Economic Patriotism, the Politics of Market-Making, and the Role of the State in Twenty-First-Century Capitalism

What is it about?

This chapter demonstrates the worth of economic patriotism (EP), and its particular way of understanding the politics of market-making and the role of the state, for understanding the limits of control. EP reflects profound if not self-evident contradictions between international market integration and spatially limited political mandates. This is the root of a profound disjuncture between what kinds of promises these politicians articulate to their citizens about ‘control’ over economy and the much more complex realities of achieving economic governance under 21st century complex economic inter-dependence.

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Why is it important?

Contemporary politicians, particularly those with demagogic inclinations, have a very naïve (mis)conception of state / market interactions. They presume, or pretend, to their electorates that they can pull all the necessary levers of economic policy to exert control over the national economic future. 2016 provided powerful examples on both sides of the Atlantic. The Brexit campaign promised to ‘take back control’, a vision that was also integral to Trump’s pledge to heal America’s economic wounds by reversing the industrial decline of rustbelt states. This is clearly a seductive vision, but unfortunately it ignores the reconfiguration of economic and political space which the interdependence of markets and multi-levelled economic governance regimes entail. The real world of political economy is much more complicated.