The Nation Form History and Ideology

Abstract

ion of the capitalist market, but with its concrete form: that of a which is always already organized and hierarchized into a center and a periphery, each of which have different methods of accumulation and exploitation of labor power and between which relations of unequal exchange and domination are established (Braudel, 1982; 1984; Wallerstein, 1974; 1980). Beginning from the center, national units form out of the overall structure of the world-economy as a function of the role they play in that structure in a given period. More exactly, they form against one another as competing instruments in the service of the center's domination of the periphery. This first qualification is a crucial one because it substitutes for the ideal of Marx and, particularly, of the Marxist economists, an historical capitalism in which a decisive role is played by the precocious phenomena of imperialism and the articulation of wars with colonization. In a sense, every modern nation is a product of colonization: it has always been to some degree colonized or colonizing, and sometimes both at the same time. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.127 on Wed, 12 Oct 2016 04:22:55 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms