The Making Of Global Capitalism

The Making Of Global Capitalism written by Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin is about globalization and the state. It show us that the spread of capitalist markets, values and social relationships around the World, far from being an inevitable outcome inherently expansionist economic tendecies, has depended on the agency of states – and of one state in particular: America. As we can understand from the every parts of book, their argument is that states need to be placed at the center of the search for an explanation of the making of global capitalism. In introduction part, there is a noteworthy sentence; on the basis of the changes capitalism had undergone by mid – century, the American state was not only uniquely placed but uniquely capable, for reasons related to its institutional capacities as well as class structure, to relaunch capitalist globalization after its interruption by world war and economic depression. The other noteworthy one is that despite the sheer tenacity of the view, going back to the theories of imperalism a century earlier, that overaccumulation is the source of all capitalist crises, the crisis that erupted in the US in 2007 was not caused by a profit squeeze or collapse of investment due to general overaccumulation in the economy. In the thereinafter parts, we can understand why the US economy had played key role in global capitalism. Many large corporations had established in 19th century. These firms’ relationship with financial sector was fundamentally different from that of companies in countries with the kind of centralized banking systems that initially funded and then came to control industrial firms. As I see, there are some crucial points providing predominant power of the American economy  which are becoming a key position in investment of Treasury, elections, falling of the Europe economy after World War II, Bretton Woods Agreement, voting power, Treaty of Detroit. A crucial factor here was that the concentration of capital and the restructuring of production during both the Depression and the war, and the build – up of new technological opportunities and innovations in electrical machinery and equipment, as well as in electrical power generation, communacation services, transportation, distribution, and civil engineering. Nevertheless, multinational corporations, internationalizing production and finance led America to breast the tape in capitalism race in contemplation of “nestle everywhere, settle everywhere”.

“Why Nations Fail” by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that is man – made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success . When we combine the these close two ideas, I can’t realize why did not England do same investments or same capitalist progress as the closest economy to US in 19th century. Although England has more a deeper state structure and economic background than USA, why England could not perform the capitalist integration or more clearly why England could not be a leader in terms of the making of global capitalism. I think they could overcome the structural problems or change the structure of institutions as to become the world’s economic power.