Acceso usuarios
The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire marks Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin's most recent attempt at furthering their thesis that globalization should be understood as an informal American empire. Their analysis, however, is hampered by three overarching issues that result from their inattention to many of the precepts of historical materialism. First, they treat capital as being predominantly national, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary; second, they treat the nation-state as an actor; and third, they neglect the question of political space, and the extent to which the social relations upon which globalization rests must necessarily also transform the structure and form of existing political institutions. As such, Panitch and Gindin incorrectly label globalization as a form of American imperialism, without being critically reflexive as to the concepts they are using, and the particular nation-state-centric framework through which such concepts operate.
