Alex Callinicos 
Imperialism and Global Political Economy 

In Imperialism and Global Political Economy Alex Callinicos
intervenes in one of the main political and intellectual debates of
the day. The global policies of the United States in the past
decade have encouraged the widespread belief that we live in a new
era of imperialism. But is this belief true, and what does
‘imperialism’ mean?

Callinicos explores these questions in this wide-ranging book.
In the first part, he critically assesses the classical theories of
imperialism developed in the era of the First World War by Marxists
such as Lenin, Luxemburg, and Bukharin and by the Liberal economist
J.A. Hobson. He then outlines a theory of the relationship between
capitalism as an economic system and the international state
system, carving out a distinctive position compared to other
contemporary theorists of empire and imperialism such as Antonio
Negri, David Harvey, Giovanni Arrighi, and Ellen Wood.

In the second half of Imperialism and Global Political Economy
Callinicos traces the history of capitalist imperialism from the
Dutch East India Company to the specific patterns of economic and
geopolitical competition in the contemporary era of American
decline and Chinese expansion. Imperialism, he concludes, is far
from dead.

Table of Content

List of Tables vii

Preface and Acknowledgements ix

Introduction: Empire of Theory, Theories of Empire 1

0.1 Marxism and imperialism 3

0.2 The need for theory 6

0.3 Imperialism and global political economy today 14

Part I: Theory 23

1 The Classical Legacy 25

1.1 Continuing Marx’s Capital 25

1.2 Luxemburg’s fertile diversion 36

1.3 The Lenin-Bukharin synthesis 41

1.4 Organized capitalism and economic crises 53

1.5 Spectres of ultra-imperialism 62

2 Capitalism and the State System 67

2.1 Rethinking the theory of imperialism 67

2.2 Conceptualizing the state system 73

2.3 Interests and ideologies 93

Part II: History 101

3 Capitalism and La Longue Durée 103

3.1 What is capitalism? 103

3.2 Markets and empires 115

3.3 The sinews of capitalist power 123

4 Ages of Imperialism 137

4.1 Periodizing imperialism 137

4.2 Classical imperialism (1870-1945) 144

4.3 Superpower imperialism (1945-1991) 165

5 Imperialism and Global Political Economy Today 188

5.1 The specificity of American imperialism 188

5.2 Global capitalism at the Pillars of Hercules? 197

Notes and References 228

Index 281

About the author

Alex Callinicos is Professor of European Studies at King’s College, London.