Page 189 - Critical Political Economy of the Media

168 Critical investigations in political economy

capitalism and empire. Harvey’s concept of ‘capitalist imperialism’ serves as a
rejoinder to Pieterse. Capitalist imperialism refers to a shared system of capital
accumulation and power that aims to create worldwide conditions favourable for
‘economic power to flow across and through continuous space’ (Harvey 2003: 26).
As we have seen, in some Marxist accounts the state is regarded as an agent
for capitalism. In crude versions imperialism is undertaken by the state on behalf
of capital to meet its expansionist needs and to overcome crises of accumulation.
However, most critical theorists advance a more complex account. One entry
point is historical analysis. The pursuit of state interests through territorial
imperialism and the advancements of capitalist economic interests took multiple
forms. For instance, the Dutch East India Company ruled territories in Java with
its own apparatus of sovereignty. Winseck and Pike (2008) show that state and
private agencies were complexly interlocked in providing the telegraphic cable
networks on which imperialism depended. Global media evolved as part of a
project of creating a worldwide system of accumulation and modernisation, they
argue. Yet, if imperialism contributed to capital’s survival and expansion, it also
conflicted with capital; ‘imperialism created and reinforced rigid boundaries among
the various global spaces that blocked the free flow of capital, labor and goods
precluding the full realization of the world market’ (Hardt and Negri 2000: 305).
The second entry point is theoretical elaboration based on analytical distinctions
between economic and political processes and actors. As Jessop (2008) argues, there
is no determinate relationship between processes of accumulation, institutional
orders and forms of consciousness. Capitalist dynamics of the profit-oriented,
market-mediated process of accumulation may be supported by different forms
of state and supranational governance. Capital accumulation depends upon
extra-economic factors and so cannot be regarded as the cause of these.

Capitalist development
To understand fully the problems of global cultural exchange requires an
understanding of the development and management of capitalism. A key process
has been capital becoming freer of controls exercised by states and state systems.
The organisation of economic life around nation-states emerged gradually but
was the dominant form by the time of the First World War and the Russian
Revolution. In the period from around 1870 to 1914 businesses in advanced
economies were subject to increased state oversight. Capital mobility was
restricted by imperial networks and trade protectionism, while industrial pro-
duction tended to be organised territorially under state jurisdiction. Increased
public scrutiny with the rise of electoral democracy and public criticisms of
‘irresponsible’ capitalism also contributed to efforts to make businesses more
publicly accountable and regulated (Curran 2002: 175). The period from the
1940s to the 1970s saw further attempts to ameliorate the excesses of capitalism
responding to the scarring crises of global depression in the 1930s and the
unresolved crises of imperialist expansionism that had led to a second world war.