Excerpt: /378/ Reading Club: Globalisation (II)

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-ymmmu-15147ca

On Giovanni Arrighi’s Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the 21st Century
 
We discuss the Part 2 of this landmark book from 2008, debating theories of Western economic decline: Robert Brenner’s, and Arrighi’s critique of it.
 
Points discussed:
  • Are you ‘Team Brenner’ or ‘Team Arrighi’?
  • Was neoliberalism a counter-revolution? A passive revolution? A restoration?
  • How does the depression of the 1870s compare to that of the 1970s or the post-2008 period?
  • What are the characteristics of our own Belle Époque (1993-2007)
  • What matters more in explaining the downturn: inter-capitalist global competition? Upward wage pressure? The role of the global South?
Links:

Leave a comment