Abstract:China's Imperial Canal excited the imagination of a succession of travelers. While American and British canal promoters were interested in the technological details, the true importance of the Chinese precedent lay in the breadth of concept — a gigantic, state-supported geophysical manipulation in the interests of interregional trade.
“…Written accounts of Chinese canals played an important role in exciting the imagination of American canal proponents (Hanyan ). Much of what canal proponents learned from reading about China's 1000‐mile‐long Grand Canal, linking Beijing in the north to the southeastern coast at Hangzhou, was technical, but just as important were the political insights about the essential role of government in producing and maintaining this amazing water way.…”
“…British diplomat Sir George Staunton, who wrote one of the most widely read investigations of China's Grand Canal, took pains to note the role of state planning and investment. “This canal”, wrote Staunton: is not nor indeed is any in China, a private concern, carried on at the expense and for the profit of individuals but is under the regulation and immediate inspection of the government, whose policy it is to maintain an easy communication between the several parts of the empire, as tending to promote the commerce and agriculture of the country, thereby increasing the revenues of the state and the comforts of the people (quoted in Hanyan :562).…”
“…Drawing more heavily from legislative allotments, rather than private shareholders and controlled more by state commissions than corporate directors, these new waterways indicated that the day of the [private] canal company was passing. If not providing new methods of building, then, the oriental example played a part in this change … To a New York provided only with the inadequate works of the Western Company, China gave the vision of a government‐built Grand Canal (:566).…”
My argument is that the state is fundamental to the value form because it delivers the use values of non-human nature to the process of capital accumulation. Capital cannot, and historically does not, capture non-human nature without the participation of the state. The state delivers the utilities of extra-human nature to the accumulation process by creating property regimes, physical infrastructure, and scientific knowledge. As such, the state is a crucial under-theorized political membrane in the ecological metabolism of capitalism and the value form. The capitalist states inherently environmental qualities are rooted in its fundamentally territorial qualities. Where are the utilities of nonhuman nature found? On the surface of the earth. What institutions ultimately control the surface of the earth? Territorially defined national states. The example of state formation in the early years of the United States is used to illustrate these ideas.
“…Written accounts of Chinese canals played an important role in exciting the imagination of American canal proponents (Hanyan ). Much of what canal proponents learned from reading about China's 1000‐mile‐long Grand Canal, linking Beijing in the north to the southeastern coast at Hangzhou, was technical, but just as important were the political insights about the essential role of government in producing and maintaining this amazing water way.…”
“…British diplomat Sir George Staunton, who wrote one of the most widely read investigations of China's Grand Canal, took pains to note the role of state planning and investment. “This canal”, wrote Staunton: is not nor indeed is any in China, a private concern, carried on at the expense and for the profit of individuals but is under the regulation and immediate inspection of the government, whose policy it is to maintain an easy communication between the several parts of the empire, as tending to promote the commerce and agriculture of the country, thereby increasing the revenues of the state and the comforts of the people (quoted in Hanyan :562).…”
“…Drawing more heavily from legislative allotments, rather than private shareholders and controlled more by state commissions than corporate directors, these new waterways indicated that the day of the [private] canal company was passing. If not providing new methods of building, then, the oriental example played a part in this change … To a New York provided only with the inadequate works of the Western Company, China gave the vision of a government‐built Grand Canal (:566).…”
My argument is that the state is fundamental to the value form because it delivers the use values of non-human nature to the process of capital accumulation. Capital cannot, and historically does not, capture non-human nature without the participation of the state. The state delivers the utilities of extra-human nature to the accumulation process by creating property regimes, physical infrastructure, and scientific knowledge. As such, the state is a crucial under-theorized political membrane in the ecological metabolism of capitalism and the value form. The capitalist states inherently environmental qualities are rooted in its fundamentally territorial qualities. Where are the utilities of nonhuman nature found? On the surface of the earth. What institutions ultimately control the surface of the earth? Territorially defined national states. The example of state formation in the early years of the United States is used to illustrate these ideas.
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