1st Edition

Nations and Capital The Missing Link in Global Expansion

By Zlatko Hadžidedić Copyright 2022
136 Pages
by Routledge

136 Pages
by Routledge

136 Pages
by Routledge

Capitalism survives by adapting. Marx exposed its reliance on exploiting labour to generate profit. Polanyi warned that its hunger to commodify  everything —nature, work, and even human bonds—destroys societies, sparking chaos. Yet capitalism endures, mutating through crises. Why? Nations and Capital  reveals the missing mechanism: nationalism. Where Marx saw revolution, and Polanyi foresaw... Read more

Introduction

PART ONE: NATIONS AS NATIONALISM

Chapter I

How to Define the Self-Defined?

Chapter II

Take-It-For-Granted

The Prehistory of the Word

'Natio' in Latin

'Nation' in English

'Nation' in French

'Nation' in German

The Emergence of the Discourse

Chapter III

Givens and Adaptables

Homogenisation

Mobilisation Around the Concept

Chapter IV

The Ideal of Permanence, the Reality of Randomness

Boundaries and Borders

The Discourse vs. Social Phenomenon

Mobility and Mobilisation

Chapter V

Reactive or Active?

Liberal or Illiberal?

PART TWO: NO CAPITALISM WITHOUT NATIONALISM

Chapter VI

Why Capitalism?

Embedded and Dislodged

Chapter VII

The State in Capitalism

The Nation-State as a Geopolitical Device

Chapter VIII

Anti-Systemic or Pro-Systemic?

Chapter IX

Nations and Nationalism in the 21st Century

Nationalism Reinvented

Conclusion

Biography

Zlatko Hadžidedić is the Director at the Center for Nationalism Studies in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (www.nationalismstudies.org). He is the author of Forced to be Free: The Paradoxes of Liberalism and Nationalism (2013).

"Hadžidedić travels much further with the ambitious goal of opening up a new line of research. The result is a highly knowledgeable book which sheds light on the one of the founding relationships of the modern age. It is perhaps among the most innovative books on the theory of nationalism that has been published over the last 20 or 30 years."

Daniele Conversi, writing in Ethnic and Racial Studies 2022

"Nationalism is not only a political phenomenon. It is a set of social practices that also shape and are shaped by economic forces. Hence in this very perceptive and enlightening book "Nations and Capital: The Missing Link in Global Expansion,” Zlatko Hadžidedić explores the relationship between nationalism and capitalism. Most scholars agree that there are strong links between these two historical processes but very few have explored their relationship in a greater detail. Hadžidedić’s book aims to fill this explanatory gap by identifying different historical and social mechanisms that have made the emergence and expansion of nationalism in the context of capitalism possible."

Siniša Malešević, writing in Nationalities Papers 2023

“In Nations and Capital. The Missing Link in Global Expansion, Zlatko Hadžidedić attempts to provide a definitive account of the rise of nationalism as a necessary mechanism to ensure capitalism's global expansion from the early 'core' (mainly the Netherlands and England or Britain, later joined by the United States) to the rest of the world. The argument is clear and coherent: capitalism in the form of relentless pursuit of wealth accumulation needed nationalism to survive, grow and expand and that is the origin of nationalism. The crucial importance of nationalism for capitalism in its perpetual growth and expansion is captured succinctly in the title of the second part, entitled 'No capitalism without nationalism'. From the perspective of theories of nationalism, Hadžidedić belongs to the same camp as Ernest Gellner, since nationalism is essentially seen as an epiphenomenon of capitalism's global expansion. What moves the world, and therefore history, at the end of the day is capitalism, and nationalism facilitates its operation.”

Atsuko Ichijo, writing in National Identities 2023