PERSPECTIVES Perspectives on Global Development ON GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT AND and Technology �4 (�0�5) 7-�0 TECHNOLOGY brill.com/pgdt Introduction Jerry Harris Editor, National Secretary of the Global Studies Association of North America [email protected] In 2014 the Global Studies Association of North American held its 13th annual conference at Loyola University in Chicago with the theme, “End of us Hegemony?” There have been ongoing and widespread discussions, in both academia and the mainstream press, over the power and role of the us in world affairs. Debilitating wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a deep economic crisis and the snail-like pace of recovery, political deadlocks and the failure of government, the rise of China and the brics, all point to a superpower in rapid decline. Still those responsible for us foreign affairs, from the president to numerous elite think tanks, all insist the us is still the exceptional nation uniquely qualified to lead the world. Most left scholars agree with the official assessment, that the us is still the world’s leading superpower, although from a critical anti-imperialist perspective. Perhaps Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin best articulate this argument in their recent book, The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire. But other left academics have come to dispute this viewpoint. Radhika Desai in her Geopolitical Economy: After us Hegemony, Globalization and Empire, draws a picture of the us lurching from one crisis to another, unable to create a stable regime and faced with com- peting powers creating a multi-polar world. World systems theorist Giovanni Arrighi in his final work, Adam Smith in Beijing, argues China will replace the us as the world’s leading hegemon. Common to all these schools of thought is that capitalism is a world system based upon competing nation states, the dominant form of capital is national, and capital has specific national inter- ests defended abroad by their representative states. To go outside this view we must turn to the school of global capitalism and transnational capitalist class theory. William I. Robinson in Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity challenges the idea of a world capitalist system organized around nation cen- tric economies. Instead Robinson speaks to the vast integration of capital and production across national borders and the emergence of a transnational sys- tem. The us state is part of this world system and represents the interests of transnational capitalists, no matter their national origin. This is true of other © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/�569�497-��34�3�9 8 Harris states, as well as transnational bodies such as the World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund. Competition still takes place, but mainly between transnational monopolies and financial institutions. While the above theories were discussed at the gsa conference, panelists spoke to hegemony in many different forms and from different perspectives. The first section of this special issue of Perspectives on Global Development and Technology looks to the global South starting with three important articles on China. The first contribution is by David Schweickart, a keynote speaker and internationally known theorist on market socialism. Schweickart is impressed by China’s development, and while recognizing its many challenges, argues that China is not a capitalist country. Rather Schweickart maintains that the social control of investment, market socialism and greater workplace democ- racy will define China’s future. Mel Rothenberg, also a keynote panelist, sees a more powerful basis for the development and consolidation of capitalism in China. Rothenberg analyzes different fractions within the Communist Party, and predicts the struggle over the country’s future direction will mainly depend on the mobilization of the popular classes. Tianni Wang takes a very different look at China with a detailed investigation of how second-tier cities are inserted into patterns of global accumulation and culture. Wang’s work is a highly original attempt to investigate contemporary urban history, a field of study which usually concentrates on centers such as New York, London, and Shanghai. Completing the section on the global South are three more articles. Donovan Braud studies the Naxalite rebellion in India, its connection to rural poverty, and Marx’s concept of the Asiatic mode of production. The Naxalite Maoist peasant insurgency has been a feature of political conflict in India since the 1960s and over the past decade has grown in strength once again. Iqra Anugrah also looks at rural rebellions, but Anugah’s attention is on the peasant movements in Indonesia, particularly in West Java. Lastly we have Madalla A. Alibeli continuing his work on the position of women in the Middle East. This time Alibeli turns his attention to women in the United Arab Emirates and the cultural attitudes of both men and women. Section two pulls together a number of inter-related subjects organized around the problem of contested hegemonies, between nations as well as classes. We begin with an article by keynote panelist Ingo Schmidt investi- gating how globalization in Europe has led to the unmaking and remaking of the working class. Of particular interest to Schmidt is whether or not the growing social movements of resistance will lead to a new subjective work- ing class consciousness. Ismael Hossein-Zadeh turns his attention to us impe- rialism, comparing the George W. Bush years to interventionist activities Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 14 (2015) 7-10.