IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rsocec/v79y2021i1p76-102.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The network of empire and universal capitalism: imperialism and the laws of capitalist competition

Author

Listed:
  • Ramaa Vasudevan

Abstract

Imperialism in the context of capitalism has been explained either in terms of the suspension of the laws of capitalist competition, or by focusing on the relationship of capitalism with pre-capitalist regions. This paper puts forward a theory of imperialism that is specific and internal to capitalism. The argument put forward in this paper is that the critical element of the empire of capital is the manner in which imperial power is exercised to bring the workers across the globe under the dominion of the network of capitalist relations. The distinctive logic of imperialism is understood to arise from the use of imperial power to expand the pool of available surplus value available for capital as a whole to exploit. It can be interpreted as the network externality of expanding the web of control of capital.

Suggested Citation

  • Ramaa Vasudevan, 2021. "The network of empire and universal capitalism: imperialism and the laws of capitalist competition," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 79(1), pages 76-102, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rsocec:v:79:y:2021:i:1:p:76-102
    DOI: 10.1080/00346764.2019.1664759
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00346764.2019.1664759
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00346764.2019.1664759?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jonathan F Cogliano, 2023. "Marx’s equalised rate of exploitation," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 47(1), pages 133-169.
    2. Andrea Coveri & Claudio Cozza & Dario Guarascio, 2023. "Blurring boundaries: an analysis of the digital platforms-military nexus," LEM Papers Series 2023/47, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    3. Alper Duman & E. Ahmet Tonak, 2024. "Clarification and Application of the Category Profit on Alienation," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 56(2), pages 233-246, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rsocec:v:79:y:2021:i:1:p:76-102. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RRSE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.