Quentin Bruneau in Phenomenal World:
How should we explain periods of profound global transformation? Scholars have long viewed socio-political change as a reflection of property relations and technological shifts in the productive process. They positioned capitalism as the principal force shaping world politics, with states broadly operating in the interest of maintaining capitalist social relations. In recent decades, however, a parallel tradition of thought has gained ground. In this tradition, the bureaucratic and military consolidation of states operates as the driver of economic relations, and international competition between states is the ultimate impulse for transformations within those same states. These two traditions of thought offer different accounts of the major challenges of our time, from climate change, to war, to austerity and sovereign debt. Should we understand these developments through the interests of capital, or should we instead conceive of them as the product of inter-state competition? The question is not merely of analytical interest; where we place emphasis directly informs the sort of solutions we envision to global problems. If climate change and war are the result of inter-state competition, greater cooperation can lead to a solution. If they are the result of capitalism, instead, they will remain unresolved until we do away with the economic system itself. In what follows, my aim is not to settle this discussion, but instead to revisit the debate over the relationship between capitalism and the states-system and introduce an important and overlooked turning point: the rise of Great Power politics. Ultimately, I argue that capitalism cannot subsume the dynamics of the states-system. In fact, it is itself derivative of a specific pattern of international ordering.
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