Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present

385 Pages·2021·2.093 MB·English

by  Utsa Patnaik, Prabhat Patnaik

WINNER OF THE PAUL A. BARAN – PAUL M. SWEEZY
MEMORIAL AWARD
Established in 2014, this award honors the contributions of the founders
of the Monthly Review tradition: Paul M. Sweezy, Paul A. Baran, and
Harry Magdoff. It supports the publication in English of distinguished
monographs focused on the political economy of imperialism. It also
applies to writings previously unpublished in English, and includes
translations of new work first published in languages other than English.
Please visit monthlyreview.org for complete details of the award.
PAST RECIPIENTS
Imperialism in the Twenty-first Century:
Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis
John Smith
The Age of Monopoly Capital:

Selected Correspondence of Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, 1949–1964
Edited and annotated by Nicholas Baran and John Bellamy Foster

Value Chains: The New Economic Imperialism
Intan Suwandi

Copyright © 2021 by Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik
Published by Monthly Review Press
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
available from the publisher
ISBN paper: 978-158367-890-9
ISBN cloth: 978-1-58367-891-6
Typeset in Bulmer Monotype
MONTHLY REVIEW PRESS, NEW YORK

monthlyreview.org

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Contents
Preface | 7
PART 1
1 A Money-Using Economy | 11
2 Money in Some Theoretical Traditions | 28
3 The Marxian System and Money | 40
4. Capitalism and Its Setting | 54
5 Increasing Supply Price and Imperialism | 68
PART 2
6 Periods in Capitalism | 85
7 The Myth of the Agricultural Revolution | 101
8 Capitalism and Colonialism | 115
9 Colonialism before the First World War | 128
10 Further on Colonial Transfers and Their Implications | 151
PART 3
11 The Unraveling of the Colonial Arrangement | 173
12 A Perspective on the Great Depression | 186
13 Public Policy and the Great Famine in Bengal, 1943–44 | 200
PART 4
14 Postwar Dirigisme and Its Contradictions | 221
15 The Long Postwar Boom | 236
16 The End of Postwar Dirigisme | 249
PART 5
17 The Neoliberal Regime | 267
18 Inequality and Ex Ante Overproduction | 284
19 Capitalism at an Impasse | 298
PART 6
20 Capitalism in History | 315
21 The Road Ahead | 329
Notes | 341
Index | 363
For Akeel Bilgrami and C. P.Chandrasekhar
Preface
T
he pervasive tendency on the part of practitioners of theoretical
economics has been to analyze capitalism as a closed self-con-
tained system. This is logically untenable, and it also gives a mis-
leading picture of its actual history. The purpose of this book is to counter
this theoretical perspective. Here we put forward the proposition that not
only has capitalism always been historically ensconced within a pre-capi-
talist setting from which it emerged, with which it interacted, and which it
modified for its own purposes, but additionally that its very existence and
expansion is conditional upon such interaction.
The first five chapters of the book, which mainly deal with and provide
critiques of accepted theory, argue that a closed self-contained capitalism
in the metropolis is a logical impossibility. In later chapters we discuss

the specific ways in which capitalism has shaped, and continues to shape,
its pre-capitalist environment to suit its needs. This provides a reading of
the history of capitalism that is very different from the usual reading. This

history is captured from our particular theoretical perspective, and is not
meant to be an attempt to provide a comprehensive account of the system

in all its facets.

This book is the product of a long period of thought and work, in the
course of which we have accumulated a large intellectual and personal
debt to numerous friends and colleagues. It is not possible to mention all
of them, but it would be invidious not to mention some.
For any student of political economy belonging to our generation, the
8 CAPITAL AND IMPERIALISM
intellectual debt to Irfan Habib and Amiya K. Bagchi is incalculable. In
addition, we gratefully acknowledge the interaction and encouragement we
received from Akeel Bilgrami, Sayera Habib, Sunanda Sen, Carol Rovane,
Radhika Desai, Akbar Noman, C. P. Chandrasekhar, Jayati Ghosh, Indu
Chandrasekhar, Praveen Jha, Nishad Patnaik, and Rajendra Prasad. None
of them, however, bears any responsibility for the views expressed in this
book, which, whatever their worth, are our own.
Finally, we owe a deep debt of gratitude to Michael Yates, Colin
Vanderburg, and Erin Clermont for their help in bringing the manuscript
to its present shape.
—UTSA PATNAIK
—PRABHAT PATNAIK
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