Book Review: John Smith, Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and the Crisis of Capitalism
| Date | 01 November 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929917713461 |
| Published date | 01 November 2017 |
| Author | Kayhan Valadbaygi |
| Subject Matter | Book ReviewsInternational Relations |
Political Studies Review 15(4)
posed limitations rather than shunned foreign
and states to overcome the crisis of the 1970s
investment. Chapter 11, ‘The Israel Palestine
through transferring surplus value generated
conflict’, examined how, although the Arab
by the low-wage labourers of the developing
Spring galvanised peace efforts, it also risked
countries to the core capitalist states (p. 98).
eclipsing that conflict as the fulcrum of EU
Hence, the fundamental drive of the trans-
strategy in the Middle East.
nationalisation of production is global labour
Overall, the book explores adequately the
arbitrage, whose dominant trait is ‘the sub-
impacts of the Arab Spring on European secu-
stitution of relatively high-wage workers in
rity and economic interests. Nonetheless, the
imperialist countries’ with ‘like-quality, low-
author traces many different issues in various
wage workers’ in the Global South (pp. 188–
chapters, and it is confusing for readers who
189). By lambasting contemporary Marxists
are not familiar with EU policies and the chal-
for ignoring this new capital–labour relation,
lenges in the Middle East. As a result, the book
Smith endeavours to synthesise Marx’s labour
would be of interest to scholars and students of
theory of value and Lenin’s theory of imperial-
European studies rather than the general reader.
ism to explain the current phase of capitalism’s
imperialist development.
Fatemeh Shayan
Attempting to reinterpret Marx’s theory, the
(University of Isfahan; University of Tampere)
author argues that while Marx scrupulously ana-
© The Author(s) 2017
lysed capitalists’ thirst to increase the rate of
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929917720414
exploitation through absolute and relative sur-
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
plus value, he intentionally omitted a third form
by accepting the assumption that ‘all commodi-
ties, including labour power, are bought...
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