The Politics Of National Capitalism

In mid-twentieth-century Latin America there was a strong consensus between Left and Right—Communists working under the directives of the Third International, nationalists within the military interested in fostering industrialization, and populists—about the need to break away from the colonial legacies of the past and to escape from the constraints of the international capitalist system. Even though they disagreed about the desired end state, Argentines of all political stripes could agree on the need for economic independence and national sovereignty, which would be brought about through the efforts of a national bourgeoisie. James Brennan and Marcelo Rougier aim to provide a political history of this national bourgeoisie in this book. Deploying an eclectic methodology combining aspects of the “new institutionalism,” the “new economic history,” Marxist political economy, and deep research in numerous, rarely consulted archives into what they dub the “new business history,” the authors offer the first thorough, empirically based history of the national bourgeoisie’s peak association, the Confederación General Económica (CGE), and of the Argentine bourgeoisie’s relationship with the state. They also investigate the relationship of the bourgeoisie to Perón and the Peronist movement by studying the history of one industrial sector, the metalworking industry, and two regional economies—one primarily industrial, Córdoba, and another mostly agrarian, Chaco—with some attention to a third, Tucumán, a cane-cultivating and sugar-refining region sharing some features of both. While spanning three decades, the book concentrates most on the years of Peronist government, 1946–55 and 1973–76.

Through a careful analysis of the former Soviet Union and China, and South Asian societies of India and the Phillipines, this volume examines the creation of a state capitalism, its roll in economic development, and its impact on social change.

The end of the Cold War ushered in an age of American triumphalism best characterized by the "Washington Consensus:" the idea that free markets, democratic institutions, limitations on government involvement in the economy, and the rule of law were the foundations of prosperity and stability. The last fifteen years, starting with the Asian financial crisis, have seen the gradual erosion of that consensus. Many commentators have pointed to the emergence of a powerful new rival model: state capitalism. In state capitalist regimes, the government typically owns firms in strategic industries. Not beholden to private-sector shareholders, such firms are allowed to operate with razor-thin margins if the state deems them strategically important. China, soon to be the world's largest economy, is the best known state capitalist regime, but it is hardly the only one. In State Capitalism, Joshua Kurlantzick ranges across the world--China, Thailand, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, and more--and argues that the increase in state capitalism across the globe has, on balance, contributed to a decline in democracy. He isolates some of the reasons for state capitalism's resurgence: the fact that globalization favors economies of scale in the most critical industries, and the widespread rejection of the Washington Consensus in the face of the problems that have plagued the world economy in recent years. That said, a number of democratic nations have embraced state capitalism, and in those regimes, state-backed firms like Brazil's Embraer have enjoyed considerable success. Kurlantzick highlights the mixed record and the evolving nature of the model, yet he is more concerned about the negative effects of state capitalism. When states control firms, whether in democratic or authoritarian regimes, the government increases its advantage over the rest of society. The combination of new technologies, the perceived failures of liberal economics and democracy in many developing nations, the rise of modern kinds of authoritarians, and the success of some of the best-known state capitalists have created an era ripe for state intervention. State Capitalism offers the sharpest analysis yet of what state capitalism's emergence means for democratic politics around the world.

Through a careful analysis of the former Soviet Union and China, and South Asian societies of India and the Phillippines, this volume examines the creation of a state capitalism, its roll in economic development, and its impact on social change.

Explains why government policies favor elites over the masses, building on well-established theories from the social sciences.

How have global markets and global manufacturing changed the balance of social, economic and political power? With this volume Ross and Trachte challenge existing political-economic theory. In concise terms they show how traditional theories of monopoly capitalism and world systems are not well-suited to analyze the emergence of global capitalism. This book, in a series of case studies of U.S. metropolitan areas, examines the dramatic transformation of the world economy in the last two decades. The book's last section examines political strategy and the political theory implied by the heightened power of capital.

This book explores the political economy of Hungary from the mid-1970s to the present. Widely considered a ‘poster boy’ of neoliberal transformation in post-communist Eastern Europe until the mid-2000s, Hungary has in recent years developed into a model ‘illiberal’ regime. Constitutional checks-and-balances are non-functioning; the independent media, trade unions, and civil society groups are constantly attacked by the authorities; there is widespread intolerance against minorities and refugees; and the governing FIDESZ party, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, controls all public institutions and increasingly large parts of the country’s economy. To make sense of the politico-economical roller coaster that Hungary has experienced in the last four decades, Fabry employs a Marxian political economy approach, emphasising competitive accumulation, class struggle (both between capital and labour, as well as different ‘fractions of capital’), and uneven and combined development. The author analyses the neoliberal transformation of the Hungarian political economy and argues that the drift to authoritarianism under the Orbán regime cannot be explained as a case of Hungarian exceptionalism, but rather represents an outcome of the inherent contradictions of the variety of neoliberalism that emerged in Hungary after 1989.