Abstract
Adam Smith in Beijing is a grand work dealing with the rise of China in the political economy of a world-system perspective. By rereading Adam Smith, Arrighi points out that ‘unnatural’ western capitalist development bears turbulent and endless capital accumulation, while the capitalist market in China’s economic ascent shows a mode of organizing society in a labour and environment friendly way. In Arrighi’s view, Smith actually prescribed that the state must actively intervene to correct undesirable outcomes of market operations. After tracing the rise and fall of historical hegemonies from Holland to Britain to America, Arrighi contends that controlling finance and capital, not labour or technology, was crucial for hegemonic ascendance. The book discusses much about the decline of America, especially failures of the Project for a New American Century and George W Bush’s War in Iraq. The East Asian economic model is characterized as non-militaristic, and China’s path of development is close to Smith’s ideal type of ‘natural course’. This book is an important contribution to the historical sociology of development and globalization.