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UNDERSTANDING GLOBAL CAPITALISM with Dr THE DEVELOPMENT ROUNDTABLE SERIES PRESENTS UNDERSTANDING GLOBAL CAPITALISM with Dr. William Robinson, Professor of Sociology, University of California in Santa Barbara ABOUT DR WILLIAM ROBINSON William Robinson is professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is also affiliated with the January 25, 2008 Latin America and Iberian Studies Program, and with the Global and International Studies Program at UCSB. His main research interests lie in the field of macro and comparative sociology; globalization; political economy; development; social change; political sociology; Latin America and the Third World. Dr. William Robinson: sponsors of my trip, Focus, two weeks or so. I know a Good evening to and the Focus members that number of you have been to everyone, it’s a pleasure to be are present here. I am terribly some of those lectures, and here. This is actually the last grateful for this opportunity. others I’m seeing for the first of my engagements in the What I want to do this time. We have a little bit of Philippines since I leave in 48 afternoon is give a brief time tonight. We’ll have 2 hours. So I want to take summation of the arguments discussants so I’m just going advantage, before I start, to and analysis that I have been to jump in to this in outline just thank once again the putting forward these past form. globalization as epochal change in world capitalism I have been arguing that means of destruction have humanity? That’s what I we are facing a global crisis; never been greater. The attempt to do with my that we are facing a crisis system that we live in at this theoretical, and my scholarly which really is of point is a system which now and analytical work. civilizational proportions; that engulfs the entire planet, the I think that globalization we are facing a world wide global capitalist system. And is a concept with tremendous ecological holocaust of so crisis in any one point is explanatory power, so an untenable consequences. The crisis for the system as a analysis of globalization means of violence world wide whole. The question is, how would be something that not have never been greater, the do we address this crisis of only says something about the 1 crisis, the nature of the system and the crisis which is comprised of all super-national, we are facing, but is also a template for transnational and international institutions. understanding and analyzing a wide range of This does not mean that the nation state social, political, cultural and ideological disappears, but rather that the nation state processes in the 21st century. itself is in the process of being In my theoretical approach, globalization transnationalized, it’s in the process of being January 25, 2008 is a qualitatively new transnational stage in penetrated and transformed by transnational the on-going evolution of world capitalism social and political forces and synchronized ALISM and one of the big debates here is what’s new with a larger emerging transnational and I identify four things in particular that are institutional structure. Fourth, we’re seeing the novel about world capitalism as we get into appearance of novel relations of power and the 21st century. The first of that is the rise of inequality in global society. Social inequality is truly transnational capital. We are seeing the not new, but we’re seeing new forms of global rise of an integrated global production and inequality that cut across the old north-south GLOBALCAPIT financial system, something we haven’t and nation state lines that group new types of previously seen, which is organized and transnational social inequality. We’re seeing driven by transnationalized capital. Secondly, new configurations of global power and with ANDING we have a new class group which I describe as transnational combination. We need to the hegemony fraction at a world level of understand these things. global class structure, and this is the transnational capitalist class. It is UNDERST distinguished by being a class group that is “...globalization is a qualitatively grounded in new global markets and circuits new transnational stage in the of accumulation rather than the previous on-going evolution of world national markets and circuits. The third novel capitalism...” aspect of our epoch is the rise of what I refer to as a transnational state apparatus. What I mean by this is a loose coalition of institutions IN THIS PHOTO Dr. William Robinson delivering a lecture on global capitalism. 2 In my earlier presentations, and I think so-called Second World, some might have I’ll skip over this part, just go very briefly, but called this socialist, others an alternative I would suggest that we have gone through redistribution model, but in any case we see three previous epochs in the 500 year history the same two features: state intervention of world capitalism. guiding accumulation and redistributive The period that others have called mechanisms. And that in the so-called Third January 25, 2008 mercantile capitalism, or primitive World, we have the developmental state of the accumulation that runs from the symbolic 20th century, what some have called dates of 1492 when this system was Keynesianism or Fordism. And again the ALISM inaugurated with the conquest of the same two features: the state played a major Americas through ‘til 1789, which is a role in guiding and regulating accumulation symbolic date because of the French and that other mechanisms were in place for revolution and the rise of the new class, the redistribution. bourgeoisie and the consolidation of the What happens though is that all three of GLOBALCAPIT nation state and the interstate system is now these models, or national corporate capitalism the structure or the organizing principle for enters into a very severe crisis starting in the this (competitive or classical capitalism) 1970s, the world economic crisis that you will system. Then we get into the end of the 19th all remember. There are many ways that we ANDING and the beginning of the 20th century and we can analyze that crisis but I characterize it as have what others have called a monopoly a crisis of nation-state capitalism. It’s that at stage of capitalism; what I prefer to refer to as this point, the national corporate stage of capitalism. UNDERST That brings us into the 20th century. What capital outgrows the nation basically happens is that this national state and the interstate system corporate stage of world capitalism, in order as the institution through which to understand the global stage that we’re in, we want to look a little more into the details capitalism had previously of what preceded it, because of the historical developed context. So what were the This becomes a restructuring crisis--what we mean by that is the crisis is so severe that the essential features whole system is once again reconstituted on a of 20th century new footing. And so we have 1970s and on, we have the breakdown and dismantling of national corporate the redistributive projects of the First World, capitalism the social welfare state, and so forth. We have the collapse of the so-called Second World, Two in particular. One is the state intervenes and the socialist projects with the complete within each national economy, in the circuits demise of the Soviet Union in 1992. And in of accumulation in the development of the Third World we have the collapse of the capitalism. The state intervened by developmentalist projects, particularly after redistributing wealth, by regulating the the debt of the 1980s. So it becomes clear, as circuits of capital, and so forth. So the state I’ve said in my previous lectures, by the time had a major role to play in world capitalism in we get to the 1990s, neither socialism in one the 20th century. The second major feature is country nor Keynesianism in one country is that there’s a redistributive component to any longer a viable model in the 21st century. national corporate capital. We can say briefly What’s happening here is that we’re entering that the whole, or the three regions of the into a new transnational phase of capitalism, world, for the First World we see the which is coming to supersede the nation state development of new deals, the welfare states, phase of capitalism as a social system. and the social democratic system which has Now, let me stress as strongly as possible these two features: state intervention in the that this is not an argument for the end of the economic process and redistribution. In the nation state nor that the nation state is 3 “...capital responds to the crisis of the 1970s, of Fordist-Keynesian capitalism, by going global...capital goes on the offensive, it attempts to, and is largely successful in breaking free of nation state constraints to accumulation..” January 25, 2008 ALISM GLOBALCAPIT irrelevant. Rather, how has capitalism developed previously ANDING and what other dynamics drive capitalist development now? And the nation state interstate system, what was the framework, the UNDERST political and institutional framework in which capitalism previously developed? And that is what is being superseded, not the nation-state as an institution and its significance, or the link between talking about the nation-state and globalization. Of course I’ve elaborated on this point previously; here I’m only giving a summary. four mechanisms. One of these four that I What takes place is that capital responds have emphasized is by to the crisis of the 1970s, of Fordist- Keynesian capitalism, by going global.
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