The elusive ‘International’

Abstract

This contribution to the forum on Alex Anievas’ Capital, the State and War takes issue with its reliance on a ‘lite’ version of Trotsky’s concept of uneven and combined development (UCD) cut out of the theory of permanent revolution. It argues that if Trotsky’s theory would have been taken seriously, a quite different reading of the world wars comes into view, in which ‘permanent counterrevolution’ as the overriding dynamic suggests an understanding of war as a link in that process. Permanent war as under the current War on Terror would fit into this. In Anievas’ version of UCD, the notion on the other hand functions in a quasi-Weberian actor theory of ‘the international’, which, like ‘the market’ in neoclassical economics, is assumed to be an ultimately unfathomable, regulatory instance. UCD then would serve as a reminder that there is social substance to ‘the international’—without specifying what that substance is. As a result, the entire procedure works to block the ability to really open up the inner workings of the global political economy as a process of class formation and struggle mediated by foreign and international relations.