Theory is History (SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in Science and Practice Book 17)

This book focuses on a central concept that “Theory is History”, as the theory of capitalism can only be formulated on the basis of an analysis of its history. In contrast, bourgeois thinking replaces the analysis of historical capitalism with an abstract theory without any links to reality. “Economics”, which is the theory of an imaginary system, then becomes an apologia intended to give legitimacy to the behaviour of the owners of capital. The author pays special attention to the globalization of the law of value. The individual chapters illustrate the author’s thesis by focusing on the links between capital and land ownership, between modernity and religious interpretation, and on questions of the global expansion of capitalism, particularly the ways it has evolved in certain countries, in this case Russia and China. This anthology supplements the author’s previous work, centred on the rise of the South—his reading of capitalism focusing on its imperialist nature. 3.2 ... Judaism, Christianity, Islam, One or Three Religious Metaphysics?3.3 ... Religion and Society: The Risk of Theocracy; 3.4 ... The Reformation, The Ambiguous Expression of Christianity's Adaptation to Modernity; 3.5 ... Political Islam; 3.5.1 The European Renaissance and the Arab Nahda; 3.5.2 Contemporary Political Islam; 4 Re-reading the Post War Period; 4.1 ... The Postwar Period, 1945--1992: An Overview; 4.2 ... Establishing the Global Economic System: 1945--1955; 4.3 ... The Bandung Era: 1955--1975; 4.4 ... The Collapse of the Global System: 1975--1992; 4.5 ... Establishing the Global Economic System: 1945--1955 6.1 ... The General and the Particular in the Trajectories of Humanity's Evolution6.2 ... The Peasant Question at the Heart of the Opposition Between the European and Chinese Development Paths; 6.3 ... Modern China Before Europe; 6.4 ... The Great Pre-modern Regionalisations and the Centralisation of the Tributary Surplus; 6.5 ... The Centralisation of Tributary Surplus; 6.6 ... The Chinese Itinerary: A Long, Calm River?; 6.7 ... Phonetic Writing, Conceptual Writing; 6.8 ... China was Five Centuries Ahead of Europe; 7 Russia in the World System: Geography or History?; References; 8 China: The Emerging Nation 5.2.3 For a Socialist Renewal of the Twenty First Century: The Capitalism/Socialism Conflict and the North/South Conflict are Inseparable5.3 ... The Plutocratic Oligarchies and the End of Bourgeois Civilisation; 5.3.1 The Wheeler-dealers, The New Dominant Class in the Peripheries; 5.3.2 Senile Capitalism and the End of Bourgeois Civilization; 5.3.3 The Fragility of Capitalist Globalisation; 5.3.4 Is Lucidity Possible in the Transformative Activities of Societies?; References; 6 The Two Paths of Historical Development: The Contrast Between Europe and China Foreword; Contents; 1 The Globalized Law of Value; 2 Capitalism and Ground Rent; 2.1 ... Rent and the Ownership of the Soil: Going Back to Capital; 2.2 ... From the Capitalist Mode of Production to Capitalist Formations: Class Alliances and the Creation of the World Capitalist System; 2.3 ... The Development of Capitalism in Agriculture: The Theories of Kautsky, Lenin, and Chayanov; 2.4 ... The Domination of Agriculture by the Capitalist Mode of Production; 3 Modernity and Interpretations of Religions; 3.1 ... The Flexibility of Religious Interpretations Front Matter....Pages i-xi The Globalized Law of Value....Pages 1-4 Capitalism and Ground Rent....Pages 5-30 Modernity and Interpretations of Religions....Pages 31-59 Re-reading the Post War Period....Pages 61-78 Historical Capitalism: Accumulation by Dispossession....Pages 79-98 The Two Paths of Historical Development: The Contrast Between Europe and China....Pages 99-106 Russia in the World System: Geography or History?....Pages 107-114 China: The Emerging Nation....Pages 115-132 Back Matter....Pages 133-143 5 Historical Capitalism: Accumulation by Dispossession5.1 ... Capitalism: A Parenthesis in History; 5.1.1 The Twentieth Century: The First Wave of Socialist Revolutions and the Awakening of the 'South'; 5.1.2 Bandung and the First Globalization of the Struggles (1955--1981); 5.2 ... The Long Decline of Capitalism and the Long Transition to World Socialism; 5.2.1 The Counter-offensive of Capitalism in Decline; 5.2.2 In Counterpoint: The Aims and Means of a Strategy of Constructing Convergence in Diversity