Ecologically Unequal Exchange and Raw Materialism: The Material Foundations of the Capitalist World-Economy

2018 ◽  
pp. 49-73
Author(s):  
Paul S. Ciccantell
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Unequal Exchange ◽  
Capitalist World Economy ◽  
Capitalist World

Unequal Exchange in the Age of Globalization

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Ricci
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Monetary Model ◽  
Labor Theory Of Value ◽  
Unequal Exchange ◽  
Spatial Production ◽  
Labor Theory ◽  
Capitalist World Economy ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
Definition Of

Unequal exchange arises when spatial production of value is disjointed from its geographical distribution. A disaggregated monetary model of the world economy is presented on the grounds of Marx’s labor theory of value. All the forms of unequal exchange in international trade are explained, on the basis of a coherent definition of the forms of international value of traded commodities. Estimates of value transfers for recent years show the ongoing relevance of the unequal exchange in the modern capitalist world economy. JEL classifications: B51, D46, F63

Coal's Persistence in the Capitalist World-Economy

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. Gellert ◽  
Paul S. Ciccantell
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Ecological Modernization ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Coal Consumption ◽  
The World ◽  
Capitalist World Economy ◽  
Capitalist World

Predominant analyses of energy offer insufficient theoretical and political-economic insight into the persistence of coal and other fossil fuels. The dominant narrative of coal powering the Industrial Revolution, and Great Britain's world dominance in the nineteenth century giving way to a U.S.- and oil-dominated twentieth century, is marred by teleological assumptions. The key assumption that a complete energy “transition” will occur leads some to conceive of a renewable-energy-dominated twenty-first century led by China. After critiquing the teleological assumptions of modernization, ecological modernization, energetics, and even world-systems analysis of energy “transition,” this paper offers a world-systems perspective on the “raw” materialism of coal. Examining the material characteristics of coal and the unequal structure of the world-economy, the paper uses long-term data from governmental and private sources to reveal the lack of transition as new sources of energy are added. The increases in coal consumption in China and India as they have ascended in the capitalist world-economy have more than offset the leveling-off and decline in some core nations. A true global peak and decline (let alone full substitution) in energy generally and coal specifically has never happened. The future need not repeat the past, but technical, policy, and movement approaches will not get far without addressing the structural imperatives of capitalist growth and the uneven power structures and processes of long-term change of the world-system.

The Capitalist World-Economy.

1980 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriet Friedmann ◽  
Immanuel Wallerstein
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Capitalist World Economy ◽  
Capitalist World

scholarly journals The Second Slavery and World Capitalism: A Perspective for Historical Inquiry

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dale Tomich
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Forced Labor ◽  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
Us South ◽  
Capitalist World Economy ◽  
World Economic ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
Economic Zones

AbstractThe concept of the second slavery radically reinterprets the relation of slavery and capitalism by calling attention to the emergence of extensive new zones of slave commodity production in the US South, Cuba, and Brazil as part of nineteenth-century industrialization and world-economic expansion. This article examines the conceptual framework and methodological procedures that inform this interpretation. It reformulates the concept of the capitalist world-economy by emphasizing the mutual formation and historical interrelation of global–local relations. This open conception of world-economy permits the temporal-spatial specification of the zones of the second slavery. In this way, it is possible both to distinguish the new zones of the second slavery from previous world-economic zones of slave production and to establish the ways in which they are formative of the emerging industrial world division of labor. From this perspective, analysis of sugar production in Jamaica, Guyana, and Cuba discloses spatial-temporal differences between what would otherwise be taken as apparently similar historical-geographical complexes. This comparison demonstrates how world-economic processes produce particular local histories and how such histories structure the world-economy as a whole. This approach locates the crisis of slavery during the nineteenth century in the differentiated response to processes of world accumulation, rather than the incompatibility of slave production with industrialization and open, competitive markets. More generally, it calls attention to the continuity of forms of forced labor in the historical development of the capitalist world-economy and to the ways that processes of capitalist development produce social-economic differentiation and hierarchy on a world scale.

State maneuver in the capitalist world-economy: A political geography of contextualized agency

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (8) ◽  
pp. 1580-1601 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Flint ◽  
Raymond Dezzani
Keyword(s):  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Transition Probabilities ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Capitalist World Economy ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
Emergent Structure ◽  
Spatial Formations

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate a theoretical perspective and outline an analytical framework for state maneuver in the hierarchical world-economy that incorporates the idea of context with structural imperatives. Maneuver is the agency of states within conjunctures of structural imperatives and spatial settings of inter-state alliances and established cultural understandings and historic relations. The hierarchy of the capitalist world-economy is conceptualized as an emergent structure, one that emerges from competition for scarce resources. The resources are economic attributes defined by the process of capital accumulation, political attributes emanating from the imperative of state territorialization, and the agglomeration of these attributes in spatial formations. The structure is emergent from the actions of states that create these spatial formations, but transformation is limited given structural constraints. States maneuver can be modeled as Markov transition probabilities decomposable as logits for covariate analysis.

Mapping Transformation of Nineteenth-Century Chinese Cities within China’s Incorporation Process

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 822-848
Author(s):  
Sung Hee Ru
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Port City ◽  
Port Cities ◽  
Chinese Cities ◽  
Spatial Changes ◽  
Capitalist World Economy ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
Historical Capitalism ◽  
The 19Th Century

Abstract During the 19th century, China’s socioeconomic geography experienced unprecedented spatial changes. Through these spatial transformations, which were caused by the penetration of western capitalism, Chinese cities morphed into epicenters of international trade between Western powers and China. By examining the major transformations having taken place in 19th century Chinese cities, the author investigates unexplained or neglected transformations in three areas: (1) the decline of interdependent inland cities connected by waterways; (2) the simultaneous rise of independent port cities under the influence of the capitalist world-economy; and (3) the forging of port city–hinterland relationships in connection with the capitalist world-economy. It helps to understand the role that port cities have played in the development of China’s historical capitalism.

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