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24 - Nationalism and Capitalism

from Part III - Intersections: National(ist) Synergies and Tensions with Other Social, Economic, Political, and Cultural Categories, Identities, and Practices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2023

By
Jerry Z. Muller
Edited by
Cathie Carmichael ,
Matthew D'Auria  and
Aviel Roshwald
Cathie Carmichael
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Matthew D'Auria
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Aviel Roshwald
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary

The relationship between capitalism and nationalism escapes easy generalization – hardly surprising given the many conceptions of nationalism, and the many stages and varieties of capitalism. Let us begin, then, with some ideal-typical definitions.

Nationalism is a form of politicized ethnicity in which a self-identified cultural group seeks to create or succeeds in creating a nation-state of its own. It also refers to ideological goals and tangible policies oriented to the preservation or strengthening of the nation-state.

There are as many ways of defining capitalism as there are of nationalism. For our purposes, this definition is most useful. Capitalism is a political-economic system in which property rights are legally protected by the state, in which prices are set primarily by supply and demand in a market composed of profit-seeking entrepreneurs or companies, usually (but not always) employing free wage labor.

Keywords

NationalismCapitalismfree tradeprotectionismErnest GellnerAdam SmithAlexander HamiltonMITI
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Nationhood and Nationalism , pp. 523 - 537
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

Further Reading

Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities, revised edition (London: Verso, 2006).Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983).Google Scholar
Gerschenkron, Alexander, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962).Google Scholar
Hamilton, Alexander, Report on Subject of Manufactures (1791), https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-10-02-0001-0007.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric J., Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, and Reality, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
List, Friedrich, The National System of Political Economy (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1909).Google Scholar
Hont, Istvan, Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005).Google Scholar
Viner, Jacob, Essays on the Intellectual History of Economics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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