The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire

Panitch and Gindin's monumental study offers a significant rethinking of the development of global capitalism. Transcending classical theories of interimperialist rivalry and the false dichotomy between states and markets in the neoliberal era, this book produces an exceptionally rich account of postwar global capitalism to the present day. Focussing on the American state, Panitch and Gindin argue that its distinctiveness rests in its capacity to identify the interests of its own capital with that of capital in general, while restructuring other states to the end of spreading capitalist social relations and preventing economic crises from interrupting capital's globalizing tendencies. Examining recent economic crises, the authors identify social conflict occurring within, rather than between, states, producing political fault-lines replete with possibilities for the emergence of new movements to transcend capitalist markets and states.