The Wealth of (Some) Nations

Imperialism and the Mechanics of Value Transfer

By (author) Zak Cope

Ebook (VitalSource) - £90.00

Publication date:

20 March 2019

Length of book:

272 pages

Publisher

Pluto Press

ISBN-13: 9781786804174

In this provocative new study, Zak Cope makes the case that capitalism is empirically inseparable from imperialism, historically and today. Using a rigourous political economic framework, he lays bare the vast ongoing transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest countries through the mechanisms of monopoly rent, unequal exchange and colonial tribute. The result is a polarised international class structure with a relatively rich Global North and an impoverished, exploited Global South.

Cope makes the controversial claim that it is because of these conditions that workers in rich countries benefit from higher incomes and welfare systems with public health, education, pensions and social security. As a result, the internationalism of populations in the Global North is weakened and transnational solidarity is compromised.

The only way forward, Cope argues, is through a renewed anti-imperialist politics rooted in a firm commitment to a radical labour internationalism.
'The most significant book published on the political economy of imperialism in the 21st century, written by the foremost scholar of global imperialism today.'