Paul S. Ciccantell

Generative sectors and the new historical materialism: Economic ascent and the cumulatively sequential restructuring of the world economy

The causes and consequences of inequality between national economies, the ascent to dominance within the world hierarchy of economies, and the dynamics driving the material intensification and spatial expansion of production and trade in the world economy have long been core questions in a wide range of fields concerned with economic change and development and with international relations. In this article, we propose that one of the fundamental mechanisms driving all three of these processes for at least the last 500 years has been a dynamic tension, or contradiction, between the economies of scale that reduce relative costs and drive national economic ascent to dominance in world production and trade, and the diseconomies of space that result from the increased consumption of raw materials that this expanded production entails. The four most rapid cases of economic ascent in the history of the world economy—Holland, Great Britain, the United States, and Japan—resolved this contradiction in similar ways that drove the ascent of these economies to the top of the system of global stratification.

Matter, Space, Time, and Technology: How Local Process Drives Global Systems

Incorporating local space, matter, and society into our concepts of the global in analytically compatible ways poses a major challenge for contemporary scholars of both world systems and globalization. Many analysts ignore both materiality and locality of production. They assume the global as their point of departure, and attempt to incorporate the local into it. In this chapter, we aim to reverse that logic. We will take into account and theorize the interaction of natural and social processes. In other words, we will integrate ecologic or materio-spatial logic with sociologic within the economic logic of global markets.

Nature, Raw Materials, and Political Economy: An Introduction

In this introductory chapter, we briefly outline the history of the political economy of raw materials, focusing particularly on the relationship between raw materials and economic development. We then introduce the chapters of this volume, and we conclude by discussing future directions for research in this area.

Space, Matter, and Technology in Globalization of the Past and Future

In this chapter, we apply the materio-spatial logic of new historical materialism (Ciccantell and Bunker 2002) to analysis of the technological, financial, political, ideological, and social organizational innovations that sustained the successful campaigns of five nations—Portugal, Holland, Great Britain, the United States, and Japan—to dominate world trade. We use this logic to explain how the ascent of each national economy has moved the world economy further toward globalization by increasing its material intensity and the spatial expanse.

A CONTINENTAL ELECTRICITY INDUSTRY

Creating a continental energy market, including an interconnected electricity industry, was a central motivation for the U.S. government in the negotiation of the CUSFTA and NAFTA. Free trade agreements and regulatory changes in North America have fundamentally altered the characteristics of the electricity industry and the strategies of its constituent firms over the past decade. Markets are replacing extensive regulation in many states, many new firms have entered the industry, long term stability and predictability of returns to firms and of electricity prices have been replaced with the uncertainties of competition, and blackouts in California have become global headline news. In this period of rapid transition in the electricity industry, firms, states and consumers confront both new opportunities and new problems that were unimaginable a decade ago. The essential role of electricity in all economic activity makes this industry a critical component of the North American economy, but the future of the industry is far from clear. This paper discusses the material characteristics of the electricity industry and outlines the provisions of the CUSFTA and NAFTA and regulatory changes that affected the electricity industry over the past decade. The paper then examines the evolution of the continental electricity industry, with particular emphasis on the efforts to create competitive markets. The paper then analyzes the strategies of particular firms to respond to and take advantage of these processes. The conclusion analyzes the policy implications of these processes and firm strategies.

Ecologically Unequal Exchange and Raw Materialism: The Material Foundations of the Capitalist World-Economy

This chapter brings the ecologically unequal exchange (EUE) literature into dialogue with another world-systems theoretical model, raw materialism. This theoretical model focuses attention on the raw materials-based industries and linked transport systems that are used to solve the most fundamental challenge to rapid economic growth: how to acquire growing volumes of raw materials at lower costs and in greater and more secure volumes than other competing economies. Historically, many rising economies used raw materials access strategies that focused on stealing raw material peripheries from established hegemons. The current historical juncture in China’s economic ascent and in the coal industry creates an opportunity for integrating the insights of EUE and raw materialism to understand the multidimensional causes and consequences of global inequalities over the very long term.

States and Development: Seeking to Reinvigorate Weberian Analysis of Development:

Evans, Peter B., Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and The da Skocpol, eds. 1985. Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Johnson, Chalmers. 1982. MITI and the Japanese Miracle. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Kim, Eun Mee. 1997. Big Business Strong State: Collusion and Conflict in South Korean Devel opment, 1960-1990. Albany: State University of New York Press. Wade, Robert. 1990. Governing the Market: Eco nomic Theory and the Role of Government in Taiwans Industrialization. Princeton: Prince

Japan's Economic Ascent and its Extraction of Wealth from its Raw Materials Peripheries

How did Japan rise to challenge the U.S. economic supremacy? We argue that the foundation of Japans rise from a defeated nation in 1945 to an economic powerhouse is the raw materials that Japanese firms have turned into cars, ships, consumer electronics, and of other industrial products. A small island nation that lacked adequate domestic supplies of virtually all the raw materials essential to industrial production became a world leader in the production of steel and of products which required millions of tons per year of raw materials. Japanese firms and the Japanese state turned an apparent material and economic disadvantage, the need to import large volumes of raw materials, into a competitive advantage over the U.S., Europe, and the rest of the world economy by driving down the cost of importing raw materials over long distances. We argue that the strategies of Japanese firms and the Japanese state to resolve the problems of procuring bulk cheaply and reliably from multiple distant locales drove the technical and organizational innovations that underlay Japans rapid industrial development and restructured the world economy in support of Japans development. Contrary to claims that globalization supercedes the national state, we find that the actions of the Japanese state, in coordination with firms and industry sectors, were crucial in developing and applying these strategies. The linchpin of these strategies were the MIDAs (Maritime Industrial Development Areas) built on land reclaimed by the Japanese state. This economic success in Japan was also critically dependent on the extraction of billions of dollars of wealth from its raw materials peripheries, most notably Australia, Brazil, and Canada.

Building the NAFTA Railway: Kansas City Southern Railway in the North American Economy

Abstract The key but too often overlooked link between firms and communities in the emerging NAFTA economy is transportation. Cross-border investment, trade, competition and cooperation are dependent on the restructuring of the U.S., Mexican and Canadian transport systems into a tightly integrated, efficient network. The paper examines the role of transport industries in the NAFTA economy, focusing particularly on a case study of the strategies of the Kansas City Southern Railway to become the “NAFTA Railway” to compete in the North American economy and the implications of these efforts for the firms involved, government transport policies, and the North American economy.