Inter-Capitalist War and the End of the Nation-State (as we know it) w/ Jamie Merchant

For the latest episode of the pod, I relished a long-form conversation with Jamie Merchant, one of my top-5 most-stimulating intellectuals right now. Jamie had a fascinating essay in The Brooklyn Rail that everyone needs to read, about both the inadequacy of thinking like a policymaker (!) and the decline and decay of the “progressive managerial state.”

As part of unpacking that argument, we also talk about:

• Our shared critique of the book Trade Wars Are Class Wars;

• The contradiction(s) of Trump’s tariffs;

• What we think Adam Tooze misses;

• Why international relations as a discipline appears to be in terminal decline;

• John Hobson’s theory of imperialism;

• The ideological conflicts within MAGA and what it has to do with a crisis of capital accumulation; and

• Why the various competing sections of capitalism find themselves at war with one another.

Merchant is also the author of Endgame: Economic Nationalism and Global Decline—a book that should be read together with The Rivalry Peril. If you want to make sense of our current historical conjuncture, you can’t afford to miss this episode.

Catch the episode wherever you get podcasts, or watch on YouTube.