Capitalist State, State Capitalism, and the Current Conjuncture of International Law

This review essay engages with various conceptualizations of the 'capitalist state' and 'state capitalism' within four newly published books, and as oscillating between abstraction and concreteness. It posits that the capitalist state is not a homogeneous category, and two distinct forms of state/society complexes have historically formed around free competition and rentierism: liberal and state capitalism. Borrowing from the 'uneven and combined development' literature in International Relations, the essay argues that the liberal capitalism of the Anglo-Saxon sphere has historically produced and simultaneously peripheralized state capitalism outside this sphere. State capitalism has in turn posed threats to free competition and the profitability rates of liberal capitalism, requiring intervention by the small state to tackle market distortion. As such, the ongoing debates on 'neo-statism' and the 'return of geopolitics' to international law should be nuanced within the dynamics of the two forms of capitalism.