Clinging to the Relics for Support: Capitalism and the Nation—Review of <i>The Sublime Perversion of Capital: Marxist Theory and the Politics of History in Modern Japan </i> by Gavin Walker
<p class="first" id="d367463e80">Observing the apparently anomalous retention of pre-capitalist forms amid rapid economic transformation, Marxists in early 20th-century Japan grappled with the theoretical challenges posed by a set of practices that d...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Pluto Journals
2020-09-01
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| Series: | World Review of Political Economy |
| Online Access: | https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169/worlrevipoliecon.11.3.0415 |
| Summary: | <p class="first" id="d367463e80">Observing the apparently anomalous retention of pre-capitalist forms amid rapid economic
transformation, Marxists in early 20th-century Japan grappled with the theoretical
challenges posed by a set of practices that did not adhere to the presumed teleology
of capitalist development. In response, they proposed a sophisticated treatment of
nationalism as an essential (but inherently temporary) stabilizing feature of capitalism,
requiring constant reinvention as part of capitalism's fundamentally unstable and
contradictory growth process. The validity of this treatment can be witnessed today
with respect to populist backlashes in Europe and North America, and strident nationalist
and even genocidal state policies in South Asia, amid a general stalling of the neoliberal
globalization project that has increasingly been seen to fail in the unfolding aftermath
of the global financial crisis of 2007–2009.
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| ISSN: | 2042-891X 2042-8928 |