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Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire
Geopolitical Economy radically reinterprets the historical evolution of the world order, as a multi-polar world emerges from the dust of the financial and economic crisis.
Radhika Desai offers a radical critique of the theories of US hegemony, globalisation and empire which dominate academic international political economy and international relations, revealing their ideological origins in successive failed US attempts at world dominance through the dollar.
Desai revitalizes revolutionary intellectual traditions which combine class and national perspectives on ‘the relations of producing nations’. At a time of global upheavals and profound shifts in the distribution of world power, Geopolitical Economy forges a vivid and compelling account of the historical processes which are shaping the contemporary international order.
Radhika Desai offers a radical critique of the theories of US hegemony, globalisation and empire which dominate academic international political economy and international relations, revealing their ideological origins in successive failed US attempts at world dominance through the dollar.
Desai revitalizes revolutionary intellectual traditions which combine class and national perspectives on ‘the relations of producing nations’. At a time of global upheavals and profound shifts in the distribution of world power, Geopolitical Economy forges a vivid and compelling account of the historical processes which are shaping the contemporary international order.
328 pages, Paperback
First published February 12, 2013
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About the author
Radhika Desai
19 books43 followersRadhika Desai is Professor of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba, Canada. She is the author of Slouching Towards Ayodhya (Three Essays Collective, 2004) and Geopolitical Economy (Pluto, 2013).
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 2, 2021
With the "American century" firmly over, it’s clear now that we’re bearing witness to its gradual and violent dissolution. But what happened during that time, really? What role has the United States really played in the long twentieth century, as we ourselves move solidly into the twenty-first? Stories, no doubt, have been told. World hegemon, world empire, and leader of the forces of globalization: to have lived at all through the millennium or beyond is to have heard these roles attributed to the US, tropes as universal as the apparent reach of the States itself. Yet it is just against this triple characterization that Radhika Desai pitches her book on Geopolitical Economy, an exercise in myth-busting all the more brutal for its inexhaustible erudition and enormous historical span.
In many ways this is not a story told uniquely by Desai herself. Following the ground-breaking work of both Robert Brenner (The Economics of Global Turbulence) and Michael Hudson (Super Imperialism), Desai’s focus is on the imperial ambitions of the US – or more accurately, its unrealized or unrealizable ambitions, which have always far exceeded its capacity to act on them. Indeed, the story of the States that emerges here is one of a nation lurching from crisis to crisis, projecting bravado while scrambling, sometimes in secret, sometimes in the open, to shore-up its ever precarious world position. A Marxist analysis through and through, Desai's focus is on the economic machinations of US world relations, a story told more through the fortunes of currencies and interest rates than gunboats and bayonet points.
That this is the case reflects the shift in history itself: as distinct from the territorial empire of the United Kingdom, with its vast swathes of administered land across the Earth, US imperialism was (is?) overwhelmingly an exercise in economics - geopolitical economics, in fact. Yet despite the hype of imperial succession, Desi's history shows how the dynamics of the American century continually played out against the impossible backdrop of the US dollar's two incompatible roles: that of being the world's reserve currency (the currency by which world trade takes place), and that of being currency of American domestic growth. The one precluding the other, Geopolitical Economy charts the pathologies spawned by these twin shoals upon which the US has been caught - the breakdown of Bretton Woods, the cancerous growth of the military-industrial complex, the 2008 economic collapse: all these and more find their place and significance in a narrative perhaps more important today than ever, in the still-present wake of American dominance.
That all said, what is particularly original to Desai is not the history per se, but the attempts to make sense of it. As indicated in the book's subtitle, it's the discourses of 'hegemony, globalization, and empire' that are especially taken to task here. For Desi, not only do they fail to properly capture the ups and downs (usually downs) of recent American history, worse still is their role in retroactively justifying or even excusing much of it. To take 'globalization' alone: can anyone really believe the cosmopolitan charm of this term, which serves to cover over the enormous geopolitical imbalance of power that has wrecked peoples and economies around the world to the benefit of a few? As for empire - has anyone looked over Afghanistan's way recently? While published in 2013 and ending on a note of optimism for a multi-polar future pregnant with opportunities for those who believe in a better world, the intervening years have shown the weight of this history to only have grown. The optimism, on the other hand, remains ours to seize.
In many ways this is not a story told uniquely by Desai herself. Following the ground-breaking work of both Robert Brenner (The Economics of Global Turbulence) and Michael Hudson (Super Imperialism), Desai’s focus is on the imperial ambitions of the US – or more accurately, its unrealized or unrealizable ambitions, which have always far exceeded its capacity to act on them. Indeed, the story of the States that emerges here is one of a nation lurching from crisis to crisis, projecting bravado while scrambling, sometimes in secret, sometimes in the open, to shore-up its ever precarious world position. A Marxist analysis through and through, Desai's focus is on the economic machinations of US world relations, a story told more through the fortunes of currencies and interest rates than gunboats and bayonet points.
That this is the case reflects the shift in history itself: as distinct from the territorial empire of the United Kingdom, with its vast swathes of administered land across the Earth, US imperialism was (is?) overwhelmingly an exercise in economics - geopolitical economics, in fact. Yet despite the hype of imperial succession, Desi's history shows how the dynamics of the American century continually played out against the impossible backdrop of the US dollar's two incompatible roles: that of being the world's reserve currency (the currency by which world trade takes place), and that of being currency of American domestic growth. The one precluding the other, Geopolitical Economy charts the pathologies spawned by these twin shoals upon which the US has been caught - the breakdown of Bretton Woods, the cancerous growth of the military-industrial complex, the 2008 economic collapse: all these and more find their place and significance in a narrative perhaps more important today than ever, in the still-present wake of American dominance.
That all said, what is particularly original to Desai is not the history per se, but the attempts to make sense of it. As indicated in the book's subtitle, it's the discourses of 'hegemony, globalization, and empire' that are especially taken to task here. For Desi, not only do they fail to properly capture the ups and downs (usually downs) of recent American history, worse still is their role in retroactively justifying or even excusing much of it. To take 'globalization' alone: can anyone really believe the cosmopolitan charm of this term, which serves to cover over the enormous geopolitical imbalance of power that has wrecked peoples and economies around the world to the benefit of a few? As for empire - has anyone looked over Afghanistan's way recently? While published in 2013 and ending on a note of optimism for a multi-polar future pregnant with opportunities for those who believe in a better world, the intervening years have shown the weight of this history to only have grown. The optimism, on the other hand, remains ours to seize.
October 24, 2020
I don't think I'll be ready to fully review this book until a few years down the line. Professor Desai has such a meticulous grasp of the intricacies of finance capital and all the historical episodes that it has gone through over the past centuries, that Geopolitical Economy impresses even if just on an encyclopedic level. But it goes far beyond that: Desai attempts to re-center Marxism by developing (or rather rediscovering) its weak spots, in which theories from different schools and political leanings filled in the gaps. This dense, polemical, variegated and ambitious book has shaped my thinking this year more than any other, and - as opposed to other theoretical infatuations - has continued to hold up even when confronted with different perspectives.
What does Geopolitical Economy do so differently, then? It brims with so many ideas (this set of articles forms a good introduction)
1) it frees marxism's scientific core from its economistic corset and re-absorbs all geopolitical dimensions;
2) it underlines the continuity of socialist struggle on the basis of real achievements, no matter whether they be marxist, socialist, social-democratic, or even Keynesian-technocratic;
3) it fleshes out the materiality of nations and the real struggles of the multipolar world, and rebuffs claims of American hegemony.
It starts from the acknowledgement that the Marxist canon, Marx and Engels' work, was cut short before it could stretch out to its full breadth. The four-ish volumes of Capital that form the bulk of Marxism's developed "scientific" core were itself only an eighth of what Marx planned to chart: theories on the state, the world market, the stock market and banking all were postponed indefinitely. This disproportionate focus on abstract economics - the theory of capital accumulation in a vacuum instead of in real historical circumstances - led to the growth of "marxist economics", a field Desai considers nonsense: it forces Marx' views on economic development (inherently unstable, crisis-prone, state-reliant) into a neoclassical framework (a game of abstract tendencies and counter-tendencies that require endless epicycles to apply to the real world). The practical problems of national development and international trade management were then left to other schools: Keynes, Polanyi, World Systems Theory, various International Relations theories... The task of Marxists, connected to real functioning parties and organizations, is to cover all this ground again and simply be better at explaining reality than these other schools, rather than sealing themselves off in their own doctrinal purity.
But Marx and Engels had, she demonstrates, already quite a firm grasp on "non-economic" matters, even if their views were never properly synthesized. For example, running counter to the soundbyte of Marx' supposed absolute endorsement of free trade as a way to speed up capital accumulation worldwide, Marx vouched for tactical interventions from the state to seed industries, protect sprouts, and guide development. Accumulation never unfolds in a vacuum: in spite of globalization discourses, the world still consists of a collection of nations with national economies, each organized by their own state. Powerful national economies, those of the first world, seek to pressure the third world into restraining its state interventions as much as possible, so as to guarantee the free flow of capital, necessary to absorb excess capital and guarantee labour reserves and cheap resources. So-called 'contender states', who through state-led development in many possible forms ('national' capitalism, socialism and communism) disrupt this global capital chain and threaten to compete with developed economies, are systematically assaulted by the doctrine of 'neoliberal globalization' (along with actual invasions).
There's a focus on the interplay between these various national economies, their states and the class forces guiding these states. Capital will, axiomatically, over-accumulate. To reabsorb this surplus, two paths can be chosen: expanding internal demand (through state-led investment or the boosting of working class income) or exporting it to an external market. As long as it was politically tenable, early capitalist nations tended to pick option 2; however, working-class militancy forced them to concede and siphon capital into the economic emancipation of their own toilers. This led to a 'vicious cycle': the less unemployment and the higher the wages, the greater the power of an organized working class and the more precarious the balance of power became. To the possessing classes, the post-WW2 welfare state compromise (full employment, state industries, guided economies) was always seen as a dangerous step towards socializing investments and, eventually, the abolition of private capital. Examples of the most advanced social-democratic states, such as Sweden (the Meidner plan), show that this was not pure paranoia on the capitalists' part. The neoliberal assault on the welfare state was as much a scramble for higher speculative short-term profits as it was a political offensive.
This last section in particular I feel is politically important. 'Popular' Marxist narratives speak of first world labour aristocracies kept placated by imports from the third world. A welfare state would be nothing more than the working class sharing in the spoils. Instead, Desai argues for a different view: imperialist policies, in the sense of centrifugal capital flows, are a net drain on capital that could have been invested productively, force down wages everywhere and harm the working class around the world. Indeed, the biggest rise in North-South investment after the 80's was accompanied by a relative impoverishment of the first-world working class, rather than this being a boon to them.
Wishy-washy review, I'll straighten this out later.
What does Geopolitical Economy do so differently, then? It brims with so many ideas (this set of articles forms a good introduction)
1) it frees marxism's scientific core from its economistic corset and re-absorbs all geopolitical dimensions;
2) it underlines the continuity of socialist struggle on the basis of real achievements, no matter whether they be marxist, socialist, social-democratic, or even Keynesian-technocratic;
3) it fleshes out the materiality of nations and the real struggles of the multipolar world, and rebuffs claims of American hegemony.
It starts from the acknowledgement that the Marxist canon, Marx and Engels' work, was cut short before it could stretch out to its full breadth. The four-ish volumes of Capital that form the bulk of Marxism's developed "scientific" core were itself only an eighth of what Marx planned to chart: theories on the state, the world market, the stock market and banking all were postponed indefinitely. This disproportionate focus on abstract economics - the theory of capital accumulation in a vacuum instead of in real historical circumstances - led to the growth of "marxist economics", a field Desai considers nonsense: it forces Marx' views on economic development (inherently unstable, crisis-prone, state-reliant) into a neoclassical framework (a game of abstract tendencies and counter-tendencies that require endless epicycles to apply to the real world). The practical problems of national development and international trade management were then left to other schools: Keynes, Polanyi, World Systems Theory, various International Relations theories... The task of Marxists, connected to real functioning parties and organizations, is to cover all this ground again and simply be better at explaining reality than these other schools, rather than sealing themselves off in their own doctrinal purity.
But Marx and Engels had, she demonstrates, already quite a firm grasp on "non-economic" matters, even if their views were never properly synthesized. For example, running counter to the soundbyte of Marx' supposed absolute endorsement of free trade as a way to speed up capital accumulation worldwide, Marx vouched for tactical interventions from the state to seed industries, protect sprouts, and guide development. Accumulation never unfolds in a vacuum: in spite of globalization discourses, the world still consists of a collection of nations with national economies, each organized by their own state. Powerful national economies, those of the first world, seek to pressure the third world into restraining its state interventions as much as possible, so as to guarantee the free flow of capital, necessary to absorb excess capital and guarantee labour reserves and cheap resources. So-called 'contender states', who through state-led development in many possible forms ('national' capitalism, socialism and communism) disrupt this global capital chain and threaten to compete with developed economies, are systematically assaulted by the doctrine of 'neoliberal globalization' (along with actual invasions).
There's a focus on the interplay between these various national economies, their states and the class forces guiding these states. Capital will, axiomatically, over-accumulate. To reabsorb this surplus, two paths can be chosen: expanding internal demand (through state-led investment or the boosting of working class income) or exporting it to an external market. As long as it was politically tenable, early capitalist nations tended to pick option 2; however, working-class militancy forced them to concede and siphon capital into the economic emancipation of their own toilers. This led to a 'vicious cycle': the less unemployment and the higher the wages, the greater the power of an organized working class and the more precarious the balance of power became. To the possessing classes, the post-WW2 welfare state compromise (full employment, state industries, guided economies) was always seen as a dangerous step towards socializing investments and, eventually, the abolition of private capital. Examples of the most advanced social-democratic states, such as Sweden (the Meidner plan), show that this was not pure paranoia on the capitalists' part. The neoliberal assault on the welfare state was as much a scramble for higher speculative short-term profits as it was a political offensive.
This last section in particular I feel is politically important. 'Popular' Marxist narratives speak of first world labour aristocracies kept placated by imports from the third world. A welfare state would be nothing more than the working class sharing in the spoils. Instead, Desai argues for a different view: imperialist policies, in the sense of centrifugal capital flows, are a net drain on capital that could have been invested productively, force down wages everywhere and harm the working class around the world. Indeed, the biggest rise in North-South investment after the 80's was accompanied by a relative impoverishment of the first-world working class, rather than this being a boon to them.
Wishy-washy review, I'll straighten this out later.
January 1, 2024
A must read. Definitely can see the somewhat more sketchy views Radhika has in the final chapter. which honestly makes sense seeing how much she runs cover for Putin and Russia today, but goddamn this book just has so much depth and builds a very good (very dense) narrative about capitalism in the UK/U.S. empires and subsequent financialization. A full review will be written eventually
July 28, 2022
Published in 2013, Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire is a very interesting and challenging work of economic history. Desai pairs the Marxist-Leninist perspective on finance/monopoly capital (or imperialism) with Trotsky's theory of unequal and combined development, and wearing these spectacles retells the history of US attempts to replace the UK as global hegemon after WWI, all through the 20th century, and right up to the start of Obama's second term.
From the imperialist lens the point of view is of financial economics—the US role as creditor to the world at the end of the "War to End All Wars," and it's slow and strange journey into the debtor to the world, which (as Hudson has shown us all in Super Imperialism. The Economic Strategy of American Empire. Third Edition) led to Nixon's so-called closing of the gold window.
From the uneven and combined development lens, Desai does more than just recount how the US exploits the rest of the world (and the so-called "developing" world most of all) with the imperialist logic of uneven development (which is already embedded in the logic of finance capital or imperialism anyway: it is inherent in the relationship between creditor and debtor). In fact, I think she downplays this aspect a little, because she has another point to make: the US was never successful in replacing the UK's 19th century position (which nobody would ever be able to, as Lenin seems to have correctly concluded in his 1915 pamphlet Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism), and this is because of the combined development part of the equation.
The UK's unique position in the 19th century could not be replicated because other nations had used what are essentially local characteristics, "non free-market" techniques, in order to catch up: the window was now closed. Lenin's two examples were Germany and the US, but Desai gives many others, up to our present times. Her bold thesis, which she calls geopolitical economy, shows not only that a multipolar world is our future, but because of American failure to realize its hegemonic goals, it is already our present.
From the imperialist lens the point of view is of financial economics—the US role as creditor to the world at the end of the "War to End All Wars," and it's slow and strange journey into the debtor to the world, which (as Hudson has shown us all in Super Imperialism. The Economic Strategy of American Empire. Third Edition) led to Nixon's so-called closing of the gold window.
From the uneven and combined development lens, Desai does more than just recount how the US exploits the rest of the world (and the so-called "developing" world most of all) with the imperialist logic of uneven development (which is already embedded in the logic of finance capital or imperialism anyway: it is inherent in the relationship between creditor and debtor). In fact, I think she downplays this aspect a little, because she has another point to make: the US was never successful in replacing the UK's 19th century position (which nobody would ever be able to, as Lenin seems to have correctly concluded in his 1915 pamphlet Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism), and this is because of the combined development part of the equation.
The UK's unique position in the 19th century could not be replicated because other nations had used what are essentially local characteristics, "non free-market" techniques, in order to catch up: the window was now closed. Lenin's two examples were Germany and the US, but Desai gives many others, up to our present times. Her bold thesis, which she calls geopolitical economy, shows not only that a multipolar world is our future, but because of American failure to realize its hegemonic goals, it is already our present.
April 22, 2019
surprisingly insightful, once one gets past the slightly wooden marxist language
March 29, 2025
Fun if your definition of fun is like scratching chalk on the chalkboard. But she’s onto something tho
February 18, 2017
I had a great time reading this book. I can say that reading the book (required for a course) helped me understand course material much better. You start to look at the capitalist world in a different way after reading it.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews