Economics and Politics within the Capitalist Core and the Debate on the New Imperialism

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/jglobfaul.1.1.0005
• Pages: 5-33
• Published date: 01 September 2013
• Date: 01 September 2013
• Author: Peter Gowan

Journal of Global Faultlines

Publication details, including instructions for authors:

http://www.keele.ac.uk/journal-globalfaultlines/

Economics and Politics within the Capitalist Core and the

Debate on the New Imperialism.

Peter Gowana

a (1946-2009) Professor of International Relations at London Metropolitan

University.

Journal of Global Faultlines/ Volume 1/ Issue 1/ September 2013, pp. 5-33

Published online: 10 October 2013.

To cite this article:

Peter Gowan (2013) ‘Economics and Politics within the Capitalist Core and the

Debate on the New Imperialism’, Journal of Global Faultlines, 1(1), 5-33.

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Journal of Global Faultlines, 2013

Vol. 1, No. 1, 5-33.

5

Economics and Politics within the Capitalist Core and the

Debate on the New Imperialism.

1

Peter Gowan

*

Introduction

In the lively new debate on what has come to be called the New Imperialism one focal point is

the extent to which there are structural sources of conflict between the main centres in the

capitalist core and if there are, whether these currently take the form of inter-state rivalry.

Perhaps the two strongest poles in this debate amongst authors with a connection to

Marxism are Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin on one side and Giovanni Arrighi on the other. The

first two authors deny that there is structural conflict and rivalry between the main core

centres and see the lines of conflict as lying principally between labour and global capitalism

with the latter being structured by a hegemonic American Imperialism. They view its most

vulnerable flanks at the present time as lying in the field of political legitimation both of the

American Empire itself and of individual states as they transform themselves into the

receptacles of a Neo-Liberal Global Capitalist order. Giovanni Arrighi, on the other hand,

views the current period as marked above all by a chronic and acute crisis of American

hegemony over the core and thus as a period of rather intense struggle over hegemonic

succession.

I will argue for elements of third position on these issues. I will argue that there are

structural sources of conflict between core capitalisms in the fields both of economics and

politics. These sources of conflict are, I will argue, generating tensions and rivalries today. But

my argument will not do so far as Giovanni Arrighi’s claim of a terminal hegemonic decline of

the US. It may still have the capacity to rebuild its dominance.

I first want to clarify some terms. I want to contrast structural sources of conflict from

contingent sources of conflict. There are evidently all kinds of political conflict occurring all

the time between capitalist states. Some of these can be quite intense, for example, a conflict

between Iceland and Britain over fishing rights in the North Sea in the 1970s came very close

to military clashes between Navies. But this was a contingent conflict, not one that related to

structural issues. Conflicts can be considered structural in two different senses: first because

they have their source in systemic features of capitalism; but second because they have their

source in what we can call the structural configuration in the present conjucture.

I also want to distinguish between structural sources of conflict between core

capitalisms and actual inter-state rivalries. Rivalries involve a concerted effort by states to gain

advantage for itself and/or its capitalism against other capitalist states through a politicised

conflict. There can be structural sources of conflict between capitalist states which are

nevertheless jointly managed to avoid inter-state rivalry on the issue. An example of such a

*

Peter Gowan (1946-2009) guided patiently h undreds of students through undergraduate

and postgraduate w ork at North London Polytechnic (now London Metropolitan University),

and fro m 200 4, he was professor of international relations at London Metropolitan

University.