A History of Capitalist Transformation : A Critique of Liberal-Capitalist Reforms

A History of Capitalist Transformation: A Critique of Liberal-Capitalist Reforms highlights how, since the recent financial crises, the expression ‘liberal reform’ has entered common parlance as an evocative image of austerity and economic malaise, especially for the working classes and a segment of the middle class. But what exactly does ‘liberal reform’ refer to? The research analyzes the historical origins of liberal-capitalist reformism using a critical approach, starting with the origins of the Industrial Revolution. The book demonstrates that the chief purpose of such reforms was to integrate semi-peripheral states into the capitalist world-economy by imposing, both directly and indirectly, the adoption of rules, institutions, attitudes, and procedures amenable to economic and political interests of capitalist élites and hegemonic states – Britain first, the United States later – between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. As such, the reforms became an active tool used to promote social-economical-financial institutions, norms, and lifestyles typical of a liberal-capitalist economic order which locates some of its founding values in capital accumulation, profit-seeking, and social transformation. This book will be of significant interest to readers on capitalism, political economy, the history of the global economy, and British history. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Notes Chapter 1: The identity of reformism: Men and laissez-faire 1.1 Defining liberal-capitalist economic reformism 1.2 Reforms and the problem of sovereignty 1.3 Liberal-capitalist reforms in the face of systems-world theory, unequal exchange, and hegemony 1.4 Defining the role of élites in the reformist process 1.5 The cycles and timing of liberal-capitalist reform Notes Chapter 2: The power of ideas and capital 2.1 Reformism and the modus operandi of the capitalist State 2.2 When and how was external liberalist reform born? From mercantilism to free trade imperialism 2.3 Differences between liberal-capitalist internal and external reforms 2.4 Fear of falling profit rate and the active role of the capitalist State 2.5 Free trade imperialism, war capitalism, or reformist capitalism? Notes Chapter 3: The trinity of capital: Debt, credit, money 3.1 Debt and credit: the double face of capital 3.1.1 Political premises 3.1.2 Debt, the State, and emerging financial markets 3.2 Lex monetae: the relevance of liberal-capitalist reforms in the monetary system Notes Chapter 4: Reforms in practice: The case of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt and China 4.1 Material expansion in relation to free trade agreements 4.2 Emerging élites 4.3 Foreign debt and the great capitalist transformation 4.4 Monetary reforms in practical terms Notes Conclusions Notes Bibliography