I recently read Ingham’s “Capitalism Divided?” which has, I believe, some important insights into the nature of the British economy. The last two days I reviewed my notes I looked for further comments and reviews. He will have written a number of books but at the moment this page looks at, “Capitalism” and “Capitalism Divided”. I made this post, rather than expand my page, “Capitalism Divided”.
Google AI Perspectives says, ‘”Capitalism Divided? The City & Industry in British Social Development” by Geoffrey Ingham (1984) examines the relationship between London’s financial sector (the City) and British industry, arguing that the City’s dominance has contributed to spatial inequalities and hindered the growth of other regions. The book suggests that the focus on the City, particularly after the “Big Bang” deregulation, has led to a concentration of economic power and resources in London, while other parts of the UK have experienced slower growth and decline in manufacturing.’
I think it says more than that, especially about the subservience of the state to commercial & mercantile interests and not those of the industrial bourgeoisie. i..e the state is not the executive committee of the bourgeoisie.
Capitalism
- The book, Capitalism, available as open access, this link has an index of sorts on the landing page.
- A book review of Capitalism by Dilip Simeon, focuses on Ingham’s debunking of classical monetarism.
- Ann Pettifor reviews the book, in article, The power to ‘create money out of thin air’, at Open Democracy
Capitalism Divided
- Cambridge University Press’s landing page for Capitalism Divided , includes a citation but all content is behind an academic pay wall.
- Springer Nature’s page for Capitalism Divided, with a chapter index but also behind an academic institution paywall.
- In the book’s introduction, I was pointed at Perry Anderson’s “The Origins of the Current Crisis” published in the NLR and reviewed by Robert Looker, in a blog called Historical Materialism.
- A review by MF Dunford at Proquest, published in Journal of Historical Geography, this is a teaser, with just one paragraph, the full review is behind a paywall. Is this Dunford’s home page?
- Commercial and Industrial Capital in England: A Reply to Geoffrey Ingham by Michael Barratt Brown, at NLR, a critique, or more accurately a piece of tit for tat. The full article is behind a paywall, and so I have not read it all, but in this article Barratt Brown argues that Ingham has miscategorised foreign earnings as commercial and not industrial. Ingham replies, in Commercial Capital and British Development: A Reply to Michael Barratt Brown, this seems to me to be quite a tetchy debate, but I have extracted a quote from this which I present immediately below this list, which is an important summary of his arguments.
- I also found an article with the same name, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21582041.2023.2217655#abstract written in 2023, a critique of “levelling up” with a focus on the detrimental role of the City in regional equality.
According to Ingham, Marx held that with the rise of An advanced industrial capitalism in Britain, industry would come to dominate commercial financial interests. As it turned out, the commercial and banking sectors gained hegemony, while with the reconstruction of a city based delete and the development of connections with traditional and aristocracy. British ideology, culture and politics remained in path aristocratic and traditional. To explain this unexpected development many Marxist writers, including Andersen, Nairn, Longstreth, and Rubinstein, have formulated thesis maintaining British exceptionalism. In ingham’s view, these positions are all wrong. British capitalism has a dual character and as such it is simply unique and different.
The key to understanding British economic development lies, Ingham suggests, in a recognition of the externally oriented commercial financial role of the City. City institutions supply mercantile credit and insurance and engage in currency dealing and commodity broking. The city’s role is accordingly one of intermediation and exchange of money securities and commodities, and involve actions within financial and commercial systems.
Mick Dunford – Journal of historical geography volume 13, issue 2, (Apr 1, 1987)
‘Fundamentally, London’s role in the world system may be seen as the specialization in and near monopolization of the commercial activities which are based on the existence of international exchanges. These activities include the financing of trade, insurance of commodities and transport, foreign exchange dealing, etc. The City has not simply dealt with Britain’s exchanges with other states, but has performed a wide range of functions for the world system as a whole. The most important aspect of this role has been the management of the domestic currency as world money—that is, as an internationally acceptable means of payment and exchange. More recently, the largest single share of the transactions in de facto universal money such as Eurodollars has been undertaken in London.’
Geoffery Ingham – NLR 172
ooOOOoo