century organisers of collective labour = market/commodity and factory/orders -> 21st century emergence of new model = network/gifts. Is it now possible for humanity to realise the modernist dream of moving from realm of necessity into realm of freedom?

1998 Wall Street dotcom bubble: new economy stocks = 225% price rise v. old economy stocks = 17% price rise. Hi-tech neo-liberalism: the New Paradigm, the Long Boom and friction free capitalism. Cyber-entrepreneur: nerd teenager -> good idea -> office in garage -> venture capital funding -> first mover advantage -> media hype -> IPO (Initial Placement Offering) -> wealth and fame. The American dream: Amazon and Yahoo -> e-Bay and MySpace -> YouTube and Facebook.

Kevin Kelly, New Rules for the New Economy (1998).
Peter Leyden, Peter Schwartz and Joel Hyatt, The Long Boom (2000).
Jehane Noujaim (director), startup.com (2001).

Norbert Wiener: 1930s MIT mathematician -> 1941-5 anti-Nazi weapons researcher -> 1946 Macy Conferences guru -> 1948 best selling author -> 1950s Cold War dissident -> 1960 guest star in Moscow. Cybernetics as meta-theory of biological and mechanical systems: feedback, information and anti-entropy. Cybernetics without Wiener: Johnny von Neumann and the cult of artificial intelligence. IBM (International Business Machines) = computer corporation of the military-industrial complex. The war machine: 1952 Defence Calculator -> 1958 SAGE command & control system. The office machine: 1930s analogue tabulators -> 1964 System/360 mainframes and peripherals. IBM pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair: technology of genocide and domination sold as Robby the Robot.

Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings (1950).
Fred Wilcox (director), Forbidden Planet (1956).

Cybernetics in the service of communism: Wiener from zero to hero in Russia. The despotic limits of the Stalinist model = ideological rigidity, inflexible planning and party autocracy. The libertarian legacy of the 1917 Revolution: Marxism, workers’ self-management and Soviet democracy. Axel Berg, Oskar Lange and the cybernetic communist movement: intellectual freedom -> economic efficiency -> participatory politics. Moscow computer network v. US nuke attack -> Unified Information Network = terminals in every factory, office and classroom. 1961 Nikita Khrushchev at 22nd CPSU Congress predicted Russians building cybernetic communism within a decade. 1968 Prague Spring: industrialism = Stalinist totalitarianism -> post-industrialism = socialism with a human face. Totalitarian Communism v. cybernetic communism: 1964 Khrushchev overthrown -> 1968 Russian army invaded Czechoslovakia.

“Where is the leading role of the Communist Party in your cybernetic machine?”

Radovan Richta, Civilisation at the Crossroads: social and human implications of the scientific and technological revolution (1968).
Slava Gerovitch, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak (2002).

1957 Sputnik = 1st satellite in space -> 1961 Yuri Gagarin = 1st human in space. The Red Moon = Russian propaganda triumph in Cold War -> 1958 ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) = US hi-tech champion -> John F. Ford and CIA warning of ‘cybernetics gap’: Unified Information Network = 2nd Sputnik -> 1962 J.C.R. Licklider @ ARPA funding Net research -> 1969 ARPANET went live. Official rationale: Net = time-sharing computers between research laboratories and communications system for fighting nuclear wars. Hindsight scepticism: scientists don’t like sharing computers and cheap switches are more reliable than expensive mainframes.

Paul Baran, On Distributed Communications (1964).
J.C.R. Licklider, The Computer as a Communications Device (1968).
Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet (2000).

1964 Bell Commission: multi-disciplinary research to devise the American version of the Net utopia. Cold War struggle over the imaginary future: owning time = controlling space. Marshall McLuhan as 1st prophet of the information society: religious community (oral) -> Gutenberg Galaxy (printing) -> Global Village (Net). Technological determinism: convergence of media, telecommunications and computing = national rivalries, class conflicts and alienated individuals -> world peace, cooperative production and community participation. Stages of growth: industrialism -> mass consumption -> post-industrialism. Marxism without Marx -> McLuhanism without McLuhan: Tom Wolfe -> -> Herman Kahn -> Zbigniew Brzezinski -> Daniel Bell. Fordism: factory as social model -> Net: university as social model. Capitalists and labourers = makers of things -> knowledge class = creators of ideas. USA as builder of ARPANET = prototype of post-industrial civilisation.

Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (1964).
Herbert Kahn and Anthony Wiener, The Year 2000 (1967).
Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973).

Licklider’s subversive moment: US military funded scientists to build the Net in their own image. The academic gift economy: presenting papers, contributing articles and peer review. Communism in the service of capitalism: pure research -> military and commercial applications. The treachery of the knowledge class: Free Speech Movement -> anti-war protests -> Weather Underground. Universities as Red Bases: academics and students = precursors of the information society. Hippie counterculture prefiguring the global village: underground newspapers, progressive rock bands, community radio stations, independent films and hippie festivals. The Hacker Ethic: 1973 Community Memory -> 1974 Ted Nelson, Computer Lib -> 1975 Homebrew Computer Club. “Information wants to be free” = academic ethos: knowledge =/= commodity. Community media -> interactive networks.

‘As I talked to these digital explorers … I found a common element … It was a philosophy of sharing, openness, decentralisation, and getting your hands on machines at all costs – to improve the machine, to improve the world.’ Steven Levy, Hackers (1994).

Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community (1994).

The Silicon Valley model: VC = Vietcong -> venture capital. Fordism: big business and big government -> post-Fordism: techie entrepreneurs and neo-liberal economics. CEO heroes: Joseph Schumpeter’s concept of creative destruction -> George Gilder’s celebration of transformative technology. Hip capitalism: 1960s Homebrew Computer Club -> 1970s Apple Computers. The Californian Ideology: 1970s Whole Earth Catalog promoted rural communes -> 1980s The Well pioneered network communities -> 1990s Wired boosted dotcom capitalism. John Perry Barlow: Grateful Dead lyricist and Dick Cheney’s campaign manager. Right into Left: Jeffersonian democracy, the digital citizen and geek libertarianism.

Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron, The Californian Ideology (1995).
John Perry Barlow, A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace (1996).
Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture (2007).

Net as corporate capitalism: building infrastructure, business intranets, e-commerce and interactive media. The information superhighway: buying and selling information products as commodities. 1920s radio broadcasting = development path for 1990s Net: university and hobbyist stations -> corporate networks. Academic gift economy -> commercial commodity markets: AOL, MSN and Prodigy. Net as precursors of interactive television.

Ithiel de Sola Pool, The Technologies of Freedom (1983).
Bill Gates, The Road Ahead (1995).
Robert McChesney, Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy (1996).

“Free but not free.” Marc Andreeson (1995).
“Follow the free.” Kevin Kelly (1998)

1990 Tim Berners-Lee @ CERN (European Centre for Nuclear Research) wanted cross-platform information sharing -> 1992 html mark-up language and browser-editor -> 1993 Marc Andreeson @ NCSA (National Centre for Supercomputing Applications), University of Illinois created Mosaic browser -> 1994 Andreeson formed Netscape with Jim Clark from SGI and released Navigator 1.0 -> 1995 Netscape IPO -> Microsoft bundled Explorer 1.0 with Windows ’95 -> 7/12/95 memo: Bill Gates declared Netscape as Microsoft’s No. 1 enemy -> 1996 Netscape = 80% of browsers -> 1997 Explorer = 50% of browsers -> 1998 AOL bought Netscape -> 2000 Explorer = 90% of browsers.

Tim Berners-Lee with Mark Fischetti, Weaving the Web (1999).
Michael Cusamo and David Yoffie, Competing on Internet Time (1998).

Netscape as epitome of dotcom bubble: selling shares not products. The dream of being the next Microsoft: cutting edge technology -> natural monopoly. Tulipomania: dodgy accounting, insider dealing and day traders. Boo.com binge = 4 Cs: champagne, caviar, cocaine and Concorde. 107 months of dotcom bubble = longest boom in US history. 2001 share crash: e-Toys $80 -> 9c. Enron: smartest guys in the room -> massive bankruptcy -> executives imprisoned. Top website of 2001: www.fuckedcompany.com.

John Cassidy, dot.con: the greatest story ever sold (2002).
Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, The Smartest Guys in the Room (2004).

1970s Ted Nelson’s Xanadu Project: transclusion as information marketplace -> 1980s Silicon Valley model -> 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act and 2001 EU Copyright Directive. Net as P2P: Napster -> Kazaa -> Morpheus -> Pirate Bay. 1999 Wall Street Journal argued that music industry = handloom weavers of information economy. 2007 80% of music downloads = illegal. Michael Dertouzos of MIT Media Lab argued that copyright is over: entertainment = 5% of US economy v. office work = 50%. Net as community media: academics -> hobbyists -> amateurs. Net as DIY technology: open source, open architecture and open access. Linux and Firefox v. Windows and Explorer. Dotcom capitalism in the service of cybernetic communism: Google, MySpace, YouTube and Facebook. Free software and servers for DIY culture = big profits from advertising. Smashing the spectacle: revolutionary politics -> everyday activity. 2003 anti-war protests: mass collective intelligence v. government spin.

John Alderman, Sonic Boom (2001).
Richard Barbrook, The Hi-Tech Gift Economy (1998).
Eric Raymond, The Cathedral and the Bazaar (1998).

‘‘What are we fighting Communism for? We are the most Communist people in world history.” Marshall McLuhan (1969).

Romantic critique of industrialisation: oppressive, alienation, pollution and philistine. Alternatives to capitalism: Luddites -> Owenite agricultural colonies -> Cooperative Movement -> Guild Socialism. William Wordsworth = 1790s revolutionary republican -> 1843 Poet Laureate. Tory Radicalism: countryside = feudal hierarchy and religious order v. city = utilitarian individualism and social unrest. Gothic Revival: medieval beauty and craft skills v. utilitarian “uglification” and factory production. Mohandas Gandhi: moral Indian villages v. immoral British industrialism. German fascism: Aryan peasantry v. Jewish-Marxist workers.

John Ruskin, Unto This Last (1862)
William Morris, News from Nowhere (1890)
Walter Darre, A New Nobility of Blood and Soil (1929)

Malthusianism = liberal economics and social conservatism: geometrical growth in population v, arithmetical growth in agricultural production. Raising wages and providing welfare -> poor have more children -> overpopulation -> unemployment and starvation -> fall in population of poor.

Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)

Social Darwinism = “survival of the fittest” (Herbert Spencer). Biological determinism: 19th century laissez-faire economics -> 20th century racial imperialism. Cold War economics = rival models of industrial growth. Fordism: production for the sake of production. The affluent society: motor cars, suburban homes and television sets.

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962)

The downsides of agribusiness: DDT and other pesticides killing wildlife and entering food chain. 1960s anti-pollution campaigns -> 1970 US Environmental Protection Agency. Keynesian regulation of industrial waste: polluter pays; precautionary principle; and state-business cooperation.

“Why can’t we have blue skies over the Ruhr?” – Willy Brandt (1966)

1972 Club of Rome report: positive feedback loop of industrialisation -> negative feedback loop of ecological crisis. MIT computer model: falling infant mortality and longer life spans -> rapid growth of global population -> increased consumption of finite natural resources -> inflation in food and raw material prices -> falling profits on investment -> economic crisis -> industrial collapse -> fall in agricultural output -> mass starvation and welfare cuts -> more infant mortality and reduced life spans -> big drop in global population.

“Our world [computer] model was built specifically to investigate five major trends of global concern – accelerating industrialisation, rapid population growth, widespread malnutrition, depletion of natural resources, and a deteriorating environment.’ – Dennis Meadows et al, The Limits to Growth (1972)

MIT computer model = “Malthus in, Malthus out.” Chris Freeman (1973) Club of Rome forecast of raw materials inflation confirmed by 1974 Oil Crisis. Higher oil prices -> energy conservation -> investment in renewable energy. Eco-economic paradox of 1980s: Japan and Europe = higher energy costs and more economic growth v. USA/USSR = cheaper energy costs and lower economic growth. Discrediting of Club of Rome: 1970s raw materials cartels = higher prices -> 1980s neo-liberalism and new technology = 50% collapse in commodity prices. Neo-liberal environmentalism: “the market is an ecosystem just like the rain forest.” Kevin Kelly (1995). Private ownership = preservation of nature.

Garrett Hardin, Tragedy of the Commons (1968).

Market failure: prices can’t measure ecological damage. Neo-classical economics admits problem of externalities: hidden costs of production dumped on general public, environment and future generations. Short-term profits = long-term losses. 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: 2/3 of global natural resources already gone.

Soil erosion: 1930s US Dust Bowl -> 1950s Virgin Lands Project in Kazakhstan -> 2000s desertification in Africa, China and East Asia.

Overexploited fishing grounds: 1992 Newfoundland cod collapse -> 2000s EU fishing crisis.

Mass extinction: 25% of mammals and 33% of fish species are under threat.

Water deficits: over pumping of aquifers and river extraction in USA, Africa and East Asia.

Unsustainable cities: urban sprawl, commuting gridlock and obesity epidemic = 60% in USA and 50% in EU. World population: 1 billion in 1900 -> 6 billion in 2000. England = 50% urban in 1760 -> world = 50% urban in 2007.

Global warming: industrial carbon emissions x4 in 1950-2000 and deforestation in the South for agricultural land and wood products. Strange weather: major storms, droughts and flooding. Higher average temperature -> melting of Artic ice sheet -> rising sea levels -> threat to coastal cities and farmland. Nightmare scenario as Hollywood blockbuster: Roland Emmerich, The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Deep Greens, neo-luddism and anarcho-primitivism. 1960s hippie counter-culture: student protests -> rural commune movement -> New Age mysticism. Ecological crisis = Nature’s revenge on human hubris. Return to pre-agricultural hunter-gather societies = 90% cut in human population.

“The entire range of living matter on Earth from whales to viruses and from oaks to algae could be regarded as constituting a single living entity capable of maintaining the Earth’s atmosphere to suit its overall needs and endowed with faculties and powers far beyond those of its constituent parts…” James Lovelock, Gaia (1979).

John Zerzan, Future Primitive (1994)
Ted Kaczynski, The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future (1995).

Easter Island as historical symbol of ecological suicide: tropical forest with flourishing land and sea birds -> Polynesians arrive in 300 -> humans hunt wildlife and clear forest for agriculture -> trees = huts, canoes & transporting statues -> population explosion -> deforestation of island -> topsoil erosion, no fishing and statues can’t be erected -> starvation, war and cannibalism -> population collapse -> Europeans find near deserted island in 1722.

Jared Diamond, Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed (2005)

“I can’t stop wondering what were the words of the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree. Did he shout “jobs, not trees”? Did he invoke private property rights, a plea to keep big government of the chiefs off his back, the uncertainties behind the extrapolations of fear-mongering environmentalists, and technology’s power to somehow solve all problems?” – Jared Diamond, Ecological Collapses of Pre-industrial societies (2000).

The good example: 1950s CFCs in refrigerators and spray cans -> 1960s hole in ozone layer -> 1980s rise in skin cancer -> 1990s international ban on CFCs -> 2000s closing of ozone hole.

1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro: EU and South v. USA over climate change -> 1992 Climate Framework Convention -> 1997 Kyoto Protocol = stabilisation of greenhouse gas emissions -> 2007 UN Climate Panel -> Brown promises 50% cut by 2050.

Eco-taxes = fiscal signals for restructuring economy. 1990s EU states begin taxing “bads”: carbon emissions, traffic congestion, landfill and water pollution. Removing subsidies from intensive agriculture, private transport and polluting industries. Costing pollution: “cap and reduce” through tradable permits. Changing public behaviour: eco-labelling, media publicity and environmental campaigns. Eco-economics = state pricing of environmental externalities.

David Roodman, Natural Wealth of Nations (1998)

Alternative energy: windmills solar, tidal, geothermal and bio-fuels with hydrogen as storage medium.

Jeremy Rifkin, The Hydrogen Economy (2002)

Green economy for North: stable population, renewable energy, public transport waste recycling, organic agriculture, reforestation, fish farming, cuts in working week and community participation.

South v. North’s eco-imperialism: USA = 5% of global population and 25% of carbon emissions. Environmentalism = neo-Malthusian curbs on South’s economic modernisation. Industrialisation of North -> longer life span, health care and cheap food -> wealthier population -> environmental legislation -> falling pollution, reforestation, fish farming and wildlife protection. South must prioritise feeding poor and fighting disease not tackling global warming.

Bariloche Foundation, The Limits to Poverty (1974).
Bjorn Lomborg, The Sceptical Environmentalist (2001).

Sustainable development: 1984 World Commission on Environment and Development -> 1992 UNCED (UN Conference on Environment and Development) Agenda 21 -> 2005 Make Poverty History @ G8 Edinburgh.

Washington Consensus of 1990s founded upon the free flow of “hot money”: state capital -> finance capital.

Different forms of money: exchange -> store of wealth -> capital = money making money. Pre-modern economies: wealth as flocks and land -> wealth as taxes and rents. Moral economy: local markets = selling agricultural surplus and buying luxuries -> merchant capital = buying cheap in one place and selling dear in another. Long distance trade: profiting from connecting separated local markets: the Silk Route and the Spice Trade. Merchant families and trading peoples lived inside a subsistence agricultural economy. Religious taboos against usury: Catholic prohibition and Sharia law = protecting the feudal moral economy. Money lending delegated to a pariah group: Jews in Europe and Armenians in Caliphate. Anti-semitism = “socialism of fools” (August Bebel).

Money = universal commodity. Money as measure of social wealth: cattle -> grain -> precious items -> metal currency. State power = market peace: royal coins and civil law (Eugeny Pashukanis). Evil rulers = clipped coins and insecure property. Bastard feudalism = rent in kind -> money rents. Absolute monarchy = feudal host -> professional army. Proto-industrialism = just prices and artisan production -> market prices and factory production. Transition to modernity: direct dependence -> indirect dependence.

“He must be rich or poor according to the quantity of labour which he can afford to purchase.” Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776).

Max Weber: modernisation = predatory capital -> productive capital. Capitalist version of pre-modern imperialism: tax revenues -> professional military -> territorial expansion -> more taxes. 16th and 17th century Spanish and Portuguese conquest of Central and Latin America = looting -> mining -> agricultural rents. British empire: Caribbean slave plantations -> Indian Raj -> Scramble for Africa. 1940s Nazi Germany looting European and Russian conquests.

Productive capital = exploitation by force -> exploitation by consent. Capitalism = “community of money” (Karl Marx). 15th century Renaissance Italy: merchant princes, banking houses, double-entry bookkeeping, bills of exchange, heroic artists and humanist philosophy. 16th century Dutch Golden Age: nation state, insurance markets, joint-stock companies, financial speculation, printing presses and puritan morality. 17th century English Revolution = political revolution -> financial revolution -> industrial revolution. Liberal individualism destroys monarchical absolutism: Whig oligarchy, commercial media and Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment. End of ban on usury: Bank of England, Lloyd’s and Royal Exchange. Rise of agribusiness: land enclosures, day labourers and agricultural improvement. Emergence of proto-industrialism: mechanical power, factory workers and scientific innovation.

“Private vice is public gain.” Bernard de Mandeville, Fable of the Bees (1714).

Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Pristine Culture of Capitalism (1991).
Fernand Braudel, The Wheels of Commerce (1985).

Money as finance capital = liquid and abstract v. money as industrial capital = concrete and fixed. Market freedom and consumer choice -> factory discipline and exploited workers. Adam Smith: profits = rewards for investment -> David Ricardo: profits = deduction from wages -> neo-classical orthodoxy: profits = reward for “abstinence” from consumption. Finance capital: mobilisation of surplus social wealth for investment in industrial production. Family firm -> joint-stock company -> Fordist corporation = separation of owner/rentier v. manager/entrepreneur Rudolf Hilferding; Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means). Stock markets = buying and selling claims to profits from dividends and capital gains. Equalisation of rate of profit between different sectors of production = driving force of scientific innovation by redistributing wealth from labour intensive firms -> capital intensive firms. Bond markets = buying and selling claims to tax revenues. Equalisation of income from different financial investments = individual indifference to sources of social wealth. Commodity fetishism: social relations between people mediated through money and capital.

Karl Marx, Capital Volumes 1-3 (1867-94)
Alain Lipietz, The Enchanted World (1985).

1815-1914 Gold Standard = self-correcting regulatory mechanism for global economy. Too many imports and too few exports -> trade deficits -> outflow of gold -> scarcity of credit -> higher interest rates -> economic recession -> business bankruptcies and rising unemployment -> price cuts and falling wages -> reduction of imports and increase in exports -> inflow of gold -> trade balance -> economic prosperity. Imperialism of free trade: Spanish rule over Latin America = direct exploitation -> 1820s wars of independence -> voluntary submission to British domination = indirect exploitation. British empire: global liberal economics still needs nation state violence. Gunboat diplomacy to open up foreign markets: 1838-42 & 1856-60 Opium Wars v. China. Armed expeditions to intimidate debt defaulters: 1882 invasion of Egypt. Military mobilisation to secure gold supply: 1899-1902 conquest of the Boer Republics.

1914 = collapse of Gold Standard -> 1914-8 = credit money -> wartime inflation -> 1918-29 = failure to resurrect Gold Standard. 1924 Dawes Plan: American loans money to Germany -> Germany pays war reparations to France and Britain -> France and Britain pay off war debts to America. 1925 British return to Gold Standard = economic deflation -> 1926 General Strike -> 1931 abandonment of Gold Standard. Roaring Twenties in USA: 1920s property and share speculation -> 1929 Wall Street Crash -> 1930s Great Depression = global market -> state planning. Eclipse of US finance capital: New Deal regulation of banking sector and 1929 share prices only recovered in 1954.

J.M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill (1926).
J.K. Galbraith, The Great Crash 1929 (1954).

1944 Bretton Woods Agreement = US supervision of global financial system. British empire -> American empire = Gold Standard -> Dollar supremacy. National credit money convertible at fixed rate into international currency: dollar/gold. US regulated global financial markets: too many imports and too few exports -> trade deficits -> outflow of dollars -> scarcity of credit -> IMF loans -> economic modernisation and currency devaluation -> increase in exports -> inflow of dollars -> trade balance -> affluent society. Building the dollar zone = US loans for US exports: 1947 Marshall Aid in Europe -> USAID to South. Dollar power in 1956 Suez Crisis = disciplining disobedient Britain and France. Collapse of Bretton Woods Agreement: 1965 American invasion of Vietnam -> US public deficits -> US trade deficits -> foreign dollar holdings -> global inflation -> outflow of US gold -> 1971 breaking dollar/gold convertibility -> floating currencies -> 1974 Oil Shock -> 1970s stagflation = Crisis of Fordism.

Michel Aglietta, A Theory of Capitalist Regulation (1976)
Alain Lipietz, Mirages and Miracles (1987)

The monetary counter-revolution: fixed exchange rates and regulated financial markets -> floating exchange rates and offshore banking business. Dollar seniorage: US deficits = inflationary in 1960s/1970s -> global effective demand in 1980s/1990s. The dominance of Wall Street -> revival of the City of London: 1960s Eurodollar markets -> 1970s recycling oil rents -> 1986 Big Bang deregulation -> 1990s neo-liberal globalisation -> 2006 City overtakes Wall Street. Exclusive services: nominee holdings, political corruption, tax havens, property speculation and money laundering. 24/7 banking: New York-London-Tokyo handover, removal of capital controls, computer trading, 1979-87 Margaret Thatcher as prophet of TINA (there is no alternative): Washington Consensus, the End of History, McKinsey management theory, yuppie entrepreneurs and the masters of the universe. The neo-liberal paradigm: liquid global financial capital rules over fixed national industrial capital. The tyranny of hot money: decline in profits -> outflow of foreign capital -> currency collapse -> IMF intervention -> debt dependency -> privatisation and deregulation -> reduction in welfare and wages -> rising profits -> inflow of foreign capital. The race to the bottom: outsourcing, tax holidays, anti-union laws and sweat shops. Global bankocracy: manufacturing in South -> profits in North.

Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1999)
Jeffrey Robinson, The Sink: how banks, lawyers and accountants finance terrorism and crime – and why governments can’t stop them (2003).
John Gray, False Dawn: the delusions of global capitalism (1998)

Neo-liberal instability: declining profits in industry -> rise of financial speculation. US financial sector = 5% of investment in 1980 -> 40% in 2007. Risk management: futures, derivatives and bundling. Keynesianism = state guarantees the future -> neo-liberalism = financial market guarantees the future (Dick Bryan). 1996-2001 dotcom bubble: venture capital -> vapourware -> IPO. Financial crisis as neo-liberal discipline: 1982 monetarist shock -> 1997 East Asian financial crisis -> 1998 Russian financial collapse -> 2001 Argentina = pegging currency to dollar -> looting of savings by financial institutions. Washington Consensus blames crony capitalism and state controls in South. Crony capitalism in North: 1998 Long-Term Capital Management bailout and 2001 Enron bankruptcy. US wages stagnant while profits rising = lack of effective demand -> financialisation of everyday life: mortgages, credit cards and student fees. 20% of US workers’ incomes = debt financing. Credit crunch 2007-8 = crisis of Anglo-Saxon capitalism: Northern Rock -> Bear Stearns -> Lehman Brothers -> IndyMac -> Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac -> Lehman Brothers -> Washington Mutual, Merrill Lynch & AIG -> HBOS -> $700 billion bail-out.

Dick Bryan and Michael Rafferty, The Capitalism with Derivatives (2006).
Robert Brenner, The Boom and the Bubble (2002).

Revival of managed capitalism in South: 1997 China and Malaysia escape crisis -> 2000 Vladimir Putin takes over Russia. The pink tide in Latin America: 1998 Venezuela -> 2003 Brazil -> 2002 Argentina -> 2006 Bolivia -> 2007 Ecuador -> Paraguay 2008. Mercosur trade bloc and trade with China. The return of Keynesianism in USA & Europe: nationalisation and regulation of banks -> public works and tax cuts -> lower interest rates and printing money.

Nigel Harris, The End of the Third World (1987)
Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism (2007).

British empire in 1900s = rentier economy. American empire in 2000s = money-dealer economy. The threat to dollar seniorage = emergence of alternative global currency: 1944 Bretton Woods rejection of bancor -> 2002 launch of euro -> 2008 G20 meeting. US government and trade deficits -> credit crunch -> bigger deficits and falling interest rates -> declining dollar -> flight into euro, yen and yuan -> stagflation in USA -> declining US wages and profits -> fall in US imports -> global deflation -> European Central Bank and/or World Central Bank create effective demand -> EU trade deficits and/or World Bank prints money -> global economic recovery -> seniorage of euro or new global currency.

1776 American Revolution = Whigs v. Tories in Britain. The fatal flaw of American liberalism: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison are Southern slave-owners. “The heroes of Africa persecuted by the rubbish of the jails of Europe.” (Adam Smith) South = free trade, agriculture and slave labour. North = protectionism, industry and free labour.

Charles Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913).

Jeffersonian democracy -> Andrew Jackson’s Democratic Party: agricultural interest alliance of Southern slave-owners and Western farmers. Manifest Destiny: ethnic cleansing of indigenous population -> cheap land for family farms and slave plantations. American continental expansion: 1803 Louisiana Purchase -> 1832-7 Seminole War -> 1836 Texas secession -> 1846-8 American-Mexican War. The American Dream: individualist, pious and self-sufficient Western pioneers.

Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893).

1861-5 American Civil War: North/free labour v. South/slave labour over who controls the Western frontier. “A house divided against itself cannot stand” Abraham Lincoln (1858). Abolitionist movement -> 1854-8 Kansas land war -> John Brown’s 1859 Harper’s Ferry raid -> 1860 US presidential election -> 1860-1 secession of slave-owning states -> 1862 Emancipation Proclamation -> 1865 13th Amendment.

Gilded Age 1870s-1900s. Closing of Western frontier in 1890. Reconstruction = Jim Crow laws for South and economic protectionism for the North. Second Industrial Revolution: armaments, chemicals, steel, electrification, telephones and petrol engines. The “robber barons”, Wall Street bankers and the 200 families: John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and Henry Ford. Poverty of immigrant urban masses v. conspicuous consumption of WASP business elite.

Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899).

US economy as pioneer of Fordism: finance capital, bureaucratic corporation, horizontal & vertical integration, time & motion studies, semi-skilled labour, assembly line production, scientific research, mass marketing and franchise operations. Thomas Edison/Menlo Park and AT&T/Bell Labs.

Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (1911).
Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932).

Yankee imperialism: 1823 Monroe Doctrine -> 1898 Spanish-American War: conquest of Cuba, Philippines and Puerto Rico -> 1902-14 construction of Panama Canal -> 1912 occupation of Nicaragua.

“Speak softly and wield a big stick” US President Theodore Roosevelt (1901).

The First War of the British Succession (Immanuel Wallerstein). 1914: British empire = No. 1 global producer -> 1918: USA = No. 1 global producer. House of Morgan = monopoly of British war bonds in USA. Woodrow Wilson: 1916 peace candidate -> 1917 declaration of war -> 1918 Treaty of Versailles -> 1919 League of Nations. Wilsonian idealism = dollar diplomacy.

Woodrow Wilson and 14 Points = US-led global liberalism v. V.I. Lenin and 3rd International = Russian-inspired revolutionary nationalism.

Wilson’s failure to rebuild world market: American elite rejects League of Nations and war reparations destabilise Germany.

John Maynard Keynes, Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919).

Roaring Twenties in USA: liberalism at home and isolationism abroad. The 1st consumer society: automobiles, movies, fridges and wireless. 1924-9 mass speculation in bubble stocks.

“The chief business of the American people is business” US President Calvin Coolidge (1925).

1929 Wall Street Crash -> 1930s Great Depression. Fordist crisis of overproduction & underconsumption: collapse in stock prices -> monetary deflation -> falling sales -> lower prices -> decline in tax receipts -> government spending cuts -> increase in business bankruptcies -> rising unemployment -> bank failures -> breakdown of world market -> mass poverty -> social unrest -> fascism, war and genocide.

1933-45 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 1933-7 New Deal = rising working class living standards as creation of “effective demand” through welfare Keynesianism: deficit spending, banking regulation, price controls, public infrastructure investment, job creation schemes, social security, import tariffs and trade union recognition. Tennessee Valley Authority builds Hoover dam: nationalised industry as hi-tech economic icon.

The Second War of the British Succession = warfare as creation of “effective demand” through military Keynesianism. 1939-40 Armed Neutrality -> 1941 Lend Lease Act -> 1941 Pearl Harbour -> 1941-5 USA & Britain & Russia & China v. Japan & Germany & Italy. American lorries, aluminium and canned food speed up Russian victory over Nazi Germany. 1941 Manhattan Project -> 1945 nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: nationalised industry as hi-tech military icon.

1944 Yalta Agreement: fall of British empire -> condominium of American and Russian empires. 1945 United Nations -> 1948-9 Berlin blockade -> 1949 NATO -> 1949 formal division of Germany into BDR and DDR -> 1955 Warsaw Pact -> 1961 Berlin Wall.

“I like Germany so much that I’m glad that there’s two of them.”

1944 Bretton Woods Conference: collapse of British world market -> construction of US-led world market. Rejection of Keynes’ proposal for World Central Bank and Bancor as global currency -> US insistence on dollar supremacy: IMF (International Monetary Fund), International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) and GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). 1947 Marshall Aid -> 1948 WEU (Western European Union) -> 1951 European Coal and Steel Community -> 1957 Treaty of Rome sets up European Economic Community.

Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, The American Challenge (1967).

American liberalism: planned capitalism at home and free trade abroad. Big government and big business = rational and efficient management of “technostructure” (J.K. Galbraith). Econometrics, cost-benefit analysis and computer modelling: US economy as programmable machine. The Affluent Society = welfare Keynesianism and warfare Keynesianism.

“History is likely to impose a larger version of [American] continental politics as a working basis for international life.” W.W. Rostow (1960).

Cold War: peace in Europe = conflict in South. 1949 Chinese Revolution: nationalist peasant revolution v. US-led world market. CIA ‘dirty tricks’: 1948 Italian and French elections -> 1953 Iran -> 1954 Guatemala -> 1960 Congo. Extending NATO across the South: Rio Pact, ANZUS, SEATO, CENTO and Baghdad Pact. Walt Rostow, Peace Corps and MIT modernisation theory: Communism = “disease of the transition to industrialism”. South must follow American path of economic development. USA v. 1959 Cuban Revolution: 1961 Bay of Pigs -> 1964 military coup in Brazil -> 1967 execution of Che Guevara -> 1973 military coup in Chile -> 1976 military coup in Argentina.

“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its people.” Henry Kissinger (1973)

Vietnam: 1954 Geneva Agreement -> 1965 American invasion -> 1968 Tet Offensive -> 1975 liberation of Saigon. The electronic battlefield: search & destroy, body counts and mass bombing. Loss of US government’s ‘credibility’: military defeat in Vietnam -> political and economic crisis at home. New Left, black power & hippie counterculture v. military-industrial complex. The crisis of global Fordism: inflation -> social discontent -> dollar crisis -> 1971 collapse of Bretton Woods -> 1974 Oil Shock. The commodity cartels: OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) -> UN New World Economic Order. Worker-student rebellion: May ‘68 Revolution in France, 1972/4 miners’ strikes in Britain and 1977 ‘Hot Autumn’ in Italy.

The Empire Strikes Back: 1976 Angola -> 1979 Afghanistan -> 1981 Nicaragua -> 1981 Iraq invades Iran. Thatcher in Britain and Gladio/P2 in Italy: “there is no alternative”. The Second Cold War: Cruise missiles, Star Wars, Mujahideen and Contras. The End of History: 1989-91 collapse of Stalinism in Russia and Eastern Europe -> reunification of the world market. The Washington Consensus: Arab oil rents -> US banks -> loans to South and East -> 1982 monetarist shock -> IMF intervention -> privatisation, deregulation and free trade. Brazilianisation of South = First World elite and Third World masses. 1980s and 1990s = “lost decades” in Latin America.

Francis_Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (1992).
John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004).

NICs (Newly Industrialising Countries): 1960s Japan -> 1970s Taiwan -> 1980s South Korea -> 1990s China -> 2000s India. State-directed export-orientated industrialisation within the world market. Fordism in South: authoritarian government, national planning, industrial/financial cartels, capital controls, anti-union laws, technical education and scientific research. EPZs (Export Processing Zones): “Bloody Taylorism” -> local manufacturers -> multinational corporations.

Reaganomics: public deficits, tax reductions, welfare cuts and military spending. Industrialisation in East Asia = deindustrialisation in the USA. American working class incomes stagnate 1974-96. Rustbelt industrial companies (steel, cars and clothing) -> Silicon Valley post-industrial companies (computing, media and finance). Brand labels: subcontracting of manufacture to South -> management, research, design and marketing in North. Wall Street: USA as rentier nation within global economy. Seniorage: dollar as world currency -> US consumer debt and public deficits = effective demand for Asian and European exporters.

Neo-liberal globalisation: 1994 TRIPS (intellectual property) -> 1995 WTO (World Trade Organisation) -> 1995-8 MAI (Multinational Agreement on Investment). Multinational corporations and financial institutions = crony capitalism, corporate welfare and tax avoidance. 1999 Battle of Seattle: ‘Turtles and Teamsters’ v. WTO -> World Social Forum and global justice movement.

Alain Lipietz, Miracles and Mirages: the crises of global Fordism (1987).
Naomi Klein, No Logo (2000).

1995-2001 dotcom bubble: the new paradigm, IPOs (Initial Public Offering) and the weightless economy. US financial markets = prototype of worldwide on-line marketplace. Bay Area start-ups = digital perfection of free market capitalism. Neo-liberal ideology founded upon US military budget.

“Promoted in magazines, books, TV programmes, websites, newsgroups and Net conferences, the Californian Ideology promiscuously combines the free-wheeling spirit of the hippies and the entrepreneurial zeal of the yuppies. This amalgamation of opposites has been achieved through a profound faith in the emancipatory potential of the new information technologies.” Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron (1995).

John Cassidy, dot.con: the greatest story ever sold, (2002).

2001 dotcom crash -> 9/11 Al-Qaeda attacks v. USA -> US invasion of Afghanistan -> 2003 US invasion of Iraq. War on Terror = military Keynesianism at home and show of force abroad. Axis of Evil = rogue states (Iraq, Iran and North Korea) v. the international community (USA and its allies). Neo-conservative lobby = American imperial unilateralism: hi-tech weaponry -> military invincibility -> pro-US Middle East. Portents of the new Time of Troubles: defeat in Iraq, Chinese industrialisation, ‘pink tide’ in Latin America, creation of euro, New Orleans flood, sub-prime mortgage debts, falling dollar, trade deficits, healthcare costs and anti-Americanism.

Relative decline of US manufacturing compared to Europe and East Asia: 1945 = 50% of world industry -> 45% in 1955 -> 30% in 1980 -> 20% in 2005. Conservative Keynesianism: diversion of public spending into warfare rather than welfare. USA = 50% of global military spending. Imperial overstretch: American empire in early-21st century = British empire in early-20th century. Asian savings finance American deficits. The US credit crunch as the crisis of rentier capitalism: “The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers is to the American empire what the fall of the Berlin Wall was to the Soviet Union.”

Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers (1987)
Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civlisations (1996)

November 2008 = election of Barack Obama as US president and G20 meeting to plan for a reformed world financial system. “The Asian creditor nations – China, Japan and India – will write the new rules of the game for their American and European borrowers.” – Meghnad Desai

In the 21st century, does the world system still need a Universal State to rule over it?

The Levellers and the 1647 Putney Debates: male suffrage; parliamentary democracy, political rights; and religious toleration. Oliver Cromwell as republican monarch 1649-53: liberalism at home and imperialism overseas. The consolidation of the British Empire: conquests of Scotland 1650-1; Ireland 1649-50; and Jamaica 1655 -> victory in the 1st Anglo-Dutch War 1652-54.

The 1688 Glorious Revolution: the crowned republic. Liberal politics: the prime minister, the Whig oligarchy and 1689 Bill of Rights. Liberal economics: the foundation of Lloyds in 1688 and the Bank of England in 1694. Liberal culture: Isaac Newton; the Royal Society; and freemasonry.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan. (1651). John Locke, Two Treatises on Government, (1689). David Hume, The History of England. (1754).

The two models of British imperialism: Ireland and Jamaica. The Cromwellian Settlement in Ireland: dispossession of indigenous population -> cheap land for English farmers. Catholic land ownership falls from 2/3 to less than 1/5 in 17th century Ireland. The Cromwellian Settlement in Jamaica: dispossession of indigenous population -> cheap land for slave plantations. British colonies in America: North = Irish model and South = Jamaican model. King Philip’s War 1675-6: ethnic cleansing of New England.

Britain rules the waves: the Royal Navy secured monopoly over the slave trade; Caribbean and American colonies produced sugar, tobacco, coffee and cotton; London acted as financial and commercial hub of Atlantic economy. 18th century London was largest city in most urban country in the world. Slavery in colonies = liberalism in England: free speech; religious toleration; and public sphere.

The development of underdevelopment: imperialism in the South as the precondition of the industrial revolution in the North. Colonial profits created rapid economic growth and technological innovation in Europe. Caribbean plantation owners funded James Watt’s invention of the steam engine.

Andre Gundar Frank, Sociology of Development and Underdevelopment of Sociology, (1971). Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, (1972)

The 1756-63 Seven Years’ War = 1st world war (Winston Churchill). Prussia v. Austria fighting for control of Silesia -> British v. French struggling for global dominance. British propaganda = Protestantism and liberalism against Catholicism and mercantilism. The two key British victories: the 1757 Battle of Plassey in South Asia and the 1759 Battle of the Plains of Abraham in North America.

The irony of history: victory over France leads to fall of 1st British empire. 1775-83 American Revolutionary War: “no taxation without representation”. Liberalism in England -> independence in America. Tom Paine, Common Sense. (1776) Thomas Jefferson, The American Declaration of Independence. (1776) “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” = minimal government, the rule of law and laissez-faire economics. The other irony of history: Jefferson was a slave owner. Freedom for white folks = slavery for black people. John Miller, The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery, (1977).

1789 French Revolution -> 1806 Continental System: blockade of British goods from other European markets. Royal Navy & British bribes v. Grande Armée & French terror. 1805 Battle of Trafalgar is more decisive than Battle of Austerlitz. 1808 invasion of Spain and 1812 invasion of Russia -> overthrow of Napoléon in 1814-5. Simón Bolívar and 1813-25 Latin American Wars of Independence. Final triumph of “imperialism of free trade” over military mercantilism.

British Abolitionism: slave rebellions; liberal economics; Christian morality; Napoleonic wars; and anti-Americanism. The 1807 Slave Trade Act -> 1833 Slavery Abolition Act. Royal Navy: protector to opponent of Atlantic slave trade. Compensation for slave-owners not slaves.

The white colonies: Canada; Australia; and New Zealand. Conquest -> settlement -> self-rule within British empire. Economic dependence limited political independence. Colonies exported agricultural products and raw materials in exchange for industrial goods from British factories.

The British empire as epitome of modernity for rest of world. Economic hegemony: the Gold Standard; the City of London; Manchester cotton factories; 1851 Great Exhibition. Cultural hegemony: English language; Shakespeare; the novel; common law; the suit; Darwinism and football.

Bill Warren, Imperialism: pioneer of capitalism. (1980)

“Whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that [social] revolution.” Karl Marx, ‘British Rule in India’. (1853)

The 2nd British empire = East India Company 1660-1858. Trading monopoly -> imperial power. Importing Indian cotton -> exporting British cotton. Industrialisation in England = deindustrialisation of India. The conquest of Bengal and Mysore: 1757 victory at Plassey -> defeat of Tipu Sultan in 1799. Profits from trade -> profits from taxation. East India Company = private colonial power. Bribery and corruption of British politicians prevented parliamentary oversight. Desire for money and glory led to creeping colonisation. British cartoon on 1843 conquest of Sindh: ‘Peccavi’. 1857 Sepoy Revolt = 1st Indian War of Independence. 1858: abolition of East India Company -> creation of British Raj. Collapse of “imperialism of free trade” -> imposition of direct political rule. Acquiring colonies created markets for British firms. Financial investments overseas paid for imports of foreign goods and services.

The British empire = “the empire upon which the sun never sets.” The largest empire in human history: ¼ of global population and ¼ of world’s surface area. The Scramble for Africa: 1882 conquest of Egypt -> 1896-8 occupation of Sudan -> 1880-1 1st Boer War -> 1889-1902 2nd Boer War -> 1901 control over Nigeria. Indian model of British imperialism: white elite; institutionalised racism; local landlord allies; military force; professional civil service; economic protectionism; exploitation of raw materials; heavy taxation of the peasantry; rule of law; puritan morality; team sports; cultural philistinism. Victoria the Queen-Empress as icon of British empire; the Home Counties as the rentiers of the world; and the cult of the English gentlemen.

J.A. Hobson, Imperialism. (1902) Great Britain: 50% of global industry -> 50% of global finance. World system: single global market -> rival imperial powers.

H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, (1898): Martians do to the English what the English had done to the rest of the world. The human cost of the Atlantic slave trade (3 million) and the Irish famine (1 million dead).

August 1914: the arrival of the Time of Troubles which would lead to the birth of a new Universal State.

1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, London, as the high point of liberalism: steam engines; telegraphy; “perpetual peace”; gold standard; Royal Navy; imperialism of free trade.

August 1914: the collapse of the Victorian world system. The Universal State -> the Time of Troubles (Arnold Toynbee, The Study of History). The decline of Britain leads to the rivalry of Germany v. USA to become the new Universal State.

V.I. Lenin, Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism. (1916) The First World War is caused by the export of capital and rivalry for foreign markets. Capitalism is permanent war between the great powers.

October 1917 Russian Revolution is “the revolution against Capital.” (Antonio Gramsci) The election of the Constituent Assembly -> the rule of the vanguard party; war production -> War Communism; the militarisation of politics -> the militarisation of labour; one party rule -> one man management. State capitalism, Taylorism and the factory society. Nikolai Bukharin and Eugeni Preobrazhensky, The ABC of Communism. (1920)

“I have seen the future and it works.” Lincoln Steffens (1920). The breakdown of the world market -> the rise of national autarchy. The Russian empire -> the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Socialism in One Country: state capitalism; central planning; nationalisation; protectionism; literacy campaigns; modernist art; feminism; anti-clericalism. The 1928-9 “scissors crisis”: too expensive industrial goods and low prices for agricultural products. The solution of Joseph Stalin: forced collectivisation; rapid industrialisation; slave labour; the Great Purge; ideological uniformity. Feudalism -> totalitarianism -> utopia. The Great Patriotic War 1941-5. The Russian becomes 2nd nuclear power in 1949.

Mao Zedong, Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society. (1927). Chinese Communist Party: defeat in the cities -> guerrilla warfare in the countryside. 1949 Revolution is the precursor of the world revolution of the peasantry in the South. Peasant communes, self-sufficiency and the Yenan model v. American imperialism, Russian revisionism and “the capitalist roaders”. William Hinton, Fanshen. (1966) The 1958-60 Great Leap Forward and the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. Che Guevara, guerrilla focos and the 1959 Cuban Revolution. The Vietnamese war of independence against French and American occupation 1945-75.

Rudolf Hilferding, Finance Capital. (1910) Liberal capitalism -> organised capitalism -> proletarian communism. The boom-and-bust business cycle: overproduction of capital and underconsumption of the workers -> the problem of “effective demand”. The 1929 Wall Street Crash and the 1930s Great Depression. Capitalism = poverty, unemployment, fascism, war and genocide. Social Democracy = the third way between liberalism and totalitarianism.

The rise of the welfare state: mixed economy; health care; education; culture; housing; transport. The “exercise of power” -> “the conquest of power” (Léon Blum) 1930s capitalist statism: British Conservatives; German Nazis; Japanese militarists. Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal in the USA. Michael Kalecki: welfare or warfare = rival solutions to the lack of “effective demand”.

John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. (1936) Reforms without revolution: pump-priming, the multiplier effect, public spending. Liberalism -> Fordism. Small firms and minimal state -> big business and big government. Second World War -> Cold War: the welfare-warfare state. The USA = the Third Way between chaotic markets and totalitarian planning. J.K. Galbraith, The Affluent Society. (1958)

W.W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: a non-communist manifesto. (1960) Traditional society -> “take-off” -> industrial society -> mass consumption society. US president John F. Kennedy’s government: “the best & the brightest”. The American economy is a programmable machine.

Bretton Woods: fixed currencies; IMF; World Bank: BIS; GATT. MIT modernisation theory: the Alliance for Progress, the Peace Corps and counter-insurgency. The North today is the South tomorrow.

The 1965 American invasion of Vietnam -> 1971 dollar inconvertibility -> 1974 Oil Shock -> the liberation of Saigon 30/04/1975. Stagflation and the crisis of Fordism -> the rise of Neo-liberalism.

Austro-Marxism v. the Austrian School in the land of Catholic fascism. Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: a treatise on economics. (1940) The “calculation debate”: state planning is irrational and wasteful -> market prices optimise the allocation of scare resources. War and socialism v. liberty and liberalism.

Friedrich von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom. (1944) Welfare spending is precursor of totalitarian repression. Freedom is spontaneous order of atomised individuals trading in the marketplace. Prices are information. Minimal state, limited democracy and the rule of law.

Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. (1942) Capitalism = “creative destruction”. Entrepreneurs innovate new techniques and new technologies within the economy. Desire for increased profits = discovery of more efficient allocation of the factors of production.

The Chicago School; Milton Friedman; George Gilder. National autarchy -> global marketplace. Bretton Woods -> floating currencies. Monetarism v. inflation. Unemployment v. labour unrest. Tax cuts v. welfare spending. Entrepreneurs v. activists. Privatisation v. nationalisation. Free trade v. protectionism.

Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet 1973-90; British prime minister Margaret Thatcher 1979-90; US president Ronald Reagan 1981-89. Strong state and free market. The end of the Cold War 1991 -> the epoch of globalisation. Russia and China take the capitalist road. The NICs of South East Asia. The Washington consensus: IMF and World Bank impose free movement of capital and privatisation on the South. Crony capitalism and off-shore banking business. The Silicon Valley model: information technologies; start-ups; IPOs; dotcom capitalism.

VC = Vietcong -> venture capitalist.

The Credit Crunch: Enron & WorldCom -> Bear Sterns -> Lehman Brothers -> the $500 billion bank bail-out. October 2008: Alan Greenspan (ex-head of US Federal Reserve Bank) admits that there could be something wrong with his ideology.

Feudalism is the aristocracy appropriating the agricultural surplus of the peasantry. Money is for fighting wars, saving souls and buying luxuries. The measure of wealth is the number of dependents: soldiers, servants, priests and entertainers.

The aristocratic household is the prototype of the national economy. The King is the top warrior. The Pope is the top priest. The Caliph is both. Bastard feudalism: the monetarisation of labour dues and payments in kind. Trading monopolies and commercial privileges. The measure of wealth is the amount of gold in the royal treasury.

The Physiocrats in late-18th century France: François Quesnay and Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot. Economic policies to aid agricultural production: low taxes, minimum regulation and efficient bureaucracy. The cities are parasitical on the countryside. The measure of wealth is the size of the grain harvest.

Liberalism: England is the first industrial nation. The 1707 Act of Union turns England and Scotland into Great Britain. The Scottish Enlightenment pioneers the materialist conception of history. Adam Smith’s theory of historical evolution: hunting -> herding -> agriculture -> commerce.

Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations Volume 1 & Volume 2. (1776)

The factory is the division of labour. The market is the distribution of labour. The specialisation of individual tasks underpins the collectivisation of the economic production. Aristocrats and servants are unproductive labour. Slavery is an anachronism. Artisans and farmers are productive labour. Free trade is choosing your own trade. The “hidden hand” of the market turns private ambition into public benefit. Liberalism is market competition, minimum government and the rule of law. The independent citizen is a bourgeois property-owner. The measure of wealth is the output of human labour.

David Ricardo, The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. (1817)

Ricardo is an immigrant Londoner banker: Portuguese Jew into English Quaker. The countryside is parasitical on the cities. Rent is a deduction from profits and wages. The benefits of free trade inside a national economy are amplified with the world economy. The comparative advantage of nations is the distribution of labour on a global scale. Portugal sells port to the English to pay for its imports of English manufactured goods. The Atlantic triangle: England sells cotton and weapons to buy sugar and tobacco -> West Africa sells slaves to buy cotton and weapons -> the Caribbean sells sugar and tobacco to buy slaves. English merchants profit at each point in the triangular transaction.

The 1776 American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson and the Democrats: minimum state, free trade, agriculture and slavery. Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists: strong state, protectionism, industry and wage labour.

The 1789 French Revolution. Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, What is the Third Estate? The Girondins are liberals: constitutional monarchy, limited suffrage and free trade. Men with property are the shareholders of the nation. Saint-Domingue is the richest colony of France. The Jacobins are democrats: the republic, male suffrage and protectionism. Men without property are citizens of the republic. Toussaint L’Ouverture and the 1791 Haitian Revolution. C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins. Revolutionary war as national autarchy: the maximum, forced requisitions and state industries. Gracchus Babeuf and the 1797 Conspiracy of Equals. Revolutionary war as foreign plunder: Napoléon Bonaparte as Emperor of the French 1804-1814/1815, the Continental System, the 1812 invasion of Russia.

Friedrich List, The National System of Political Economy. (1841). Free trade is British rule over the global economy. Political independence requires economic independence. Protectionism, state regulation and class harmony. Georg Hegel, The Philosophy of Right. (1821) The state bureaucracy as the universal class.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto. (1848) The pamphlet was launched at the Red Lion pub, Great Windmill Street in Soho. The red republicans: Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Henri Saint-Simon and Auguste Blanqui. The manifesto of the 1848 Revolutions: feudalism -> liberalism -> democracy -> socialism. The workers and capitalists against the aristocrats and clergy evolves into the workers against the bourgeoisie. Democracy is the precondition of socialism in politics: the 1871 Paris Commune, the British Labour Party, the French Socialist Party and the German Social Democratic Party. Liberalism is the precondition of socialism in the economy: the cooperative commonwealth. Capitalist globalisation is the precondition of world socialism: the 1st and 2nd Internationals.

Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 1. (1867): surplus value, business cycles, new technologies and commodity fetishism. Unalienated labour is self-expression. Paul Lafargue, The Right to be Lazy. (1883) The measure of wealth is free time.