Book Talk: On the History of Capitalist ‘Reforms’

A recording of this October 13, 2024, event is available on the MEP’s YouTube channel.

Giampaolo Conte presents A History of Capitalist Transformation: A Critique of Liberal-Capitalist Reforms, just published by Routledge. Since the recent financial crises, the expression “liberal reform” has come to evoke austerity and economic malaise, especially for the working classes and a segment of the middle class. Conte’s historical research demonstrates that the chief purpose of such reforms has been to integrate semi-peripheral states into the capitalist world-economy. Rules, institutions, attitudes, and procedures are imposed in accord with the economic and political interests of capitalist élites and hegemonic states – first by Britain, then by the United States. In all situations, the velvet glove barely conceals the armored fist. The goals and methods – more or less the same today as 300 years ago – promote the ongoing dissolution of traditional societies in the peripheries of the contemporary world.

“A fascinating account of state debt as a mechanism in international relations forcing liberal reforms on the capitalist periphery, doing away with ways of social life in conflict with the requirements of modern capital formation. Contains striking historical material from countries like Egypt and China during Polanyi’s Long Nineteenth Century.” – Wolfgang Streeck, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies

Giampaolo Conte teaches in Department of Philosophy, Communication and Performing Arts at the University of Rome 3. He is a Research Associate of ISEM-CNR, and editorial assistant for The Journal of European Economic History.