Further on down Arrighi confirms how war, for example, is a necessary prerequisite of the expansion of capital, as it moves from city state (Genoa), to nation state (Holland) to world-states (the US). But, damn it, I’m going to quote from it again.

This pattern of capitalist development whereby an increase in the power of regimes of accumulation is associated with a decrease in their duration, calls to mind Marx’s contention that “the real barrier of capitalist production is capital itself” and that capitalist production continually overcomes its immanent barriers “only by means which again place these barriers in its way on a more formidable scale” (Marx 1962: 244-5, emphasis in the original). But this contradiction between the self-expansion of capital and the development of the material forces of production and of an appropriate world market can in fact be reformulated in more general terms than Marx did. For Marx applied it only to capitalism as a “mode of production”–that is, with the internalization of production costs in the British stage of development. And yet, the principle that the real barrier of capitalist development is capital itself was clearly at work already in the Genoese and Dutch stages of development.

In both the Genoese and Dutch stages, the starting and closing point of the expansion of world trade and production was the pursuit of profit as an end in itself on the part of a particular capitalist agency. In the first stage, the “Great Discoveries”, the organization of long-distance trade within and across the boundaries of the far-flung Iberian empire(s), and the creation of an embryonic “world market” in Antwerp, Lyons and Seville were to Genoese capital mere means of its own self-expansion. And when around 1560 these means no longer served this purpose, Genoese capital promptly pulled out of trade to specialize in high finance. Likewise, the undertaking of carrying trade among separate and often distant political jurisdictions, the centralization of entrepot trade in Amsterdam and of high-value-added industries in Holland, the creation of a worldwide network of commercial outposts and exchanges, and the “production” of whatever protection was required by all these activities, were to Dutch capital mere means of its own self-expansion. And again, when around 1740 these means no longer served this purpose, Dutch capital abandoned them in favor of a more thorough specialization in high finance.

From this angle of vision, in the nineteenth century British capital simply repeated a pattern that had been established long before historical capitalism as mode of accumulation had become also a mode of production. The only difference was that, in addition to carrying, entrepot, and other kinds of long-distance and short-distance trade and related protection and production activities, in the British cycle extractive and manufacturing activities–that is, what we may call production in a narrow sense–had become critical means of the self-expansion of capital. But around 1870, when production and related trade activities no longer served this purpose, British capital moved towards specialization in financial speculation and intermediation, as fast as Dutch capital had done 130 years earlier and Genoese capital 310 years earlier, and US capital would do 100 years later.”

Sorry, but I think this stuff is essential to understand what is going on at the moment. But going back to your original point, I don’t Arrighi sees it as a progression, or simply a constant cycle of expansion and busts. But it seems that the contradictions of capital are within capital itself and it’s worth noting that this specialization in financial speculation, which we have seen recently, and its collapse is not an anomaly, but is part of a system which suggests that we are on the edge of regime change. No surprise then that Arrighi’s last book is called Adam Smith in Beijing

Immanentizing the eschaton? Is immanentizing a real verb? If so, I like it.

I’m going to use that in my chats about Lisbon and NAMA from now on. I can say, ‘god, I’m so sick and tired of the way that all debates about NAMA/Lisbon tend towards immanentizing the eschaton!’

That’s very interesting. I’m dying to read Arrighi’s book when I can afford to get hold of it.

Sylvia Federici makes a similar point in the intro to Caliban and the Witch, here

http://counago-and-spaves.blogspot.com/2008/10/readings-5.html

She argues that

“A return of the most violent aspects of primitive accumulation has accompanied every phase of capitalist globalization, including the present one, demonstrating that the continuous expulsion of farmers from the land, war and plunder on a world scale, and the degradation of women are necessary conditions for the existence of capitalism in all times.”

Whether the “phases of capitalist development” and their accompanying crises signify a progression toward immanentizing the eschaton or are just the result of the exhaustion of a particular market and accompanying technologies of exploitation, however, is another matter.