Reflections on the Empire of Capital

Ellen Meiksins Wood has contributed a great deal in recent years to the debate on the origin and nature of capitalism. Both Empire of Capital (2003) and an earlier work, The Origin of Capitalism (2002) argue that the historical uniqueness of capitalism lies in the way that it transforms the market from a source of opportunity into an imperative, thus instituting a system of uniquely economic coercion. Market dependence ensures that the propertylessness of producers and the rigorously competitive environment of appropriators drive the former to sell their labour on the market and the latter to engage in profit maximization through improvements in labour productivity. For Wood, the “…basic objective of the capitalist system…is the production and self-expansion of capital ” [Wood 2002, 3]. The imperatives of competition, accumulation, and profit maximization mean that “exchange-value ” is put before “use-value, ” and, in Wood´s terms, “profit before people ” [Wood 2003, 14]. Drawing heavily on this conception of capitalism, Wood’s recent book Empire of Capital is an impressive work that provides valuable insight into the debates about globalization and modern imperialism by contrasting many of history’s “great ” empire