Adam Stevens wrote:
> Do you mean that global capital, as an "institution" is older than the
nation-state? Spain and/or France of the late 15th century are usually
regarded as the first modern nation-states, and it doesn't seem to me that
there was anything that far back that could be considered global capital --
at least as I understand it. In fact, it seems to me that it was the power
of the nation-state (specifically its military power) that allowed capital
to spread beyond local boundaries. Was that not what mercantilism was
about - using the military power of the state to accumulate wealth?<
neither spain nor france in the 15th century had citizens or purported to represent the spanish of french _people_. they had subjects. a quite different formation to what i would call the nation-state. in any event, it's one thing to say there is money, trade, the accumulation of wealth, etc, quite another to say there is capitalism, that is, that capital (surplus value) is definitive to the organisation and reproduction of social relationships.
>Angela wrote:
>>any benefits derived from so-called local control
>>of economic policy are and always have been premised on the exploitation
>>and immiseration of people, resources, etc in other places. it's always
>>been a question of a global division of the spoils.>
>That's a broad generalization. There are many cases where nation-states
have been controlled (at least temporarily) by progressive forces who used
the power of the state for the economic and social benefit of its
citizenry. And now that global capital has become so powerful, the
nation-state is the only institution strong enough restrain it -- through
capital controls, etc.<
yes it is a broad generalisation. but all you have said is that there have been some cases where nation-states do stuff to benefit some citizens. i don't dispute this has occured, and within the strict framework that russell has alluded to. but this does not at all contradict what i said above: "any benefits derived from so-called local control of economic policy are and always have been premised on the exploitation and immiseration of people, resources, etc in other places. it's always been a question of a global division of the spoils". and, i would add that i think holloway is quite right to note that "the existence of any national state depends not just on the reproduction of world capitalism, but on the reproduction of capitalism within its boundaries, it must seek to attract and, once attracted, to immobilise capital within its territory. ...a struggle to attract and retain a share of world capital (and hence a share of global surplus value). In order to achieve this, the national state must try to ensure favourable conditions for the reproduction of capital within its boundaries ... and also give international support ... to the capital operating within its boundaries, largely irrespective of the citizenship of the legal owners of that capital. ... Global capital is no more 'external' to Cochabamba, Zacatlan, or even Tannochbrae than it is to New York, Tokyo or London, although the forms and consequences of its presence differ enormously."
leaning on the nation as the bulwark against global capital assumes that the nation is not indeed a moment within global capital. and didn't you already suggest as much when you wrote above "it was the power of the nation-state (specifically its military power) that allowed capital to spread beyond local boundaries"??
but, let's get down to tin tacks, adam: what do you think this 'national strategy' against 'global capital' consists of? serious question.
Angela _________
PS. Russell, yes, i kind of agree with what you wrote, but i think there needs to be an account given of the nation-state as a response to the de-territorialisation of (eg) feudal systems of exploitation, eg, the vagabondage laws that holloway wrote of. and in this sense, the nation-state as a mechanism of coercion and enclosure which the sheer mechanisms of authority within the immediate process of production were unable to accomplish by themselves, insufficient as they were and perhaps still are to reproducing the social relations of capitalism outside the punctual sites of production. but however one wishes to depict the trajectory, we perhaps agree that the nation-state is now indistinct from global capital.