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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx

Adam Smith in Beijing « Previous | |Next »
September 6, 2010

Is US power in decline? What are we to make of the rise of China? Will a possible equalization of North-South relations herald a more brutal capitalism or a better world? Giovanni Arrighi, Joel Andreas, and David Harvey give their perspectives in this forum, for a discussion of Arrighi's 2007 book Adam Smith in Beijing (Verso).

Arrighi's text is an analysis of the nature and implications of the rise of China, casted in the context of the historical evolution of capitalism and the contemporary international relations. His argument is that the American Century of global dominance is in terminal crisis. China is bound to resume its historic place as the eastern pole of (economic) civilization and America’s day in the sun is sure to be eclipsed, both by virtue of China’s deep well of human and cultural resources and by the geographic logic of historical capitalism.

The domination and hegemony of the West is on the decline. Notably, the efforts by the US - the current dominant power - in turning itself into a world state were devastated by the “signal” crisis and the looming “terminal” crisis. These crises are attributable to both inherent mechanisms of capitalist production and the mismanagement of the economy by the government. The failure of the neo- conservative imperial project paves the way for China becoming the new center or superpower.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:29 PM |