Excerpt: /372/ Reading Club: Globalisation (I)

On Giovanni Arrighi's Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the 21st Century

 

[Patreon Tier II & III Exclusive]

 

We discuss the Introduction and Part 1 of this landmark book from 2008 and ask if Arrighi's vision of China, the West and the structure of the global economy was correct.

 

Points discussed:

• What's at stake in thinking of East Asian growth as a renaissance, or correction of the historical blip of European ascendency?
• How compelling is the account of East Asian success as a fusion of industrious and industrial revolution?
• Was Arrighi right to focus on the neoconservative Project for a New American Century?
• What do we think about Adam Smith's account of different classes' capacity for political action
• What's at stake in the revisionist view of Adam Smith as pro-state Enlightenment thinker rather than patron saint of the free market?

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Links:

• Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the 21st Century, Giovanni Arrighi, Verso (2008)
• The Left Hemisphere: Mapping Critical Theory Today, Razmig Keucheyan, Verso (2010)