Global Capitalism

Hugo Radice is a Life Fellow and former Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy at the University of Leeds, UK.

Global Capitalism is a valuable collection of Hugo Radice’s writings, providing necessary critiques of finance and productive capital as they have become ever more global and transnational. Radice, co-founder of the Conference of Socialist Economists and subsequently the journal Capital & Class, has been in the vanguard of left political economy since the 1970s, and his ideas are of increasing relevance in the context of repeated global crises and the rise of an authoritarian right. As a historically grounded intervention into International Relations, Political Theory and Global Political Economy, Radice’s work will inform current debates on development, neoliberalism, labour process, alternatives to capitalism, and multinational corporate dominance. -- Dr Phoebe Moore, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of Middlesex, UK.Over four decades Hugo Radice has been one of the most incisive socialist critics of political and economic orthodoxies. This collection of essays brings together his major contributions to the understanding of capitalism as a global rather than a national system of political economy, and shows how his thinking has evolved in response to new problems and changing circumstances. The essays display an interdisciplinary engagement and an intellectual depth and consistency which make them essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the economic and political challenges of our times. -- Andrew Gamble, Professor of Politics, University of Cambridge, UK.This collection is very welcome both because it brings together pieces scattered over many different journals and edited collections and hopefully because it will find new readers for some old articles which have retained their relevance for current debates. -- Pete Green, Historical Materialism.The essays in this collection retain their power due to their combination of historical specificity, theoretical consistency, and the solidity of critique. Significantly more than in the work of other political economists the centrality of class contradictions is the touchstone revealing emergent contingent characteristics around which there was, when the essays were written and continue to be, much debate. His ability to apply Marx’s methodology to a solid grounding in globalization-related literatures and a capacity to distinguish the crucial elements in the extended present are a major achievement. -- William K. Tabb, Professor Emeritus, Economics, Queens College and of Economics

• 1. Introduction Part 1. Globalisation 2. The national economy - a Keynesian myth? 3. Capital, labour and the state in the world economy 4. Responses to globalisation: a critique of progressive nationalism Part 2. Britain and the world economy 5. Keynes and the policy of practical protectionism 6. Britain in the world economy: national decline, capitalist success? 7. Britain and Europe: class, state and the politics of integration Part 3. Global capitalism and development 8. Capitalism restored: East-Central Europe in the light of globalisation 9. Halfway to paradise? Making sense of the semiperiphery 10. The developmental state under global neoliberalism Part 4. The recent crisis 11. Confronting the crisis: a class analysis 12. Cutting government deficits: economic science or class war? 13. The crisis and the global South: from development to capitalism