Book Review

The Myth of 1648

Benno Teschke
Verso, London, 2003, 308pp.
ISBN: 1 85984 693 9.

Journal of International Relations and Development (2005) 8, 218–221.

doi:10.1057/palgrave.jird.1800048

This excellent book presents an original thesis that relates not only to the
Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, but also to the relationship between capitalist
development and state formation in early modern Europe. Teschke’s work
provides a critique of standard realist accounts of international relations and
develops Brenner’s focus on property relations in order to provide a better
understanding of the international. Indeed, what is most impressive in this
book is the explicit linking of the social relations of production to the
formulation of a theory of the international, a challenge necessary in the face of
the criticism sometimes made that such a focus necessarily leads to an
explanation of capitalism restricted to one country, and by implication a
Eurocentric explanation. Following the important work of Rosenberg (1994),
Teschke rightly rejects this argument and clearly links class formation, state
formation, the ‘problematic of the international’, and uneven development.
The book is therefore an important contribution to the development of a
‘political Marxism’ specifically applied to international relations.
Standard realist accounts of international relations argue that the world
order is anarchical as it is composed of nation-states, all exercising their own
self-interest. The world order may change in that some states climb the
hierarchy of the international order, while others may fall. But, essentially, the
international order itself is characterized by a permanent state of anarchy. This
system had its origins in the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, which ended the
Thirty Years War in Europe. From this point on (if not before), the
international order was based on modern, sovereign nation-states.
In contrast, Teschke argues that the modern international system of nation-
states actually developed at a date later than 1648. A specifically capitalist
sovereignty only emerged in the nineteenth century, and this specific form of
sovereignty was based on the development of impersonal public authorities —
modern states — that recognized the sovereignty of other (European) states.
Existing alongside these modern states were capitalist market economies in
which commodity production was generalized, thus replacing the dominance of
production for direct consumption. Following Brenner (1976) and Wood
Journal of International Relations and Development, 2005, 8, (218–221) www.palgrave-journals.com/jird
r 2005 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 1408-6980/05 $30.00
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(2002), Teschke argues that capitalist social relations developed first in the
English countryside through the initial development of a competitive market in
leases for land (as opposed to freeholds in France), and the gradual
displacement of poorer peasants from direct access to the means of production.
These developments meant that the surplus could now be appropriated
through the market, and not through directly political means. It also meant
that competition generated by the generalization of commodity production laid
the basis for the development of productive forces on an unprecedented scale,
which had implications for states that were not yet capitalist. For Teschke,
these European states were absolutist in character. This contrast of capitalism
and absolutism leads Teschke to make a contentious (but convincing)
argument about the nature of absolutist states. Absolutism did not lead to
modern, capitalist sovereignty based on a market economy and a bureaucratic,
impersonal state that monopolized the means of violence. Instead, production
was still mainly for consumption, and peasant taxation was used to finance
consumption and military spending. The long-term tension between punitive
taxation and increased military spending eventually led to the French
Revolution of 1789, as previously argued by Comninel (1987). In terms of
the state, sovereignty was based on proprietary kingship and personal
domination. The aristocracy was incorporated in the state as office holders,
which gave them access to new privileges. In particular, the means of violence
were personalized by the king, but also awarded to patrimonial officers
through the sale of army posts. Foreign policy was carried out, not in the
‘national interest’ but in the name of the king. Accumulation continued to take
place through war and marriage between dynasties, and trade was politically
enforced through the sale of monopoly trading charters to merchants. War was
essentially fought over dynastic territorial claims and exclusive trading routes.
The Westphalian system of 1648 was essentially then, a treaty between
absolutist, personalized states, not modern, capitalist states.
These arguments have been challenged from within the Marxist tradition,
particularly by those associated with the New Left Review (NLR), and
especially the Anderson-Nairn thesis concerning the backwardness of English
capitalism in contrast to the modern capitalism of France (see Anderson 1992).
In this account, English capitalism is said to have declined due to its
development in the context of archaic political, legal and social ‘super-
structures’, including the monarchy, the House of Lords, and the dominance of
financial and commercial capitalism over industry. This argument has recently
been defended by Balakrishnan (2004) in the pages of the Review, albeit in the
context of a wider consideration of absolutist states in Europe (and a critique
of Teschke). Space prevents a full assessment of this debate but the NLR
position does tend towards presenting ahistorical models which are mapped on
to the contingencies of ‘actually existing capitalisms’. Teschke does an
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Volume 8, Number 2, 2005
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impressive job in avoiding these problems. Indeed, this debate has enormous
implications for understanding the diversity of capitalisms in the international
order, even today in a world dominated by neo-liberalism, but where
convergence has not occurred. Although Teschke rightly attempts to utilize
Trotsky’s concept of uneven and combined development, he does not explicitly
focus on these concerns. But in a book that covers an enormous period of
history, and takes in a wide variety of historical sociology debates along the way
(including the likes of Mann, Tilly, Arrighi as well as the commercialization and
demographic explanations of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, which
were Brenner’s earlier targets) this is probably an unfair criticism.
What is perhaps more valid as a criticism is the nagging suspicion that the
state in itself is not fully theorized in Teschke’s work. His argument is that
nation-states preceded capitalism in the form of absolutist states, but these
were transformed through the development of a specifically capitalist
sovereignty, in part through the very actions of these states. Once capitalist
social relations develop, and appropriation takes place through the ‘dull
compulsion of economic relations’, states become institutionally separate
‘moments’ in the wider totality of capitalist social relations. This separation is
ultimately ideological, a form of appearance of capitalist social relations. This
argument, like the 1970s state debate (see Clarke 1991), is fine as far as it goes,
but it does not fully specify the agency of the state, in terms of its functions or
indeed political projects associated with governments. Put differently, there is a
tension between the analysis of the state form, and an analysis of its functions.
Classical Marxism attempted to deal with these problems by arguing that state
expansion followed an imperialist logic of capitalism, but one of the key (and
correct) arguments in Teschke is that territorial expansion was necessary in the
era of feudalism but not in capitalism. Capitalist geo-politics thus needs to be
better theorized. Teschke does this briefly, but it is a shame that more could
not have been said about this, not least for understanding geo-politics in the
current era of international capitalism and/or globalization. In fairness, this is
beyond the remit of Teschke’s work but it seems to me that the approach to the
state endorsed by him is not sufficient to explain current geo-politics. Attempts
from within this tradition to do so, such as the recent work of Ellen Meiksins
Wood (2003), which tends to fall back on a functionalist account of the
capitalist state, are indeed limited in this respect.
This point is, however, made by a reviewer sympathetic to the further
development of ‘political Marxism’, and in no way detracts from the fact
Teschke’s work is an outstanding book which deserves a wide readership
(and a paperback edition).

Ray Kiely
SOAS, University of London
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References

Anderson, Perry (1992) English Questions, London: Verso.

Balakrishnan, Gopal (2004) ‘The Age of Warring States’, New Left Review 11(26): 148–60.
Brenner, Robert (1976) ‘Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial
Europe’, Past and Present 70: 30–75.
Clarke, Simon, ed. (1991) The State Debate, London: Macmillan.
Comninel, George (1987) Rethinking the French Revolution, London: Verso.
Rosenberg, Justin (1994) The Empire of Civil Society, London: Verso.
Wood, Ellen Meiksins (2002) The Origins of Capitalism: A Longer View, London: Verso.
Wood, Ellen Meiksins (2003) Empire of Capital, London: Verso.