How to solve the many-state problem: a reply to the debate

Abstract

This article responds to the debate provoked by the author's ‘Does capitalism need the state system?’ (Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 20:4 2007, 533–549) and his exchanges with Justin Rosenberg (Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 21:1 2008, 77–112). It is divided into three parts. The first restates the issues, situating them in the context of a growing Marxist preoccupation with the international in recent years, and contrasts the ‘high road’—Rosenberg's attempt to use Trotsky's concept of uneven and combined development to provide a transhistorical perspective on intersocietal relations—with Callinicos's own preferred ‘low road’ of more focused analysis centred on the prevailing mode(s) of production. The second addresses the fundamental criticisms addressed to him by Hannes Lacher, Benno Teschke and John M Hobson, all of whom deny that there is a necessary relation between capitalism and the interstate system. The third considers the more specific comments offered by Neil Davidson, Gonso Pozo-Martin, and Jamie Allinson and Alex Anievas, before concluding with an appeal for a move off the terrain of abstract theory to more empirical studies that can test the relative value of rival conceptual constructions.

Notes

¹ Tribute here should be paid to Fred Halliday both as a pioneering Marxist academic in IR and the teacher of other Marxist scholars. For his own contributions, see, for example, Halliday (1983; 1994). Good overviews of Marxist discussions of imperialism can be found in Brewer (1990) and Radice (1975).

² Equally, I cannot address Adam Morton's (2007) excellent intervention on this topic. However, I hope to address the main point at issue between us—the scope of the concept of passive revolution—in a forthcoming joint work.

³ Andrew Wright is working on a PhD thesis at King's College London on the Marxist theory of geopolitics.

⁴ See, for example, Rosenberg (1996).

⁵ Robert Brenner's (1986) conception of the rules of reproduction is a useful way of thinking about this definition of alternatives.

⁶ A sharper version of this danger might be described as letting Realism in by the back door. What is the relationship between multiplicity in the sense given in the text and anarchy as it is understood in the Realist tradition? As Waltz makes clear, Realists need not require that power centres be sovereign states, but the security dilemma must obtain for these centres if anarchy is to prevail. Conceptually multiplicity and anarchy are distinct, but are they so in reality as well? Much hangs on this question, which also concerns Jamie Allinson and Alex Anievas (2009), above all politically, but I cannot pursue it further here.

⁷ Also see Findlay and O'Rourke (2007, 365–428) for an overview of the spectacular fall in transportation costs critical to the integration of a liberal world economy during the nineteenth century.

⁸ See Ashman (2006) for a theoretical framework rooted in the dynamics of capital accumulation which seeks to integrate these different lines of research.

⁹ These and related weaknesses of Political Marxism have been remorselessly diagnosed by Emma Bircham (2004). Brenner is something of an exception to this pattern; however, it is an open question whether he can be regarded as a card-carrying Political Marxist or merely as a source of inspiration and legitimation for this current. He certainly has a considerably less restrictive conception of capitalism than, for example, Wood. Compare Brenner (2001) and Wood (2002a).

¹⁰ See Cutler et al (1977/1978), Hindess and Hirst (1977) and Hirst (1985). For contemporary critiques, see Callinicos (1979) and Elliot (1986).

¹¹ Compare with Hirst (1977).

¹² See the account of functional explanations in chapters 9 and 10 of Cohen (1978). For discussion of the resulting controversy, see Callinicos (2004b, xxxii–xxxix, chap 2).

¹³ For a critique, see Callinicos (2009, section 2.3).

¹⁴ On the politics of anti-imperialism see Rees (2006).

¹⁵ For a further elaboration of these points, see Callinicos (2009, chaps 2 and 3).