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The Long Twentieth Century
The Long Twentieth Century traces the relationship between capital accumulation and state formation over a 700-year period. Arrighi argues that capitalism has unfolded as a succession of “long centuries,” each of which produced a new world power that secured control over an expanding world-economic space. Examining the changing fortunes of Florentine, Venetian, Genoese, Dutch, English and finally American capitalism, Arrighi concludes with an examination of the forces that have shaped and are now poised to undermine America’s world dominance. A masterpiece of historical sociology, The Long Twentieth Century rivals in scope and ambition contemporary classics by Perry Anderson, Charles Tilly and Michael Mann.
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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About the author
Giovanni Arrighi
49 books74 followersGiovanni Arrighi was Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. His books include The Long Twentieth Century, Adam Smith in Beijing, and, with Beverly Silver, Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System. His work has appeared in many publications, including New Left Review.
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August 7, 2017Along with Robert Brenner and Wolfgang Streeck, Giovanni Arrighi has been an invaluable resource for me in trying to asses prospects for the end of capitalism. Even though at times, to be honest, this book was a bit of a slog to read, I still very much look forward to its controversial sequel Adam Smith in Beijing.
*
Probably no need to belabor all the disturbing implications for the present.
The peculiar perversity of capitalism is that its crises are caused not by having too little but too much. For nearly half a century, since the mid '70s, the advanced capitalist economies have been unable to resolve a crisis of overproduciton (see The Economics of Global Turbulence: The Advanced Capitalist Economies from Long Boom to Long Downturn, 1945-2005). Various methods for buying time have proven less and less effective.
Moreover, while its capacity for total destruction remains unmatched, clearly the US is no longer the hegemonic power it appeared to be at the start of the 21st century. Under both Bush jr and Obama, our various military interventions have done nothing but sow chaos and more violence, failing even by the criteria of imperialism. Some (including Arrighi) have speculated that China will step in to fill the role of global hegemon for capitalism, but the details of this transition are murky indeed.
All in all, it seems fair to say we are in the midst of another interregnum. Just how it will be resolved remains entirely up in the air.
*
The 'golden age' of capitalism, that period of a few decades following ww2, was a real thing. At the same time, it was only a golden age for a select minority of the globe's population. As Arrighi demonstrates (see, especially, 306-07) the unprecedented growth and relative equality of first world societies by the military keynesianism of the US security state. Most flagrantly, the genocidal firebombing of Korea in the fifties and then Indochina in the sixties provided the world economy with the necessary boom to stay prosperous and afloat.
*
Emphasis added. It seems to me this passage eloquently illuminates why various forms of racism, xenophobia, bigotry, etc will always exist under capitalism. The would-be Clinton coalition of minority communities on the one hand and wall street bankers on the other was always based on extreme short-sightedness. Going forward it's important to recognize 'progressive neoliberalism' for the grotesque oxymoron it is.
*
During all these periods of transition the ability of the previous center of high finance to regulate and lead the existing world system of accumulation in a particular direction was weakened by the rise of a rival center which, in its turn, had not yet acquired the disposition or capabilities to become the new 'governor' of the capitalist engine. In all these cases the dualism of power in high finance was eventually resolved by the escalation into a final climax (successively, the Thirty Years War, the Napoleonic Wars, the Second World War,) of the competitive struggles that, as a rule, mark the closing (CM') phases of systematic cycles of accumulation. In the course of these 'final' confrontations, the old regime of accumulation ceased to function. Historically, however, it was not until after the confrontations had ceased that a new regime was established and surplus capital found its way back into a new (MC) phase of material expansion. - pp 164
Probably no need to belabor all the disturbing implications for the present.
The peculiar perversity of capitalism is that its crises are caused not by having too little but too much. For nearly half a century, since the mid '70s, the advanced capitalist economies have been unable to resolve a crisis of overproduciton (see The Economics of Global Turbulence: The Advanced Capitalist Economies from Long Boom to Long Downturn, 1945-2005). Various methods for buying time have proven less and less effective.
Moreover, while its capacity for total destruction remains unmatched, clearly the US is no longer the hegemonic power it appeared to be at the start of the 21st century. Under both Bush jr and Obama, our various military interventions have done nothing but sow chaos and more violence, failing even by the criteria of imperialism. Some (including Arrighi) have speculated that China will step in to fill the role of global hegemon for capitalism, but the details of this transition are murky indeed.
All in all, it seems fair to say we are in the midst of another interregnum. Just how it will be resolved remains entirely up in the air.
*
The 'golden age' of capitalism, that period of a few decades following ww2, was a real thing. At the same time, it was only a golden age for a select minority of the globe's population. As Arrighi demonstrates (see, especially, 306-07) the unprecedented growth and relative equality of first world societies by the military keynesianism of the US security state. Most flagrantly, the genocidal firebombing of Korea in the fifties and then Indochina in the sixties provided the world economy with the necessary boom to stay prosperous and afloat.
*
Partial as the current revival of a self-regulating market has actually been, it has already issued unbearable verdicts. Entire communities, countries, even continents, as in the case of sub-Saharan Africa, have been declared 'redundant,' superfluous to the changing economy of changing capital accumulation on a world scale. Combined with the collapse of the USSR, the unplugging of these 'redundant' communities and locales from the world supply system has triggered innumerable, mostly violent feuds over 'who is more superfluous than whom' or, more simply, over the appropriation of resources that were made absolutely scarce by the unplugging. Generally speaking, these feuds have been diagnosed and treated not as expressions of the self-protection of society against the disruption of established ways of life under the impact of intensifying world market competition - which for the most part is what they are. Rather, they have been diagnosed and treated as the expression of atavistic hatreds or of power struggles among local 'bullies,' both of which have played at best only a secondary role. As long as this kind of diagnosis and treatment prevails, the chances are that violence in the world system at large will get even more out of control than it already has - pp 342
Emphasis added. It seems to me this passage eloquently illuminates why various forms of racism, xenophobia, bigotry, etc will always exist under capitalism. The would-be Clinton coalition of minority communities on the one hand and wall street bankers on the other was always based on extreme short-sightedness. Going forward it's important to recognize 'progressive neoliberalism' for the grotesque oxymoron it is.
Read
March 15, 2021This is one of those books that makes an important, valuable argument that I would find hard to recommend, simply because it's so dense that I don't know many people who would be willing to tolerate it. I mean, I have a pretty high tolerance for academic writing, and it was at times too much for me. Arrighi's basic thesis: normal production continues until it becomes untenable, at which point the gangrene of financialization sets in, and the center of capitalism moves (as it has through Genoa, the Dutch Republic, the British Empire, and modern America). I honestly don't feel like my background in economic history is strong enough to know how much I rate his theory, but it's an interesting and provocative one nonetheless.
March 10, 2011
I mean, its pretty much a Marxist-Braudelian theory of successive imperial ovverreaches that have led to the present day system, but I really liked it. Considered seminal by a certain group of people and I can certainly see why. I probably didn't need to read 350 pages about it to get the point, though.
November 3, 2016
700 or so years of capitalism as a world system. First: this book is so dense (and exciting) that I must read it again. At the end I felt like it made sense but that I have missed too many important details which didnt seem important at first. So these are initial thoughts only.
Basically he walks us through four (Italian City States 1400ish, Dutch, British, US) major systemic cycles of acccumulation. For Marxists: he breaks down the history of capitalism as a world system (MCM') into alternating phases of MC (material expansion through continius change with growth along a single developmental path) followed by CM' (financial expansion through discontinous change, limits of growth (overaccumulation etc) and radical restructurings). The switch from trade and production to financial expansion (MM') is thus interpreted as a sign that the decline of profit from the reinvestment of capital in the material expansion of the world has reached its limit.
Therefore, the financial expansion which began in the late 20th century (aka Wallstreet going nuts) and led to the GFC in 2008 is not a new phenomenon. Now: what comes after the GFC?
Basically he walks us through four (Italian City States 1400ish, Dutch, British, US) major systemic cycles of acccumulation. For Marxists: he breaks down the history of capitalism as a world system (MCM') into alternating phases of MC (material expansion through continius change with growth along a single developmental path) followed by CM' (financial expansion through discontinous change, limits of growth (overaccumulation etc) and radical restructurings). The switch from trade and production to financial expansion (MM') is thus interpreted as a sign that the decline of profit from the reinvestment of capital in the material expansion of the world has reached its limit.
Therefore, the financial expansion which began in the late 20th century (aka Wallstreet going nuts) and led to the GFC in 2008 is not a new phenomenon. Now: what comes after the GFC?
January 30, 2024
Kapitalizmin işleyişi hakkında iyi bir okuma olduğunu söyleyebilirim. Ama tarihsel bir çalışma olarak da sınırlandırılması gerektiğini düşünüyorum. Arrighi bu kitabında piyasaları sadece bir materyal gibi kullanıyor. Okumasının eksik yönlerinden birinin bu olduğunu düşünüyorum. Arrighi finansallaşmanın bir kriz olduğunu söylüyor. Kapitalizmin işleyişinde bir süreç olarak adlandırdığı duraklardan biri Hollanda. Hollanda’yı krize götürdüğünü söylediği finansallaşma, Hollanda’nın dönemin gücü Habsburg İmparatorluğu’na üstün gelmesini sağlayan şeydi. İlk modern hisse senedi piyasasına sahip Hollanda’nın yaşadığı dönüşümü biraz hafife alıyor gibi gördüm. Hemen her krizin tekrarlaması gibi finansal krizler de tekrarlıyor. Bunda yalnızca hegemonya krizi görmesi okurken katılamadığım saptamalarından biriydi. Kitabın geleceğe dair çıkarımlarını da sağlam bulmadım. Arrighi bile tekrar bir sonsöz yazarak revize ediyor. Bu tip qualitative çalışmalar geriye dönük değerlendirildiğinde daha değerlidir. Bence kitabı kapitalizmin işleyiş tarihi olarak okumanın faydası var. Son olarak dilinden bahsetmek istiyorum. Kitabın insanı bezdirecek ölçüde ağır ve sıkıcı bir dili var. Hep aynı yerde gezindiğimiz cümleler vardı bolca. Matematik ve grafikten kaçınan araştırmacıları okurken bu yüzden epey zorlanıyorum.
March 11, 2023
What can I say other than "I fuck with the vision"
October 8, 2019
Yazarının zaman zaman sıkıcı üslubuna rağmen, tarihsel kapitalizmin işleyişine dair öğretici bir çalışma. Temel tezleri şöyle:
i. Kapitalist sistem 15. yüzyıldan bu yana hep bir hegemon gücün etrafında örgütlendi. Bunlar sırasıyla Venedik, Ceneviz, Hollanda, Britanya ve ABD'dir. ii. Bu hegemon güç her seferinde bir yükseliş ve çöküş aşaması yaşar. Çöküşün alameti hegemon gücün sermayesinin üretken sermayeden mali sermayeye yönelmesidir. Burjuvazi sermayesini finansallaştırır, asıl karını para satarak elde etmeye başlar, üretime yanaşmaz. iii. Çöküşünün son aşamasında hegemon olan güç yerini toprakları daha büyük, nüfusu daha kalabalık bir yeni hegemona bırakır.
Arrighi son hegemon olan ABD'nin de bu çöküş alametlerini taşıdığını söylüyor. 1973 krizi. 1980'le yeniden yapılanma. 2001 krizi ve 9/11, son olarak da 2008 ekonomik krizi. Kitap 1994 yılında yayımlandığında ABD'nin yerine geçebilecek adaylardan biri olarak aklında Japonya varmış. Kitabın 2009 yılındaki baskısına yazdığı sonsözde bunu Çin olarak değiştirmiş.
Kitapta öğretici pek çok çıkarım var:
- Kapitalistlerin bolluk döneminde yaptığı işbirliği ve işbölümünün kriz dönemlerinde nasıl dağıldığı, yalnızca uluslararası çatışmaları değil, oligarşi-içi çelişkileri anlamakta da kullanılabilir.
- Lenin'in "Emperyalizm" kitabını yazarken ilham kaynakları olan Hobson ve Hilferding'in taban tabana zıt görünen çözümlemelerinin, aslında aynı dünya sisteminin iki farklı üyesini (Almanya ve İngiltere) ele almalarından kaynaklı olduğu fikri.
- Hegemonya krizinin bir işareti olarak finansallaşmanın görülmesi çok ilginç. Tarihte Venedik, Ceneviz, Hollanda ve Britanya'da tekrarlayan bu olgu, acaba ABD'yi nereye götürecek?
Chase-Dunn'ın "Global Structures" kitabıyla birlikte okunabilecek, emperyalizme dair çağdaş güzel bir eser. Lenin emperyalizmin tekelci kapitalizm olduğunu söylüyordu, Arrighi buna ek olarak, yürütücüsünün sürekli gelişerek değiştiği bir tekelci kapitalizm fikri ileri sürmüş.
i. Kapitalist sistem 15. yüzyıldan bu yana hep bir hegemon gücün etrafında örgütlendi. Bunlar sırasıyla Venedik, Ceneviz, Hollanda, Britanya ve ABD'dir. ii. Bu hegemon güç her seferinde bir yükseliş ve çöküş aşaması yaşar. Çöküşün alameti hegemon gücün sermayesinin üretken sermayeden mali sermayeye yönelmesidir. Burjuvazi sermayesini finansallaştırır, asıl karını para satarak elde etmeye başlar, üretime yanaşmaz. iii. Çöküşünün son aşamasında hegemon olan güç yerini toprakları daha büyük, nüfusu daha kalabalık bir yeni hegemona bırakır.
Arrighi son hegemon olan ABD'nin de bu çöküş alametlerini taşıdığını söylüyor. 1973 krizi. 1980'le yeniden yapılanma. 2001 krizi ve 9/11, son olarak da 2008 ekonomik krizi. Kitap 1994 yılında yayımlandığında ABD'nin yerine geçebilecek adaylardan biri olarak aklında Japonya varmış. Kitabın 2009 yılındaki baskısına yazdığı sonsözde bunu Çin olarak değiştirmiş.
Kitapta öğretici pek çok çıkarım var:
- Kapitalistlerin bolluk döneminde yaptığı işbirliği ve işbölümünün kriz dönemlerinde nasıl dağıldığı, yalnızca uluslararası çatışmaları değil, oligarşi-içi çelişkileri anlamakta da kullanılabilir.
- Lenin'in "Emperyalizm" kitabını yazarken ilham kaynakları olan Hobson ve Hilferding'in taban tabana zıt görünen çözümlemelerinin, aslında aynı dünya sisteminin iki farklı üyesini (Almanya ve İngiltere) ele almalarından kaynaklı olduğu fikri.
- Hegemonya krizinin bir işareti olarak finansallaşmanın görülmesi çok ilginç. Tarihte Venedik, Ceneviz, Hollanda ve Britanya'da tekrarlayan bu olgu, acaba ABD'yi nereye götürecek?
Chase-Dunn'ın "Global Structures" kitabıyla birlikte okunabilecek, emperyalizme dair çağdaş güzel bir eser. Lenin emperyalizmin tekelci kapitalizm olduğunu söylüyordu, Arrighi buna ek olarak, yürütücüsünün sürekli gelişerek değiştiği bir tekelci kapitalizm fikri ileri sürmüş.
January 7, 2023
Irredeemable garbage.
This was sold to me as a kind of sequel to Braudel's Civilization & Capitalism, one of my favorite books. I was really disappointed to find something completely different; Arrighi has none of Braudel's strengths, but is happy to copy his weaknesses. He displays none of the curiosity, none of the interest in data (while Braudel's work is filled with numbers, it would not surprise me if Arrighi was innumerate). But he does share Braudel's attitude towards growth (which is to say that he ignores it). To ignore productivity growth in a study of the 15-18th centuries is bad enough; to ignore it in a study of the "long twentieth century" is downright deranged. Not to mention ignoring demographics...
Arrighi writes about economic history but does not seem to have opened even a 101 econ book in his life. He frequently uses terms of art like "comparative advantage" incorrectly. Wild causal claims are made without any basis in data whatsoever (let alone any serious attempts to establish causality).
While Braudel famously approached history in a highly quantitative manner, for Arrighi economics seem to be a kind of language game rather than something that can be measured and analyzed. It's all "as X has argued..", "as Y has suggested..."! Evidence? What's that? He likes to quote Robert Reich! His predictions about the US's decline have of course not been borne out. And it's terribly written on top of everything.
This was sold to me as a kind of sequel to Braudel's Civilization & Capitalism, one of my favorite books. I was really disappointed to find something completely different; Arrighi has none of Braudel's strengths, but is happy to copy his weaknesses. He displays none of the curiosity, none of the interest in data (while Braudel's work is filled with numbers, it would not surprise me if Arrighi was innumerate). But he does share Braudel's attitude towards growth (which is to say that he ignores it). To ignore productivity growth in a study of the 15-18th centuries is bad enough; to ignore it in a study of the "long twentieth century" is downright deranged. Not to mention ignoring demographics...
Arrighi writes about economic history but does not seem to have opened even a 101 econ book in his life. He frequently uses terms of art like "comparative advantage" incorrectly. Wild causal claims are made without any basis in data whatsoever (let alone any serious attempts to establish causality).
While Braudel famously approached history in a highly quantitative manner, for Arrighi economics seem to be a kind of language game rather than something that can be measured and analyzed. It's all "as X has argued..", "as Y has suggested..."! Evidence? What's that? He likes to quote Robert Reich! His predictions about the US's decline have of course not been borne out. And it's terribly written on top of everything.
July 12, 2011
Reviewed 7/7/2010
The History of Capitalism
Why is this edition "new and updated"? Apparently, because of the 15 page Postscript at the end of the book (pp. 371-386). (I had read the first edition back when it first came out in the nineties but no longer seem to have a copy of it so I cannot compare the earlier edition with this one.) Here in the Postscript Arrighi attempts to sum up what he understands were the three main propositions of his book.
Firstly, according to Arrighi, a Capitalist Epoch (there are more than one!) comes to an end when the financial (intermediation and speculation) overwhelms trade and production. This happens because the "possibility of continuing to profit from the reinvestment of capital in the material expansion of the world economy has reached its limits." But this 'financialization' of the world economy is only a temporary respite for the current 'dominant regime of accumulation'; historically, according to our author, it is the harbinger of its end.
Next, these occurrences are not recurrences. That is, the transition from one 'regime of accumulation' to another is not merely cyclical. A new regime (I mean the historical examples of the specific regimes of accumulation that our author identifies and elucidates) is always a fundamental reorganization of the capitalist world. Each regime has been (thus far) stronger, militarily and financially, than its predecessor.
And lastly, and perhaps most ominously, "the financial expansion of the late twentieth century [is] anomalous in key aspects". Most worrying, for Arrighi, is the bifurcation of military and financial power. The three possible results he foresaw from this were: "the formation of a world empire; the formation of a non-capitalist world economy; or a situation of endless systemic chaos."
What follows are merely some notes to (and impressions of) the postscript, not a review of the whole marvelously detailed book. All quotes are from this postscript unless a page number is given.
"[M]aterial expansions eventually lead to an over-accumulation of capital, which in turn leads capitalist organizations to invade one another's spheres of operation." Financial expansions occur only when profit margins in trade and production fall to a degree that forces capitalist agencies to attempt to remain as 'liquid' as possible. This "consolidates [...] the 'supply' conditions of financial expansions." Now, one of the things I enjoyed when I first read Arrighi is his love of the sources. He is unsparing in finding examples to support his argument and conceptualizations that anticipate it. For instance, he here continues his thought on financial expansions by saying:
"Historically, the crucial factor in creating the demand conditions of financial expansions has been an intensification of interstate competition for mobile capital - a competition that Max Weber has called 'the world-historical distinctiveness of [the modern] era'." Indeed, while even in pre-modern times there was capital not controlled by state or empire, its ability to freely go wherever it pleased was severely curtailed.
Our author is quite often either admired or dismissed for being a Marxist. But, as Arrighi indicates, he has also learned a great deal from Fernand Braudel:
"The concept of financial expansions developed in 'The Long Twentieth Century' builds on Braudel's observation that financial expansions are a sign of maturity of a particular phase of capitalist development."
What exactly are these 'phases'? In this book Arrighi delineates four 'Systemic Cycles of Accumulation': the Genoese, the Dutch, the British, and, lastly (and currently but falling), the United States. Besides Marx and Braudel, Joe Schumpeter (the Schumpeter of Cycles and 'Creative Destruction') is another important influence. One sees evidence of all three of these influences everywhere.
Now, in "Empire" Hardt and Negri (mis-)understood Arrighi to be indicating that these systemic cycles are repetitions:
"What concerns us more is that in the context of Arrighi's cyclical argument it is impossible to recognize a rupture of the system, a paradigm shift, an event. Instead, everything must always return, and the history of capitalism thus becomes the eternal return of the same. In the end, such a cyclical analysis masks the motor of the process of crisis and restructuring. Even though Arrighi himself has done extensive research on working-class conditions and movements throughout the world, in the context of this book, and under the weight of its historical apparatus, it seems that the crises of the 1970s was simply part of the objective and inevitable cycles of capitalist accumulation, rather than the result of proletarian and anticapitalist attack both in the dominant and in the subordinated countries." (Hardt & Negri, Empire, p. 239.)
Now, our author maintains that what returns, of course, are merely these recurrent financial expansions. And again, that they are always the forerunners of systemic change. As we saw earlier each regime is financially and militarily stronger than its predecessor. So, what does Arrighi mean by systemic change? There have been four regimes of capitalist accumulation according to our author. The first, Genoa, was defenseless and had to 'buy' protection from the Spanish Empire. Each regime has to compete for mobile capital but the next regime "the Dutch was able to do so without having to 'buy' protection from territorial states..." So you see, there has been Systemic change; the "Dutch regime, in other words, 'internalized' the protection costs that the Genoese externalized." How was the next regime of accumulation (the British Empire) different from the Dutch? The British "did not need to rely on others for most of the agro-industrial production on which the profitability of its commercial activities rested."
So you see, the Dutch 'internalized' the protection costs that the Genoese had to purchase from others, while the British internalized production costs that the Dutch had to externalize. Okay, how does the current American regime differ from the British? Thanks to its continental size the US was able to largely internalize various market transaction costs. The US policy of "keeping the doors of the domestic market closed to foreign products but open to foreign capital, labor, and enterprise, had made it the main beneficiary of British free-trade imperialism. (p. 62)" Now, in another area, there has been a pendulum swing, back and forth, from regime to regime. Arrighi calls this the 'extensive' and 'intensive' regimes of accumulation. This is an alternation "between 'cosmopolitan-imperial' and 'corporate-national' organizational structures. Each step forward in the process of internalization of costs by a new regime of accumulation involved a revival of governmental and business strategies and structures that had been superseded by the preceding regime." Thus, according to Arrighi, the first regime, the Genoese were extensive (that is, "cosmopolitan-imperial"), the Dutch were then intensive ("corporate-national"), the British were extensive, and the US intensive.
So, although each regime has internalized costs that no previous regime could, there is a swing back and forth between 'cosmopolitan-imperial' and 'corporate-national' types of regimes. A third point Arrighi makes is that there is a "successive shortening of the duration of each systemic cycle of accumulation. While the government and business organizations leading each cycle have become more powerful and complex, the life-cycles of the regimes of accumulation have become shorter." It would thus seem that more power only leads to less stability. At this point in the Postscript Arrighi quotes Marx approvingly saying: "that 'the real barrier of capitalist production is capital itself' and that capitalist production continually overcomes its immanent barriers 'only by means which again place these barriers in its way on a more formidable scale'." Arrighi takes this insight regarding the internal contradictions of capitalism from Marx, who really only applied it to the British System, and argues that it applies to all four Capitalist Epochs, but in different ways. Arrighi explains that "the essence of the contradiction is that in all instances the expansion of world trade and production is a mere means in endeavors aimed primarily at increasing the value of capital, and yet, over time, it tends to drive down the rate of profit and thereby curtail the value of capital."
So here we are today in the midst of another period of 'financialization'. Does this mean that the US System is about to be surpassed by another? Well, we shall see...
But how would this new regime, if it rises, differ from the US system? According to Arrighi,
1. "the leading governmental organization of the new regime would approximate the features of a world-state more closely..."
2. "the new regime would be of the extensive (cosmopolitan-imperial) rather than of the intensive (corporate-national) variety."
3. "the new regime would internalize the costs of reproducing both human life and nature..."
I have no problem with the first two points. They follow the pattern that, in our author's analysis, capitalism has followed. Point three, however, is an attempt to predict something entirely new. That is to say, it attempts to predict the exact shape of a a break in the pattern. Of course, if we follow Arrighi's analysis of the four capitalist systems it is certainly uncontroversial to say that the next regime will internalize a cost that the US regime would or could not internalize. However, ahead of time, I would argue that it is impossible to say exactly what that cost will turn out to be. And it is not at all clear to me, again staying within the parameters of Arrighi's analysis, why it is necessary that both these costs (the reproduction of 'human life and nature') are internalized. - Why both of them?; why not only one of them? I frankly found this prediction that the next capitalist regime will "internalize the costs of reproducing both human life and nature" surprisingly utopian in this otherwise very realistic analysis the history of capitalism. Let us let the future make its own propaganda. And finally (and hopefully not beating this point to death) why not an entirely different cost internalization - like, oh say, a revolutionary new energy technology available to all (i.e., internalized by all) that lowers the cost of energy to unprecedented levels?
But why is Arrighi concerned that this new regime might not rise at all? After all, if his analysis of these four capitalist regimes is correct then how could a new regime not arise after the present 'financialization' of the world economy passes? Well, the "patterns that we observe ex post, in other words, are as much the outcome of geographical and historical contingencies as they are of historical necessity." That is, the question on the table is are we here seeing in Arrighi's delineation of these four Capitalist Systems a structurally necessary historical pattern or merely a record of contingencies that happened to happen?
Assuming the former, what Arrighi would now expect is the rise of China/East Asia as the next capitalist regime. But "the kind of bifurcation between US military power and (East Asian) economic power that we can observe since the 1980's has no precedent in the annals of capitalist history." Thanks to this bifurcation the West, after several centuries, is losing "control over surplus capital". This is indeed unprecedented. So now you see, the 'new' does happen even in the midst of the cycles that Arrighi identifies and elucidates. But how can the new capitalist regime, that must rise according to the understanding of the current financialization of the world economy that Arrighi here puts forth, become globally hegemonic if it does not possess the greatest military power?
It can't... So, in light of this bifurcation of US military power and East Asian economic power, what exactly happens? Arrighi envisions three possibilities:
1. "The United States and its European allies might attempt to use their military superiority to extract a 'protection payment' from the emerging capitalist centers of East Asia. If the attempt succeeded, the first truly global empire in world history might come into existence."
2. "If no such attempt was made, or if it was made but did not succeed, over time East Asia might have become the center of a world market society buttressed, not by superior military power as in the past, but by the mutual respect of the world's cultures and civilizations."
3. It is "also possible that the bifurcation would result in endless worldwide chaos."
The first edition of this book appeared in 1994. This Revised and Updated Edition came out in 2010. For those fifteen odd years the world, for our author, has only been treading water. "All three of the scenarios sketched out in the Epilogue remain possible alternative historical outcomes to the terminal crisis of US hegemony." Arrighi will not know which scenario actually occurs, he died in June, 2009. The Postscript that we have been following in this review is dated March, 2009.
This is a superb book; in following the outline our author provides in the Postscript I have ignored the details of the main text. The richness of the argument is in these details. Do not deny yourself this richness...
Four and a half stars for a wonderfully detailed, realistic history of capitalist regimes marred only, albeit rarely, by a surprisingly utopian vision of the future under the next regime.
The History of Capitalism
Why is this edition "new and updated"? Apparently, because of the 15 page Postscript at the end of the book (pp. 371-386). (I had read the first edition back when it first came out in the nineties but no longer seem to have a copy of it so I cannot compare the earlier edition with this one.) Here in the Postscript Arrighi attempts to sum up what he understands were the three main propositions of his book.
Firstly, according to Arrighi, a Capitalist Epoch (there are more than one!) comes to an end when the financial (intermediation and speculation) overwhelms trade and production. This happens because the "possibility of continuing to profit from the reinvestment of capital in the material expansion of the world economy has reached its limits." But this 'financialization' of the world economy is only a temporary respite for the current 'dominant regime of accumulation'; historically, according to our author, it is the harbinger of its end.
Next, these occurrences are not recurrences. That is, the transition from one 'regime of accumulation' to another is not merely cyclical. A new regime (I mean the historical examples of the specific regimes of accumulation that our author identifies and elucidates) is always a fundamental reorganization of the capitalist world. Each regime has been (thus far) stronger, militarily and financially, than its predecessor.
And lastly, and perhaps most ominously, "the financial expansion of the late twentieth century [is] anomalous in key aspects". Most worrying, for Arrighi, is the bifurcation of military and financial power. The three possible results he foresaw from this were: "the formation of a world empire; the formation of a non-capitalist world economy; or a situation of endless systemic chaos."
What follows are merely some notes to (and impressions of) the postscript, not a review of the whole marvelously detailed book. All quotes are from this postscript unless a page number is given.
"[M]aterial expansions eventually lead to an over-accumulation of capital, which in turn leads capitalist organizations to invade one another's spheres of operation." Financial expansions occur only when profit margins in trade and production fall to a degree that forces capitalist agencies to attempt to remain as 'liquid' as possible. This "consolidates [...] the 'supply' conditions of financial expansions." Now, one of the things I enjoyed when I first read Arrighi is his love of the sources. He is unsparing in finding examples to support his argument and conceptualizations that anticipate it. For instance, he here continues his thought on financial expansions by saying:
"Historically, the crucial factor in creating the demand conditions of financial expansions has been an intensification of interstate competition for mobile capital - a competition that Max Weber has called 'the world-historical distinctiveness of [the modern] era'." Indeed, while even in pre-modern times there was capital not controlled by state or empire, its ability to freely go wherever it pleased was severely curtailed.
Our author is quite often either admired or dismissed for being a Marxist. But, as Arrighi indicates, he has also learned a great deal from Fernand Braudel:
"The concept of financial expansions developed in 'The Long Twentieth Century' builds on Braudel's observation that financial expansions are a sign of maturity of a particular phase of capitalist development."
What exactly are these 'phases'? In this book Arrighi delineates four 'Systemic Cycles of Accumulation': the Genoese, the Dutch, the British, and, lastly (and currently but falling), the United States. Besides Marx and Braudel, Joe Schumpeter (the Schumpeter of Cycles and 'Creative Destruction') is another important influence. One sees evidence of all three of these influences everywhere.
Now, in "Empire" Hardt and Negri (mis-)understood Arrighi to be indicating that these systemic cycles are repetitions:
"What concerns us more is that in the context of Arrighi's cyclical argument it is impossible to recognize a rupture of the system, a paradigm shift, an event. Instead, everything must always return, and the history of capitalism thus becomes the eternal return of the same. In the end, such a cyclical analysis masks the motor of the process of crisis and restructuring. Even though Arrighi himself has done extensive research on working-class conditions and movements throughout the world, in the context of this book, and under the weight of its historical apparatus, it seems that the crises of the 1970s was simply part of the objective and inevitable cycles of capitalist accumulation, rather than the result of proletarian and anticapitalist attack both in the dominant and in the subordinated countries." (Hardt & Negri, Empire, p. 239.)
Now, our author maintains that what returns, of course, are merely these recurrent financial expansions. And again, that they are always the forerunners of systemic change. As we saw earlier each regime is financially and militarily stronger than its predecessor. So, what does Arrighi mean by systemic change? There have been four regimes of capitalist accumulation according to our author. The first, Genoa, was defenseless and had to 'buy' protection from the Spanish Empire. Each regime has to compete for mobile capital but the next regime "the Dutch was able to do so without having to 'buy' protection from territorial states..." So you see, there has been Systemic change; the "Dutch regime, in other words, 'internalized' the protection costs that the Genoese externalized." How was the next regime of accumulation (the British Empire) different from the Dutch? The British "did not need to rely on others for most of the agro-industrial production on which the profitability of its commercial activities rested."
So you see, the Dutch 'internalized' the protection costs that the Genoese had to purchase from others, while the British internalized production costs that the Dutch had to externalize. Okay, how does the current American regime differ from the British? Thanks to its continental size the US was able to largely internalize various market transaction costs. The US policy of "keeping the doors of the domestic market closed to foreign products but open to foreign capital, labor, and enterprise, had made it the main beneficiary of British free-trade imperialism. (p. 62)" Now, in another area, there has been a pendulum swing, back and forth, from regime to regime. Arrighi calls this the 'extensive' and 'intensive' regimes of accumulation. This is an alternation "between 'cosmopolitan-imperial' and 'corporate-national' organizational structures. Each step forward in the process of internalization of costs by a new regime of accumulation involved a revival of governmental and business strategies and structures that had been superseded by the preceding regime." Thus, according to Arrighi, the first regime, the Genoese were extensive (that is, "cosmopolitan-imperial"), the Dutch were then intensive ("corporate-national"), the British were extensive, and the US intensive.
So, although each regime has internalized costs that no previous regime could, there is a swing back and forth between 'cosmopolitan-imperial' and 'corporate-national' types of regimes. A third point Arrighi makes is that there is a "successive shortening of the duration of each systemic cycle of accumulation. While the government and business organizations leading each cycle have become more powerful and complex, the life-cycles of the regimes of accumulation have become shorter." It would thus seem that more power only leads to less stability. At this point in the Postscript Arrighi quotes Marx approvingly saying: "that 'the real barrier of capitalist production is capital itself' and that capitalist production continually overcomes its immanent barriers 'only by means which again place these barriers in its way on a more formidable scale'." Arrighi takes this insight regarding the internal contradictions of capitalism from Marx, who really only applied it to the British System, and argues that it applies to all four Capitalist Epochs, but in different ways. Arrighi explains that "the essence of the contradiction is that in all instances the expansion of world trade and production is a mere means in endeavors aimed primarily at increasing the value of capital, and yet, over time, it tends to drive down the rate of profit and thereby curtail the value of capital."
So here we are today in the midst of another period of 'financialization'. Does this mean that the US System is about to be surpassed by another? Well, we shall see...
But how would this new regime, if it rises, differ from the US system? According to Arrighi,
1. "the leading governmental organization of the new regime would approximate the features of a world-state more closely..."
2. "the new regime would be of the extensive (cosmopolitan-imperial) rather than of the intensive (corporate-national) variety."
3. "the new regime would internalize the costs of reproducing both human life and nature..."
I have no problem with the first two points. They follow the pattern that, in our author's analysis, capitalism has followed. Point three, however, is an attempt to predict something entirely new. That is to say, it attempts to predict the exact shape of a a break in the pattern. Of course, if we follow Arrighi's analysis of the four capitalist systems it is certainly uncontroversial to say that the next regime will internalize a cost that the US regime would or could not internalize. However, ahead of time, I would argue that it is impossible to say exactly what that cost will turn out to be. And it is not at all clear to me, again staying within the parameters of Arrighi's analysis, why it is necessary that both these costs (the reproduction of 'human life and nature') are internalized. - Why both of them?; why not only one of them? I frankly found this prediction that the next capitalist regime will "internalize the costs of reproducing both human life and nature" surprisingly utopian in this otherwise very realistic analysis the history of capitalism. Let us let the future make its own propaganda. And finally (and hopefully not beating this point to death) why not an entirely different cost internalization - like, oh say, a revolutionary new energy technology available to all (i.e., internalized by all) that lowers the cost of energy to unprecedented levels?
But why is Arrighi concerned that this new regime might not rise at all? After all, if his analysis of these four capitalist regimes is correct then how could a new regime not arise after the present 'financialization' of the world economy passes? Well, the "patterns that we observe ex post, in other words, are as much the outcome of geographical and historical contingencies as they are of historical necessity." That is, the question on the table is are we here seeing in Arrighi's delineation of these four Capitalist Systems a structurally necessary historical pattern or merely a record of contingencies that happened to happen?
Assuming the former, what Arrighi would now expect is the rise of China/East Asia as the next capitalist regime. But "the kind of bifurcation between US military power and (East Asian) economic power that we can observe since the 1980's has no precedent in the annals of capitalist history." Thanks to this bifurcation the West, after several centuries, is losing "control over surplus capital". This is indeed unprecedented. So now you see, the 'new' does happen even in the midst of the cycles that Arrighi identifies and elucidates. But how can the new capitalist regime, that must rise according to the understanding of the current financialization of the world economy that Arrighi here puts forth, become globally hegemonic if it does not possess the greatest military power?
It can't... So, in light of this bifurcation of US military power and East Asian economic power, what exactly happens? Arrighi envisions three possibilities:
1. "The United States and its European allies might attempt to use their military superiority to extract a 'protection payment' from the emerging capitalist centers of East Asia. If the attempt succeeded, the first truly global empire in world history might come into existence."
2. "If no such attempt was made, or if it was made but did not succeed, over time East Asia might have become the center of a world market society buttressed, not by superior military power as in the past, but by the mutual respect of the world's cultures and civilizations."
3. It is "also possible that the bifurcation would result in endless worldwide chaos."
The first edition of this book appeared in 1994. This Revised and Updated Edition came out in 2010. For those fifteen odd years the world, for our author, has only been treading water. "All three of the scenarios sketched out in the Epilogue remain possible alternative historical outcomes to the terminal crisis of US hegemony." Arrighi will not know which scenario actually occurs, he died in June, 2009. The Postscript that we have been following in this review is dated March, 2009.
This is a superb book; in following the outline our author provides in the Postscript I have ignored the details of the main text. The richness of the argument is in these details. Do not deny yourself this richness...
Four and a half stars for a wonderfully detailed, realistic history of capitalist regimes marred only, albeit rarely, by a surprisingly utopian vision of the future under the next regime.
November 10, 2022
There are at least two ways (there are certainly many more) books can make you feel stupid: one repeats platitudes and mundane factoids, making you wonder "am I missing something here, or am I just not smart enough to get what their trying to do?" With this type, you reach the end, sit on it for a day or so and eventually realize that no, there wasn't anything to it and it was a waste of your time. A second type hits you with sentence after sentence delivered with the utmost gravity containing names and processes you're faintly aware of, forcing you to acknowledge the depth of the well containing things you don't know.
This book was something of a pain to read, but never dull. It takes you through what Arrighi calls the four "systemic cycles of accumulation" and the three hegemonies of historical capitalism, including the Genoese cycle, the Dutch cycle, the British cycle, and finally the US cycle (with hints at its terminus and transformation into a possible fifth in the epilogue). His analysis is a fluid one based largely in a deep reading of Fernand Braudel that ties together industrial production and financialization (of which I know very little, I learned) to state power and territorialism in a system of relays where one can never be isolated from the other without great distortion. He then historicizes these into systemic cycles and and lays them on top of one another (with significant overlap throughout history). So many financial crises in particular that seem so specific to our times are proven to have precedents long in the past. I walk away determined at least to read a lot of Braudel.
This book was something of a pain to read, but never dull. It takes you through what Arrighi calls the four "systemic cycles of accumulation" and the three hegemonies of historical capitalism, including the Genoese cycle, the Dutch cycle, the British cycle, and finally the US cycle (with hints at its terminus and transformation into a possible fifth in the epilogue). His analysis is a fluid one based largely in a deep reading of Fernand Braudel that ties together industrial production and financialization (of which I know very little, I learned) to state power and territorialism in a system of relays where one can never be isolated from the other without great distortion. He then historicizes these into systemic cycles and and lays them on top of one another (with significant overlap throughout history). So many financial crises in particular that seem so specific to our times are proven to have precedents long in the past. I walk away determined at least to read a lot of Braudel.
September 26, 2021
Occasionally you read a book that changes the way you think about the world. There were probably more when we are young and maybe as we get older we get complacent and stuck in our ways and are shaken up less often. For me, The Long Twentieth Century is one of those books that made me rethink how the world works – that doesn’t mean it’s right, but it makes sense for me. Giovanni Arrighi comes out of a ‘world systems’ perspective and was close to his colleague Immanuel Wallerstein – in The Long Twentieth Century he also builds on Marx, Karl Polanyi, Joseph Schumpeter, Adam Smith and, in his understanding of history, Fernand Braudel – a diverse bunch and Arrighi must be congratulated for making them seem compatible. Apparently Arrighi first set out to explain the economic crisis of the 1970s, the crisis that brought an end to the post-War Boom and threatened the global dominance of the United States’ economy – there were obvious parallels with the dominance and long crisis of the British economy during the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century; further similarities could be found in the Dutch economy of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century; and then there is a further step back to Italy and the success of the Genoese bankers. This is a very long Long Twentieth Century, reaching back to the late Medieval period. Arrighi identifies four “systematic cycles of accumulation”, the Northern Italian/Genoese, the Dutch, the British and then the final hegemony of the United States. Each cycle is marked by an original trading in goods, then, after crisis, there is a recalibration and a trading of money becomes the dominant mode: the dominance of the hegemonic economy is maintained, until inevitable decline and the rise of a stronger and more dynamic capitalist centre shunts it aside. But this is not a fatalistic scheme implying an inevitable repetition, Arrighi notes the many differences and unique qualities within the four historical capitalist cycles – for instance, the growing but contrasting forms of political power that grew alongside economic success. Although Arrighi is deeply historical in outlook, The Long Twentieth Century in not a historical study, rather its purpose is to explain the present in terms of the past. In the original edition Arrighi considers whether a new cycle is apparent in the emerging East Asian economies of Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore: although these could be seen as a new and dynamic capitalist centre, politically they were obviously fragmented and in the shadow of the United States. With the new edition, published 15 years later, the rise of China suggests a new dynamic capitalist centre that also has a large geographical area and is a unified political unit. This does not mean that a fifth “systematic cycle of accumulation” is successfully being formed that will inevitably supplant the United States, but the great irony of the Twenty-first Century might be that the saviour of global capitalism will be the Chinese Communist Party.
March 6, 2019
The late Giovanni Arrighi drawing on a wide variety of schools of thought and methods (including the Annales school of French historiography, Marxist historical materialism, and world systems theory) makes an interesting case that capitalism as a world phenomenon has been characterized by various periods - or 'long centuries' - where one capitalist power reigned supreme and organized world capitalist accumulation along specific lines. Genoese domination gave way to that of the Dutch Republic, which itself was surpassed by British capitalism which then subsequently collapsed into the American hegemony within which we (still?) find ourselves today. Arrighi claims that (a) as each of these successive powers was surpassed, the territorial capitalist unit which came to dominate in the new era was larger than the one it replaced, and that (b) each capitalist power at some point withdrew from production and commerce, focusing instead on financial activities and that this (c) was a sign that the dominance of this power had reached its limit, after which, a new power would take its place. He holds that the 'terminal crisis' (the sign of the end) of American capitalism was the crisis of the 1970s which did indeed see the U.S transition from the 'arsenal of democracy' - being the preeminent industrial/commercial power in the world - t0 an economy focused on FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate). Its an interesting theory and I admit, a very useful critique of views which even today predominate on the left that even after 2008 that the U.S is still the undisputed hegemon of world capitalism. His last book was called 'Adam Smith in Beijing' so I will have to give that a read in light of the themes he brought up here and the growing power of China (belt and road initiative).
February 8, 2024
Pretty much as good as historical political economy gets. My third time reading, and having finished Wallerstein’s Modern World System volumes immediately beforehand, it’s become clear that Arrighi’s revisions pretty much all amount to improvements—the notion of systemic cycles of accumulation is both more defensible *and* more helpful than Kondratieff waves, Genoa/Venice are better starting points for the story of the capitalist world-economy than the United Provinces (although if you say this is just semantics I would hear you out), and the distinguishing organizational features of the British and American-led regimes of accumulation are spelled out far more thoroughly + specifically.
All in all, Arrighi (via Christopher Chitty) is who really awakened my interest in political economy, largely because of how obviously useful his frameworks are for understanding the roots of our present conjuncture. His oeuvre is p much totally accessible for anyone with even minimal pol econ reading under their belt, too, which I know describes many of my friends on here—let’s do a reading group 😈
All in all, Arrighi (via Christopher Chitty) is who really awakened my interest in political economy, largely because of how obviously useful his frameworks are for understanding the roots of our present conjuncture. His oeuvre is p much totally accessible for anyone with even minimal pol econ reading under their belt, too, which I know describes many of my friends on here—let’s do a reading group 😈
May 5, 2017
Prof.Arrighi'nin kitabı (1997) son altıyüzyılda kapitalist sistemin oluşumunu Marksist/Braudelci yaklaşımla ele alıyor. Bunu yaparken, İtalyan şehir devletlerinden (Floransa, Venedik ve bilhassa Ceneviz) başlayarak Hollanda, İngiltere ve nihayet ABD sermaye birikim süreçlerinin ekonomi-politiğine odaklanıyor.
Kitap, her ne kadar tarihsel anlatım açısından zengin (bir o kadar da dili bakımından ağır-ağdalı) ise de, Kapitalizmin geleceğine dair öngörüler bağlamında zayıf ve başarısız. Özellikle ABD sonrası sıranın Japonya'ya gelebileceğine dair öngörü, aradan geçen yirmi yılın da gösterdiği üzere sorunlu. Bu bağlamda, 1997 gibi geç sayılabilecek bir tarihte dahi Çin ihtimaline hemen hiç değinilmemiş olması enteresan...
Yine de ciddi tarihsel perspektifi ve ekonomi-politikçi zengin arkaplanıyla önemli bir kaynak...
Kitap, her ne kadar tarihsel anlatım açısından zengin (bir o kadar da dili bakımından ağır-ağdalı) ise de, Kapitalizmin geleceğine dair öngörüler bağlamında zayıf ve başarısız. Özellikle ABD sonrası sıranın Japonya'ya gelebileceğine dair öngörü, aradan geçen yirmi yılın da gösterdiği üzere sorunlu. Bu bağlamda, 1997 gibi geç sayılabilecek bir tarihte dahi Çin ihtimaline hemen hiç değinilmemiş olması enteresan...
Yine de ciddi tarihsel perspektifi ve ekonomi-politikçi zengin arkaplanıyla önemli bir kaynak...
October 31, 2024
Más que una visión del “largo siglo xx” es un (quizá en exceso) detalladísimo análisis global de los ciclos sistémicos de acumulación, como los define Arrighi, que hemos visto en los últimos 700 años. Básicamente explica qué tienen en común las hegemonías capitalistas en toda la historia, como se fueron formando, y como su caída representó el auge de la nueva potencia. Es una lectura incluso más extensa y ardua de lo que aparenta, a pesar de no excederse con el uso de un lenguaje técnico, pero por poco que uno entienda sobre lo que habla ya es provechoso.
February 5, 2021
An important and provocative account of cycles of capital accumulation and crisis from the late middle ages onwards.
April 3, 2025
Vedno rada preberem kaksno antikapitalisticno zgodovinsko ctivo.
November 16, 2014
The Long Twentieth Century is about the idea of a “systemic cycle of accumulation,” which is a process in which the world economy goes through a period of “material expansion” followed by a period of “financial expansion.” The basic idea is that each material expansion leads eventually to an overaccumulation of capital, which causes a crisis and a fall in government revenues. To make up for the revenue shortfall, there is increased inter-state competition for financial capital, which drives up financial rates of return and leads to a period of financial expansion. The financial expansion continues until the world economy is somehow reorganized in a way that makes possible a new period of material expansion, which kicks off a new systemic cycle accumulation.
Arrighi argues that the world capitalist system has now gone through four iterations of this process, and describes each in detail. (This is summarized in a series of weird diagrams, the most helpful of which is figure 3.4 on page 220.) This long historical perspective provides an interesting explanation of how structural changes in the world economy caused financialization to occur in the late 20th century. According to this perspective, what we call financialization is really just the “financial expansion” phase of the current systemic cycle of accumulation.
The problem is that, since the book does not provide much quantitative data, I am not sure how convinced I am of its arguments. For example, a central idea in the text is the concept of an overaccumulation of capital, but I am not sure how this concept might be operationalized, and I am not sure how much relevance it has to the dynamics of actual capitalist economies. How do we know that the fall in the rate of profit during the 1970s was not caused by something other than an overaccumulation of capital? There have been several very meticulous, data-driven studies of what happened in the 1970s by a lot of very smart people, but there is still no consensus about what happened – even among people with essentially the same politics as Arrighi. Robert Brenner wrote an entire book arguing that a specific type of overaccumulation caused the crisis of the 1970s, and although the book was very carefully and meticulously argued, with tons and tons of numbers, it was still not completely convincing. Arrighi basically just *says* that an overaccumulation of capital was what happened. This is something I found to be very frustrating, and in this respect I feel like the book is applying a 19th-century research methodology.
However, Arrighi did give detailed descriptions of the social/institutional structure of the world economy as it passed through its various phases of development, and for this reason the book was consistently fascinating. And he provides an interesting possible explanation of why financialization has occurred. But in my opinion, the best book by far on financialization is still The Crisis of Neoliberalism by Dumenil and Levy.
Arrighi argues that the world capitalist system has now gone through four iterations of this process, and describes each in detail. (This is summarized in a series of weird diagrams, the most helpful of which is figure 3.4 on page 220.) This long historical perspective provides an interesting explanation of how structural changes in the world economy caused financialization to occur in the late 20th century. According to this perspective, what we call financialization is really just the “financial expansion” phase of the current systemic cycle of accumulation.
The problem is that, since the book does not provide much quantitative data, I am not sure how convinced I am of its arguments. For example, a central idea in the text is the concept of an overaccumulation of capital, but I am not sure how this concept might be operationalized, and I am not sure how much relevance it has to the dynamics of actual capitalist economies. How do we know that the fall in the rate of profit during the 1970s was not caused by something other than an overaccumulation of capital? There have been several very meticulous, data-driven studies of what happened in the 1970s by a lot of very smart people, but there is still no consensus about what happened – even among people with essentially the same politics as Arrighi. Robert Brenner wrote an entire book arguing that a specific type of overaccumulation caused the crisis of the 1970s, and although the book was very carefully and meticulously argued, with tons and tons of numbers, it was still not completely convincing. Arrighi basically just *says* that an overaccumulation of capital was what happened. This is something I found to be very frustrating, and in this respect I feel like the book is applying a 19th-century research methodology.
However, Arrighi did give detailed descriptions of the social/institutional structure of the world economy as it passed through its various phases of development, and for this reason the book was consistently fascinating. And he provides an interesting possible explanation of why financialization has occurred. But in my opinion, the best book by far on financialization is still The Crisis of Neoliberalism by Dumenil and Levy.
November 21, 2022
exquisite. easily the best book of historical political economy i've ever read. really interesting description of the relations between state territorial and financial power. helps understand the displacement of crises onto other scales--similar thesis to harvey in some ways but on the world scale. greater roles for pirates and sheep than expected. obviously the conclusion turned out to be disastrously wrong, but other than that it seems like the better crisis analysis on hand. remains to be seen whether china is moving to internalizing ecological 'reproduction costs'; the west is trying through carbon credits and ecosystem service payments but chances are more likely that systemic chaos reigns.
March 5, 2019
the central thesis of this book is fascinating, and if you’re interested in economics, the history of capitalism, or world power dynamics, it’s worth reading. but the majority of it is a slog, partly the result of its incredible levels of research but also its presumed level of economic acumen. the introduction is more or less inscrutable, and the rest is quite confusing at times. luckily, the postscript - written years later, thankfully, when more of the story could be known, particularly about china’s rise - is short and clear; for most people, i’d just suggest reading that.
December 30, 2024
Superb, but wrong. Giovanni Arrighi's historical and theoretical work is just brilliant. Beautiful even. But its time to admit that things are nowhere near as simple as he laid out in this extraordinary book. Building on Braudel and a intricate left-wing economic analysis, Arrighi gives the whole history of modern capitalism here. And not only that, he lays out a complex theory of cycles of accumulation and financialization that purports to explain everything. Those cycles may, in fact, explain everything, and portions of what he says here have enriched my analysis of things. But 30 years after initial publication, and 15 years after his reformulation and doubling down right before his death in 2009, it's time to admit that Arrighi's predictions have failed.
Arrighi maintains that capitalism has proceeded through similar, even predictable pathways since the late middle ages. He identifies a series of economic hegemons of escalating power. First the Venetians, then the Genoese acting through the Spanish, then the Dutch, the British and finally the United States. Within each hegemonic term, Arrighi identifies two distinct phases. First an expansive period of economic development, where capital builds things in the real world, like new trade routes and/or manufacturing paradigms. All of these positive cycles reach a natural end of diminishing profit, so the capitalists retreat into financial trickery, protecting and even expanding their profits, but becoming decandent and leaving the way open to new actors, always in a different geography, who can take their place.
The most interesting concept in this book is financialization, and it was illuminating to see how all the former economic hegemons fell into "rich getting richer" stagnation the way we did in the 1980s. Arrighi does a masterful job unearthing the details of these older capitalisms, and drawing out the parallels. If Arrighi was content to observe and reflect, this would be a five star-review. Unfortunately, he wants to go farther, and make scientific predictions about what is going to happen next. Is this a Marxist obsession? I'm not educated enough to say. As one example, Arrighi's observation of the way that these systems tend to alternate their natures was fascinating. The Venetian, Dutch and American organizations of capitalism have been more organized and authoritarian, interspersed with the more distributed and Laissez-Faire Genoese and British models. These parallels are fun to draw, and reactions and counter-reactions are fun to wonder about. But Arrighi seems to want this to be a settled law of some sort. The specificity of his arguments impress but they don't persuade.
Despite its extraordinary learning and brilliant analysis, Arrighi's over-confidence risks classing his book with vastly inferior works. The Peter Turchin, George Friedman, Ray Dalio school of prediction based on cycles is rightly laughed at by left-wing intellectuals. Unfortunately, Arrighi's specific predictions have subjected his vastly more interesting work to similar mockery. He's just wrong about what happened. He's a careful writer, and he includes counter-points that might undermine his thesis.
Arrighi allows that the United States is vastly more powerful and secure than any of its predecessors, locked in Europe's murderous cockpit, and that this may make US power more durable than the power of those that came before. But he doubles down much harder on one of his pseudo-scientific theories that the cycles he has identified are accelerating. This seemed plausible when he was formulating his theories in the 1970s, and the US-led gold standard was disintegrating. If you ignore the fact that the US was already very much in the world financial drivers seat by 1917, and imagined US hegemony had only lasted from the 1940s-1970s then that might have worked. Arrighi seems to have spent the rest of his life caveating things away to continue to make the theory work. By the 1990s Japan was coming for us, and Reagan's turn towards financialization was clearly the end. By the 2000s, sadly Arrighi's last decade, China came to the fore as our replacement. I hope he was conscious and aware of the 2008 financial crisis, which probably looked like a confirmation of this theories.
Alas it was not to be. US prestige was certainly damaged by 2008, but our financial power, in the form of the Federal Reserve, was reinforced, and reinforced yet again in 2020. Both Japan and China seem to have come up against hard limits to their economic growth without displacing us. At 1917-2025+, US economic and military hegemony has now outlasted the most expansive view of Britain's world control (1815-1917). Even if US empire collapses tomorrow Arrighi's over-specific predictions will have failed. That failure deepens with every year.
Arrighi has presented the most high-minded possible explication of "cycles" theory. As with all such theories, and vastly more so, there is much to be learned from his work. The United States is still mired in a pernicious morass of Reaganite financialization. It is deeply damaging to the American people and the world, and we need to get out of it. But United States hegemony is far more durable than Arrighi claimed. There is no inevitable collapse coming to save us from US capitalism. Or at least not soon. We must reform it from within. This book remains essential. If he's provided a cautionary tale of hubris along with his invaluable explication of the history of European capitalism, that only makes Arrighi's work more worthwhile.
Arrighi maintains that capitalism has proceeded through similar, even predictable pathways since the late middle ages. He identifies a series of economic hegemons of escalating power. First the Venetians, then the Genoese acting through the Spanish, then the Dutch, the British and finally the United States. Within each hegemonic term, Arrighi identifies two distinct phases. First an expansive period of economic development, where capital builds things in the real world, like new trade routes and/or manufacturing paradigms. All of these positive cycles reach a natural end of diminishing profit, so the capitalists retreat into financial trickery, protecting and even expanding their profits, but becoming decandent and leaving the way open to new actors, always in a different geography, who can take their place.
The most interesting concept in this book is financialization, and it was illuminating to see how all the former economic hegemons fell into "rich getting richer" stagnation the way we did in the 1980s. Arrighi does a masterful job unearthing the details of these older capitalisms, and drawing out the parallels. If Arrighi was content to observe and reflect, this would be a five star-review. Unfortunately, he wants to go farther, and make scientific predictions about what is going to happen next. Is this a Marxist obsession? I'm not educated enough to say. As one example, Arrighi's observation of the way that these systems tend to alternate their natures was fascinating. The Venetian, Dutch and American organizations of capitalism have been more organized and authoritarian, interspersed with the more distributed and Laissez-Faire Genoese and British models. These parallels are fun to draw, and reactions and counter-reactions are fun to wonder about. But Arrighi seems to want this to be a settled law of some sort. The specificity of his arguments impress but they don't persuade.
Despite its extraordinary learning and brilliant analysis, Arrighi's over-confidence risks classing his book with vastly inferior works. The Peter Turchin, George Friedman, Ray Dalio school of prediction based on cycles is rightly laughed at by left-wing intellectuals. Unfortunately, Arrighi's specific predictions have subjected his vastly more interesting work to similar mockery. He's just wrong about what happened. He's a careful writer, and he includes counter-points that might undermine his thesis.
Arrighi allows that the United States is vastly more powerful and secure than any of its predecessors, locked in Europe's murderous cockpit, and that this may make US power more durable than the power of those that came before. But he doubles down much harder on one of his pseudo-scientific theories that the cycles he has identified are accelerating. This seemed plausible when he was formulating his theories in the 1970s, and the US-led gold standard was disintegrating. If you ignore the fact that the US was already very much in the world financial drivers seat by 1917, and imagined US hegemony had only lasted from the 1940s-1970s then that might have worked. Arrighi seems to have spent the rest of his life caveating things away to continue to make the theory work. By the 1990s Japan was coming for us, and Reagan's turn towards financialization was clearly the end. By the 2000s, sadly Arrighi's last decade, China came to the fore as our replacement. I hope he was conscious and aware of the 2008 financial crisis, which probably looked like a confirmation of this theories.
Alas it was not to be. US prestige was certainly damaged by 2008, but our financial power, in the form of the Federal Reserve, was reinforced, and reinforced yet again in 2020. Both Japan and China seem to have come up against hard limits to their economic growth without displacing us. At 1917-2025+, US economic and military hegemony has now outlasted the most expansive view of Britain's world control (1815-1917). Even if US empire collapses tomorrow Arrighi's over-specific predictions will have failed. That failure deepens with every year.
Arrighi has presented the most high-minded possible explication of "cycles" theory. As with all such theories, and vastly more so, there is much to be learned from his work. The United States is still mired in a pernicious morass of Reaganite financialization. It is deeply damaging to the American people and the world, and we need to get out of it. But United States hegemony is far more durable than Arrighi claimed. There is no inevitable collapse coming to save us from US capitalism. Or at least not soon. We must reform it from within. This book remains essential. If he's provided a cautionary tale of hubris along with his invaluable explication of the history of European capitalism, that only makes Arrighi's work more worthwhile.
May 23, 2009
Complex history of capital accumulation. If you want to find out how we got in the mess we're in, from the long view, then this is the book for you. Some economic history background required!
March 25, 2016
Excellent overview with lots of reference to Fernand Braudel. Interesting comparison of cycles of accumulation between the Genoese, Dutch, British and American Empires.
April 7, 2025
Warning, this is for advanced Marxists only, as many may get lost in the more math/financial related jargon unless you're more familiar with these concepts.
Was recommended this book from another Marxist intellectual I trust and it did not disappoint. This is essentially a history of the system of capitalism, which Arrighi's thesis is that it essentially began in Italy, in the merchant city states of Venice, Florence and Genoa in the 14th century, while then shifting its base to the Netherlands working with the Spanish empire in the 16th century, then shifting its base to England as its own imperial base in the 18th century, and finally shifting to America with its own continental base in the 20th century.
When most conceptualize the system of capitalism that we have today, most think about the Industrial Revolution, and mostly associate the British with the beginnings of capital. While that did indeed advance capitalism to its final stage of imperialism, capital accumulation, as the book describes started way back when in Europe, ironically sparked by trade with the East, after Marco Polo's expeditions on the Silk Road in the 13th century, which made the Italian merchants wealthy beyond imagination at the time, sparking the impetus for bourgeois expenditures on secular culture that we now all know as the Renaissance. It was capitalism that brought Europe out of the dark ages into modernity.
Arrighi traces how capitalism developed over time, as merchants required more materials for both their trade activities and protection from outside threats, how these verticals all developed together and why activity shifted to the Netherlands when they started to extract capital through acquiring territory and the slave trade, and how England managed to wrest total control by using settler colonialism to generate enormous wealth to become the "workshop of the world", where every nation would need to trade with England for business and finally how WW2 opened the door for America to take over England's trade networks and advance its interests through total military dominance.
If Marx were to have written future volumes of Capital, I imagine that he would have imagined something similar to this book, as it is essentially a historical materialist's analysis of the development of capitalism.
Was recommended this book from another Marxist intellectual I trust and it did not disappoint. This is essentially a history of the system of capitalism, which Arrighi's thesis is that it essentially began in Italy, in the merchant city states of Venice, Florence and Genoa in the 14th century, while then shifting its base to the Netherlands working with the Spanish empire in the 16th century, then shifting its base to England as its own imperial base in the 18th century, and finally shifting to America with its own continental base in the 20th century.
When most conceptualize the system of capitalism that we have today, most think about the Industrial Revolution, and mostly associate the British with the beginnings of capital. While that did indeed advance capitalism to its final stage of imperialism, capital accumulation, as the book describes started way back when in Europe, ironically sparked by trade with the East, after Marco Polo's expeditions on the Silk Road in the 13th century, which made the Italian merchants wealthy beyond imagination at the time, sparking the impetus for bourgeois expenditures on secular culture that we now all know as the Renaissance. It was capitalism that brought Europe out of the dark ages into modernity.
Arrighi traces how capitalism developed over time, as merchants required more materials for both their trade activities and protection from outside threats, how these verticals all developed together and why activity shifted to the Netherlands when they started to extract capital through acquiring territory and the slave trade, and how England managed to wrest total control by using settler colonialism to generate enormous wealth to become the "workshop of the world", where every nation would need to trade with England for business and finally how WW2 opened the door for America to take over England's trade networks and advance its interests through total military dominance.
If Marx were to have written future volumes of Capital, I imagine that he would have imagined something similar to this book, as it is essentially a historical materialist's analysis of the development of capitalism.
February 12, 2023
Struggle to fully hold my interest, but hey, I’m just learning to read.
Capitalism as Ouroboros in reverse, with each successive cycle of expansion feeding into the next. From the Genoese city states the Dutch innovation was the internalization of protection costs through military might, the British innovation was the internalization of production costs through their own abundant natural resources, and the US innovation was internalization of transaction costs through their ability to form markets over their large diverse territory.
Where does that leave us today? We are in the “terminal decline” phase of US hegemony, which historically would mean a passing of the torch. But a significant barrier is the current monopoly the US holds on global military power, a monopoly we are unlikely to give up. Arrighi outlines 3 potential paths forward: a sort of alliance in which the US extracts “protection costs” from the next center of capitalist power, a lower growth environment in which a hostile US continues to dominate the global order, and a breakdown into systemic chaos.
Which leaves me thinking that the China hawks are missing the forest for the trees. China is a country with an emerging middle class larger than the entire population of the US: as a destination for US capital I can think of few better places, provided a friendly regime, particularly as the US struggles desperately to find adequate sources of attractive real investment returns. As China witnesses the limitations of military hostility to the US in the Russian military operation in Ukraine, and the US observes the limitations of just inflating a succession of domestic asset bubbles, whatever our rhetoric, doesn’t it feel like the tides are flowing very strongly in one direction: toward me being able to buy every NBA jersey on AliExpress and feel like I’m doing my patriotic duty in doing so.
Capitalism as Ouroboros in reverse, with each successive cycle of expansion feeding into the next. From the Genoese city states the Dutch innovation was the internalization of protection costs through military might, the British innovation was the internalization of production costs through their own abundant natural resources, and the US innovation was internalization of transaction costs through their ability to form markets over their large diverse territory.
Where does that leave us today? We are in the “terminal decline” phase of US hegemony, which historically would mean a passing of the torch. But a significant barrier is the current monopoly the US holds on global military power, a monopoly we are unlikely to give up. Arrighi outlines 3 potential paths forward: a sort of alliance in which the US extracts “protection costs” from the next center of capitalist power, a lower growth environment in which a hostile US continues to dominate the global order, and a breakdown into systemic chaos.
Which leaves me thinking that the China hawks are missing the forest for the trees. China is a country with an emerging middle class larger than the entire population of the US: as a destination for US capital I can think of few better places, provided a friendly regime, particularly as the US struggles desperately to find adequate sources of attractive real investment returns. As China witnesses the limitations of military hostility to the US in the Russian military operation in Ukraine, and the US observes the limitations of just inflating a succession of domestic asset bubbles, whatever our rhetoric, doesn’t it feel like the tides are flowing very strongly in one direction: toward me being able to buy every NBA jersey on AliExpress and feel like I’m doing my patriotic duty in doing so.
January 27, 2022
English bellow.
Каждый раз, когда читаю такие книги я задаюсь вопрос почему автор пишет таким неудоборимым языком? Мысль может быть и хорошая, но изложенная на 400 страниц это уж слишком. Какая-то нация накапливает слишком много капитала, капитал переходит в финансовую сферу, конец истории, возникает новый гегемон. Лайфхак как можно прочитать книги и выудить из нее полезное. Читайте только абзацы вокруг рисунков, их всего 25. Если хотите выделить самый главный, то это рисунок 10.
Every time when I read books like this, I wonder why the author writes in such an incomprehensible language? Thought the main idea is may be good, but write out 400 pages is too much! Some nation accumulates too much capital, capital moves into the financial sector, the end of history, a new hegemon arises. Lifehack how you can read this book and get something useful out of it: read only the paragraphs around the figures, there are only 25 of them. If you want to highlight the most important one, then this is figure 10.
Каждый раз, когда читаю такие книги я задаюсь вопрос почему автор пишет таким неудоборимым языком? Мысль может быть и хорошая, но изложенная на 400 страниц это уж слишком. Какая-то нация накапливает слишком много капитала, капитал переходит в финансовую сферу, конец истории, возникает новый гегемон. Лайфхак как можно прочитать книги и выудить из нее полезное. Читайте только абзацы вокруг рисунков, их всего 25. Если хотите выделить самый главный, то это рисунок 10.
Every time when I read books like this, I wonder why the author writes in such an incomprehensible language? Thought the main idea is may be good, but write out 400 pages is too much! Some nation accumulates too much capital, capital moves into the financial sector, the end of history, a new hegemon arises. Lifehack how you can read this book and get something useful out of it: read only the paragraphs around the figures, there are only 25 of them. If you want to highlight the most important one, then this is figure 10.
March 2, 2018
Il sottotitolo del libro sintetizza esattamente il suo contenuto. Un'altro potrebbe essere: "Cosa guida la storia e come l'ha fatto negli ultimi 700 anni". Per chi vuol capire quello che ci accade quotidianamente e avere risposte a quello che vede succedere nel mondo questo è un libro fondamentale. E' come un pugno nello stomaco da leggere e rileggere e soprattutto capire. Non è un testo semplicissimo e la sua densità non permette una lettura veloce ma tutto ciò che nutre e vale la pena in fondo ha queste caratteristiche.
Un'altro testo che sto leggendo e che riprende in qualche modo il discorso del "lungo XX secolo" è "Globalizzazione e decadenza industriale. L'Italia tra delocalizzazioni, «crisi secolare»" di Domenico moro, incentrato sull'Italia ma alla fine neanche eccessivamente. Sapere com'è andata a finire al paese che nel bene e nel male è stato protagonista del primo ciclo sistemico di accumulazione alla fine è un giusto corollario al libro di Arrighi.
Un'altro testo che sto leggendo e che riprende in qualche modo il discorso del "lungo XX secolo" è "Globalizzazione e decadenza industriale. L'Italia tra delocalizzazioni, «crisi secolare»" di Domenico moro, incentrato sull'Italia ma alla fine neanche eccessivamente. Sapere com'è andata a finire al paese che nel bene e nel male è stato protagonista del primo ciclo sistemico di accumulazione alla fine è un giusto corollario al libro di Arrighi.
July 31, 2024
the author excellently traces the transitions between MC (money->capital) and CM (commodity->money) phases to demonstrate MCM' as a full path of capital accumulation, over-accumulation, and then collapse through subversion. We see the trace of italian city-states, to the dutch hegemony, then british, and finally American. While the Epilogue correctly identifies East Asia as the new inheritor of the impending Western/US collapse, it incorrectly identifies Japan as the leader of East Asian markets. The author adds a postscript which corrects this as it identifies Japan as beholden to western interests, and rightly notes that the first nation in East Asia to lead an "alternative development" path is China.
April 26, 2024
This is a masterclass in writing abstract political economy. Although Arrighi's subject matter is super unapproachable on its own (e.g. economic conditions and material flows in early modern Florence), he writes his arguments so clearly and gradually that his line of reasoning is very easy to follow. In particular, he builds his arguments by setting up an idea then slowly explaining detail, returning to the central argument to add another layer, then adding more detail and so on. This cyclic accretion works extremely well.
And as a kicker, his arguments are convincing and reveal a new way to see contemporary political economy.
And as a kicker, his arguments are convincing and reveal a new way to see contemporary political economy.
January 8, 2020
Dense reading - i took a few breaks - and I did not understand chunks of the economics. Despite this, what a profound and enlightening history of capitalism, which did not begin, as I had thought, with the Industrial Revolution but centuries earlier with the commercial city-states of 15th and 16th century Italy. Most notably, the book - one must read the 2nd edition for the essential Postscript- looks at the U.S. today in crisis and what might come next, including the rise of China. Rightly considered a landmark work.
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