John Weeks (1941-2020) was one of the most prominent Marxist economists of his generation. His writings inspired many activists and socialist economists around the world. This book brings together a selection of his writings engaging with and developing the Marxist tradition. These essays examine theoretical issues, directly building on Karl Marx’s work, as well as practical and political issues, engaging with transformative and revolutionary activity. The essays included in this book are now made available to a new generation of critics of capitalism.

Globale Wertschöpfungsketten (GWK) bieten überall auf der Welt Möglichkeiten für ökonomische und soziale Aufwertung? Das kolportieren zumindest Institutionen wie die Weltbank. Diese Annahme ist jedoch weder theoretisch noch empirisch haltbar, so der Befund von Christin Bernhold. Die Argumentation stützt sich auf eine ideologiekritische Diskussion der GWK-Forschung und eine umfassende Analyse von Upgrading-Strategien im argentinischen Agribusiness. Wirtschaftsverbände organisieren sich dort entlang von Agrar-Wertschöpfungsketten, um Partikularinteressen durchzusetzen. Durch »upgrading in and through class differentiation« werden Ausbeutungsverhältnisse und die ungleichen Geographien des Kapitalismus zum Wohle einiger weniger umgeformt, nicht aber aufgehoben.

"All in all, this is an excellent work on trade, growth and especially international investment with a unified theme. S.M. Murshed, The Economic Journal" This book is an impressive contribution to the literature on North-South models of international economic relations, and their implications for development. Scott MacDonald, The World Economy "The challenge of providing a simple yet illuminating and integrated analysis of trade, development and international capital flows is, clearly, a daunting one. Lynn Mainwaring has nevertheless met that challenge well in this impressive book. Ian Steedman, University of Manchester, UKThis important new book critically examines the argument that structural asymmetries between the rich, industrialised countries of the global" north" or "centre" and the poor, largely primary-producing countries of the" south" or "periphery" could be responsible for an unequal division of the gains from international trade and investment. It explores this view by developing a model of Centre-Periphery relations using building blocks provided by Sraffa, Leontief, Pasinetti, Goodwin and others.

Published in the year 1986, Uneven Development and Regionalism is a valuable contribution to the field of Geography.

In Uneven Development, a classic in its field, Neil Smith offers the first full theory of uneven geographical development, entwining theories of space and nature with a critique of capitalism. Featuring groundbreaking analyses of the production of nature and the politics of scale, Smith's work anticipated many of the uneven contours that now mark neoliberal globalization. This third edition features an afterword examining the impact of Neil's argument in a contemporary context.

Why do some middle-income countries diversify their economies but fail to upgrade – to produce world-class products based on local inputs and technological capacities? Why have the 'little tigers' of Southeast Asia, such as Thailand, continued to lag behind the Newly Industrializing Countries of East Asia? Richard Doner goes beyond 'political will' by emphasizing institutional capacities and political pressures: development challenges vary; upgrading poses tough challenges that require robust institutional capacities. Such strengths are political in origin. They reflect pressures, such as security threats and resource constraints, which motivate political leaders to focus on efficiency more than clientelist payoffs. Such pressures help to explain the political institutions – 'veto players' – through which leaders operate. Doner assesses this argument by analyzing Thai development historically, in three sectors (sugar, textiles, and autos) and in comparison with both weaker and stronger competitors (Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, Brazil, and South Korea).

This book examines the theoretical issues of finance capital by developing a comparative analysis of capital flows at industry, region, and nation-state levels. The analysis hopes to make an important methodological contribution to the literature on finance capital. .

This book explores and evaluates the evolution of regional (uneven) development in Jiangsu province in China, during the economic reform that began in the late 1970s and continues to the present day. Using detailed case studies, it clarifies and deciphers a number of fundamental ideological and institutional logics that have decisively shaped or guided China’s 30-year economic reform. The book provides an example of how the traditional struggles with the modern, how the domestic interacts with the global, and how the local/regional scale coordinates and conflicts with the central in the context of China’s economic reform. Taken together, it reveals how institutions, forces and actors interconnect and co-evolve in a dynamic and relational fashion within specific spatiotemporal horizons. Of particular interest in the research presented here is the way that the empirical material enables the four dimensions of territory, place, scale and network to be explored within the context of contemporary China. It is shown how the economic and social development of different territories and places within Jiangsu province is ‘relationally intertwined’ with sets of political and economic forces operating at different scales and within wider networks. As such, this book provides a detailed understanding of the spatiotemporal dynamics of uneven regional development in China, and sets out a number of salient policy implications drawn from the research findings.

Contrary to the claims made by neoliberal governments and mainstream academics, this book argues that the huge increase in trade in recent decades has not made the world a fairer place: instead, the age of globalization has become a time of mass migration caused by increasing global inequality. The theory of unequal exchange challenges the free trade doctrine, claiming that transfers of value from poorer to richer countries are hidden behind apparently equivalent market transactions. Following a critical review of the existing approaches, the book proposes a general theory of unequal exchange in the light of an innovative reconstruction of Marx’s international law of value, in which money and exchange rates play a crucial role in decoupling value captured from value produced by different countries, even in perfectly competitive world markets. On this theoretical basis, the book provides an empirical analysis of the international transfers of value in both traditional trade and Global Value Chains. The resulting world mapping of unequal exchange shows the geographical hierarchy of capital global exploitation by revealing a world divided into two quite separate camps of donor and receiving countries, the former being the poorer countries and the latter the richer countries. This book is addressed to scholars and students of economics and social sciences, as well as activists of the North and the South, interested in a better understanding of the asymmetric power relations implied in global trade. It makes a significant contribution to the literature on political economy, trade, Marxism, international relations, and economic geography.

This book explores new frontiers in the research of economic growth and industrial reconstruction, analyzing economic growth and transitions in industrial structure in East Asia with a variety of data. First, the effects of demographic change on trade openness is analyzed empirically using the panel data of APEC countries. Second, the determinant of wage and housing costs are estimated using survey data collected from peasant workers in China. Third, the determinants of conquests among nomads in or near China and dynasties from world history are analyzed empirically using data regarding dynasties. Fourth, critiques on Emmanuel’s unequal exchange theory are investigated based on the profit data in the world. This book is highly recommended for readers who would like to obtain a new idea about economic development in terms of industrial structure.