Rooting State Capitalism in the Churn of Uneven Development

Abstract

Abstract The chapter claims that the fundamental sources of present-day state capitalism are to be found in two world-historical economic mutations, both of which stem from material transformations in the capitalist labour process and changing forms of labour exploitation: (1) the emergence of a more complex constellation of ‘old’ and ‘new’ international divisions of labour; and (2) deep-seated tendencies towards economic stagnation and industrial overcapacity. The chapter shows that these phenomena have had multifaceted ramifications in terms of the temporal and geographical dynamics of value production, circulation, and distribution, and in terms of corporate strategies. States have been directly implicated in these transformations, which they have accompanied by deploying a range of instruments, policies, and regulations. As they have done so, states have themselves experienced a process of restructuring, involving profound transformations in pre-existing landscapes of state intervention, a rearticulation of the relations between states and the circuits of capital, shifting boundaries between the state and civil society, 78and a dramatic expansion of their role as promoter of capital accumulation, direct owner of capital, and investor-shareholder. This is precisely the phenomenon that is now increasingly referred to as the ‘new’ state capitalism. The chapter then offers a panorama of this polymorphous process of state restructuring since the turn of the millennium. it identifies four tendencies: the ‘productivist’, ‘absorptive’, ‘stabilizing’, and ‘disciplinary’ state capitalist impulses. Combinations of these four state capitalist impulses have been observable to various degrees across the world economy, and have profoundly shaped global trajectories of state intervention.