The Necessity of Multiple Nation-States for Capital

Bibliographic Data

ID9744472
AuthorsNeil Davidson (0000-0002-3450-9265, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume24
Issue1
Pages26-46
Publication date2012-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueRethinking Marxism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0893-5696 • E-ISSN: 1475-8059
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/08935696.2012.635024
OpenAlexW1974533753
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited32

Does capitalism require a system of multiple nation-states and, if so, why? This article argues that the existing states system is neither historically contingent nor the fusion of separate logics, but an inescapable product of competitive accumulation based on wage labor. In particular, two defining aspects of the system, competition between capitals and the exploitation of labor by capital, explain the reasons for the persistence of the states system: on the one hand, the need for capitals to be territorially aggregated for competitive purposes; on the other, the need for that territory to have an ideological basis—nationalism—that can be used to bind the working class to the state and hence to capital. A proper understanding can be achieved only by giving equal weight to both external geopolitical relationships and internal nationalist politics as aspects of the totality of capitalism

Capital (architecture · Capitalism · Competition (biology · Economic system · Economics · Geopolitics · Ideology · Market economy · Nationalism · Neoclassical economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Product (mathematics · State (computer science · Wage · Elite Sociology and Global Capitalism · Law · Political Economy and Marxism

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