Uneven and combined state capitalism

Abstract

This article contributes to the development of state capitalism as a reflexively critical project focusing on the morphology of present-day capitalism, and particularly on the changing role of the state. We bring analytical clarity to state capitalism studies by offering a rigorous definition of its object of investigation, and by demonstrating how the category state capitalism can be productively construed as a means of problematising the current aggregate expansion of the state’s role as promoter, supervisor and owner of capital across the world economy. Noting some of the geographical shortcomings of the field, we outline an alternative research agenda ‘uneven and combined state capitalist development’ which aims at spatialising the study of state capitalism and revitalising systemic explanations of the phenomenon. Rather than the negation of an abstract model of free-market capitalism, or the rise of a nationally scaled variant of capitalism, we posit contemporary state capitalism as a global process of restructuring of the capitalist state (including in its liberal form) underpinned by secular transformations in the materiality of surplus-value production, such as the consolidation of new international divisions of labour driven by automation and labour-saving technologies. The political mediation of these transformations results in the combined expansion of state-capital hybrids and of muscular forms of statism, which develop in inter-referential and cumulative forms across territory, producing further state capitalist modalities. This is a particularly potent dynamic in contemporary state capitalism, and its tendency to develop in a spiral that both shapes and is shaped by world capitalist development.

The Phenomenon of Hybrid State Capitalism in Emerging Market Economies: Present and Future

“…It seems reasonable to agree with the wellsubstantiated point of view (Alami & Dixon, 2021), that the establishment of a new state capitalism presents a global phenomenon. However, this conclusion does not at all imply the expediency of unequivocal acceptance by countries with emerging markets and the prevailing statecapitalist order of the key value and financial attributes inherited to the global capitalist market in its Western version.…”

The global division of labour as enduring archipelago: thinking through the spatiality of ‘globalisation in reverse’

“…The rising importance of borders to trade is observed in protectionist trade policies that have been introduced in the US under Trump and the UK's exit from the European Union as well as in sanction regimes, for instance in response to Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Indeed, whereas much older globalisation literature de-emphasised the role of the state and its border-erecting powers (Beaverstock et al, 2000), the current moment is one of a renewed state capitalism (Alami and Dixon, 2021) and associated de/bordering processes. However, borders do not block connectivity, but modulate it, enabling new forms of dis/connection.…”

The new whole state system: Reinventing the Chinese state to promote innovation

“…National histories of capitalism in Europe and North America clearly show that the state has always proactively created, regulated, and participated in the market (Block, 2011; Chang, 2002; Stiglitz and Lin, 2013; Vogel, 2018). Rather than “an anomaly or a deviance from liberal, market-based capitalism… [s]tate capitalism is an immanent potentiality, an impulse which is contained in the form of the capitalist state and built into its DNA” (Alami and Dixon, 2021: 14). What demands our attention, however, is the nature and process of state capitalism's “joint and concurrent expansion” in recent years, especially with emerging economies like China playing increasingly significant roles in reshaping global capitalism (Alami and Dixon, 2021: 7–8).…”

“…Rather than “an anomaly or a deviance from liberal, market-based capitalism… [s]tate capitalism is an immanent potentiality, an impulse which is contained in the form of the capitalist state and built into its DNA” (Alami and Dixon, 2021: 14). What demands our attention, however, is the nature and process of state capitalism's “joint and concurrent expansion” in recent years, especially with emerging economies like China playing increasingly significant roles in reshaping global capitalism (Alami and Dixon, 2021: 7–8). Such studies require methodological and theoretical innovations to augment existing literature on state capitalism.…”

“…Such studies require methodological and theoretical innovations to augment existing literature on state capitalism. Our study proposes to avoid existing dichotomies in the “new state capitalism” by tracing the unfolding of state-capital hybrids in different nations in relation to/as situated in the highly unequal, interconnected global capitalist economy, what geographers call “uneven and combined development” (Alami and Dixon, 2021; Dunford and Liu, 2017; Peck, 2021).…”