Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Economic and ideological power relations
- 3 A theory of the modern state
- 4 The Industrial Revolution and old regime liberalism in Britain, 1760–1880
- 5 The American Revolution and the institutionalization of confederal capitalist liberalism
- 6 The French Revolution and the bourgeois nation
- 7 Conclusion to Chapters 4–6: The emergence of classes and nations
- 8 Geopolitics and international capitalism
- 9 Struggle over Germany: I. Prussia and authoritarian national capitalism
- 10 Struggle over Germany: II. Austria and confederal representation
- 11 The rise of the modern state: I. Quantitative data
- 12 The rise of the modern state: II. The autonomy of military power
- 13 The rise of the modern state: III. Bureaucratization
- 14 The rise of the modern state: IV. The expansion of civilian scope
- 15 The resistible rise of the British working class, 1815–1880
- 16 The middle-class nation
- 17 Class struggle in the Second Industrial Revolution, 1880–1914: I. Great Britain
- 18 Class struggle in the Second Industrial Revolution, 1880–1914: II. Comparative analysis of working-class movements
- 19 Class struggle in the Second Industrial Revolution, 1880–1914: III. The peasantry
- 20 Theoretical conclusions: Classes, states, nations, and the sources of social power
- 21 Empirical culmination – over the top: Geopolitics, class struggle, and World War I
- Appendix: Additional tables on state finances and state employment
- Index
20 - Theoretical conclusions: Classes, states, nations, and the sources of social power
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Economic and ideological power relations
- 3 A theory of the modern state
- 4 The Industrial Revolution and old regime liberalism in Britain, 1760–1880
- 5 The American Revolution and the institutionalization of confederal capitalist liberalism
- 6 The French Revolution and the bourgeois nation
- 7 Conclusion to Chapters 4–6: The emergence of classes and nations
- 8 Geopolitics and international capitalism
- 9 Struggle over Germany: I. Prussia and authoritarian national capitalism
- 10 Struggle over Germany: II. Austria and confederal representation
- 11 The rise of the modern state: I. Quantitative data
- 12 The rise of the modern state: II. The autonomy of military power
- 13 The rise of the modern state: III. Bureaucratization
- 14 The rise of the modern state: IV. The expansion of civilian scope
- 15 The resistible rise of the British working class, 1815–1880
- 16 The middle-class nation
- 17 Class struggle in the Second Industrial Revolution, 1880–1914: I. Great Britain
- 18 Class struggle in the Second Industrial Revolution, 1880–1914: II. Comparative analysis of working-class movements
- 19 Class struggle in the Second Industrial Revolution, 1880–1914: III. The peasantry
- 20 Theoretical conclusions: Classes, states, nations, and the sources of social power
- 21 Empirical culmination – over the top: Geopolitics, class struggle, and World War I
- Appendix: Additional tables on state finances and state employment
- Index
Summary
This volume has two concluding chapters. This, the first one, begins where Chapter 7 left off, generalizing about the rise of the two major actors of modern times – classes and nation-states – then about the four sources of social power during the period. Because the five countries covered (Austria, Britain, France, Prussia-Germany, and the United States) all differed, I must strike a balance between generalization and acknowledgment of uniqueness. But because history passed its own conclusion on the long nineteenth century, in the form of World War I, the final chapter will analyze the causes of that war, exemplifying and justifying the theory underlying this volume.
As we have seen, states were entwined with both classes and nations. I shall not once again summarize my research on states; rather, I refer the reader to the conclusion of Chapter 14. Here I repeat only the essential point: As the state became more socially significant through late eighteenth-century military and late nineteenth-century industrial capitalist expansion, it partially “naturalized” the West and its classes.
Classes and states
By the time of World War I, the entire West was becoming industrial. Britain and Belgium already were so, most countries were evenly balanced between industry and agriculture, and agriculture was also thoroughly commercialized. Capitalism had enormously accelerated human collective powers, predominantly diffusely, right across this multi-power-actor civilization.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Sources of Social Power , pp. 723 - 739Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993