World Market, World State, World Society: Marxian Insights and Scientific Realist Interrogations

Abstract

Theorists from different perspectives have long been studying, explicitly or implicitly, directly or indirectly, the dynamic of the world market, the prospects of a world state or global governance, and the emergence of world society. This chapter critically interrogates these and similar notions, paying particular attention to the emergent logics of the world market, the nature of the world political order, and the status of world society. In abstract terms, it emphasises the importance of the ‘doubly tendential’ nature of tendencies and explores this in relation to the world market. In more middle-range terms, it introduces ‘variegated capitalism’ as a concept that serves both to avoid the temptations of methodological nationalism and the assumption that there is a pre-given logic to the world system. Another concern is to highlight the basic contradictions within the capital relation as enduring real mechanisms that can produce quite different effects at the level of the actual, i.e. in the present context, the global economy and international relations (IR), depending on the circumstances. To ignore these contradictions or to conflate them with specific manifestations in particular periods or conjunctures would be to seriously misread the logic of capital. Reflections on these and other matters lead to suggestions for a scientific realist research agenda on the world market and interstate relations.