Friday, June 26, 2009

Book Review of 'The Dialectics of Globalization'

The Dialectics of Globalization: Economic and Political Conflict in a Transnational World
Jerry Harris
Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008, 2nd edition. 285 pp.
Globalizations

Jerry Harris has provided a wide-ranging yet detailed investigation into the unfolding of global capitalism. The book, Dialectics of Globalization, published (2006, 2008) in the years leading up to the ongoing global financial crisis, illuminates the hyper-intensification of political and economic changes leading us to where we are today. Made up of a collection of updated journal articles, it amasses an impressive body of work conceptually rooted in an understanding of globalization in its entirety.

Key for accepting the approach in his book, Harris argues that class relations in globalization must be reconceptualized beyond the confines of the nation-state. The rapid changes in production, technology, finance/capital accumulation have transformed the international economy into a global economy, creating consensus among corporate elites that barriers to investment and trade must be removed. A transnational capitalist class (TCC), promoting this project and directly involved in the accumulation of global capital, is now the dominant socio-economic group. Harris takes his readers through the maturing of this process, providing fascinating insight on the technological and financial engines propelling its expansion, as well as case studies that examine the process of global capitalism in countries ranging from Germany to Brazil and India.