Description
Britain is rarely considered an example of ‘state capitalism’, but this paper argues that this conceptual lens of state capitalism illuminates aspects of historical capitalist development in Britain which have hitherto been neglected, not least by encouraging consideration of the diversity of regimes of state capitalism, especially in terms of their spatial dimension. The paper moves beyond the typical geographical imaginary of state capitalism, advocating a new spatial awareness with deeper sensitivity to multi-scalar relations. State capitalism in Britain has rarely been bound to the geographical limitations of the nation-state; it has been a transnational project, centred variably on empire, Europe, and the global market – with industrial policy tailored to enabling the British economy to exploit and/or service these various spaces by ‘making markets’ (meaning creating, structuring, or sustaining markets) that have simultaneously changed the regions, local communities and lives of individual British citizens and produced impulses of uneven economic development through the global economy. The paper emphasises the ‘hidden’ nature of industrial policy in some domestic contexts, and shows how more visible interventions, such as monetary policy, are constitutive of a ‘financial state capitalism’ regime rather than simply neutral instruments of macroeconomic stabilization.
