This chapter will depart from these interpretations of the Turkish Revolution through the theoretical and historical pointers discussed in previous chapters. It will argue that the original Kemalist experiment with modernity (1923–45) cannot be understood as a form of (state) capitalism, but rather as a historically specific Jacobinism.

Chapter 6 discusses the origin and protracted development of capitalism in Turkey in the post-World War II period. I show how capitalist social relations began to penetrate the social fabric, and how the initial Kemalist project has been reinvented by different actors to contest and produce capitalism. In addition, the period after the 1950s witnessed the rise of a new capitalist class in provincial Anatolian towns. Pace the conventional interpretation, commercial groups of Anatolian towns organized in and through the Islamic National View Movement (NVM), neither supported an "artisan" or "statist" capitalism, nor was it simply an Islamic critique of the developing market society. Instead, the movement envisioned a novel political space as the foundation of a new capitalist industrialization strategy unencumbered by the spirit of earlier Republican policies. Although the NVM was unable to take control of the state from the 1970s to the 1990s, its conservative capitalist heritage was appropriated by the Justice and Development Party, which has led to an unprecedented consolidation and deepening of capitalist social relations in Turkey since the beginning of the new millennium.

Chapter 4 addresses how Latin America has sought to generate socioeconomic welfare since 1880 by making choices about the model of economic development – the region’s strategy to promote economic growth and the material well-being of the populations as a whole. It identifies three periods during which the region adopted distinct models of economic development and assesses the performance of each model. The first model, the market-oriented agro-export model, led to moderate but unequal progress – a mixture of moderate economic growth, a slight improvement in absolute levels of welfare, and an increase in economic inequality. The second model, the statist import-substitution industrialization model, produced strong progress – good economic growth, a big improvement in absolute levels of welfare, and a decrease in economic inequality. Finally, the third model, the market-oriented neoliberal model, still used in the region, has yielded slow progress – languid economic growth, a slight improvement in absolute levels of welfare, and a small reduction in economic inequality. The chapter shows that the question of what is the best development model for Latin America remains open.

The chapter outlines the colorful history of power and resistance in pre-British Hong Kong. Many communities involved in this part of Hong Kong’s history continued to play a part in the colonial and post-colonial struggles. The chapter also discusses how the rise of Hong Kong as an industrial and financial center fomented different social groups that were mobilized in the struggle for Hong Kong’s future by competing political forces at the height of the Cold War. Most significant is the rise of a new middle class in tandem with the transformation of Hong Kong’s economy into a finance and service-centered one in the 1970s and the 1980s. This new middle class, combined with the plurality of grassroots social movements, charted a course for the locally rooted democratic movement that continued to grow after the sovereignty handover, constituting the backbone of the resistance in its quest of greater autonomy of Hong Kong under Beijing’s rule.

Chapter 3 offers a historical account of the emergence of the welfare state. In the absence of private or public insurance and faced with new, poorly understood, and existential risks, workers set up mutual aid societies (MASs) to cope with industrialization and urbanization. At their peak, MASs covered up to half of the (male) population but only protected against a small fraction of the risks of unemployment, disability, disease, old age, and death. While MASs tried to mitigate adverse selection and moral hazard through monitoring, they faced a double bind: they attracted bad risks while losing good risks to commercial insurance. Nor could they cope with correlated risks or support PAYG arrangements (the time-inconsistency problem). Ultimately, they were replaced by compulsory public social policy programs that mandated all citizens to join a common risk pool. The state had the power of compulsion, the ability to overcome the time-inconsistency problem, and majority support for social insurance in the absence of effective private alternatives. The result was a massively redistributive welfare state.

When considering the question of China’s external economic relations during the Mao era, the dominant narrative in the literature underscores the following view: Mao’s China pursued a foreign economic policy that was autarkic, isolated from the global economy, and locked into a Soviet-inspired planned economy that provided limited incentives for economic interdependence with the outside world. For some, China’s isolation from the global economy was the result of its position in the Soviet bloc, which was “heavily biased against foreign trade,” and from its adoption of a centrally planned, socialist economic model that prohibited private interests from pursuing foreign investment or trade. For others, Mao-era policies of autarky were inspired by a form of xenophobia that stemmed from the country’s experience of Western predations during the nineteenth century, resulting in fear of economic dependence on foreign powers. Finally, others emphasize the role of Mao’s revolutionary ideology in explaining China’s isolation from the global economy; Mao’s tendency to view major international economic institutions and norms as counterrevolutionary and “hostile” to the Chinese state led him to disengage from international trade and other economic opportunities.

Reconstruction ended in 1876 as railroads, mining, and agriculture grew. Robber Barons emerged as the leaders of these activities became rich. The Supreme Court in the 1880s eliminated the constitutional amendments passed during Reconstruction to help Blacks by either rejecting them or reinterpreting them. Jim Crow laws were passed in many Southern states after 1896 depriving Blacks of the vote and leading to a decline in Black education. I describe the movie, Birth of a Nation, to show the attitude of white people at the time of World War I toward Blacks and Reconstruction. Those views have been shown since to be totally false.

Chapter 5 tells the story of how, with the full support of the state and amidst a new push to further industrialize, fossil fuels powered virtually every aspect of life in Mexico by the 1950s. Transport systems became increasingly energy intensive. Vehicles with internal combustion engines drove down asphalt roads. Cars reshaped Mexico’s culture, class and gender divisions, and the way people experienced the nation’s territory and environments. Mexican cities entered a period of exponential physical and demographic growth, their layouts rapidly reorganized to accommodate increasing numbers of motorized vehicles. Industrial manufacturing and electricity generation used fossil fuels at virtually every stage of production and distribution, while the Mexican food system underwent a Green Revolution featuring fossil-fueled agriculture. Mexico had become a fossil-fueled society.

Latin America made considerable progress in living standards between 1870 and 2010 amid rapid modernization and structural change. However, despite these remarkable advances, the income gap between the region and the industrial leaders remains significant. This chapter assesses the long-term performance of Latin America relative to the developed world and discusses the key transformations in Latin America. Excess volatility, poor productivity and high inequality remain essential to explaining why the region has been unable to converge with the industrialized core through advances in human capital, R&D, and infrastructure investment. In order to improve future prospects in standards of living and catching up, the region would need to adopt a development model that delivers sustained and inclusive economic growth. Key elements of this model are a higher rate of investment, a proactive industrial policy, tighter intra-regional integration, and greater redistribution to finance a better quality of education and inclusive social services.

This chapter debates historical responsibility for climate change. The argument from historical responsibility has a legal dimension, as it is often used to assert the heightened mitigation and compensation obligations of some states. The debate here begins with the question of whether certain historically high-emitting states are legally bound to provide some sort of compensation for past levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Sarah Mason-Case and Julia Dehm answer this question in the affirmative, arguing that international law, but also notions of justice, provide bases for recognizing historical responsibility and for claiming reparation for the wrongs inflicted. Alexander Zahar, on the negative side, attacks the assumption that historical emissions and their growth rate since Industrialization are known accurately enough, such as to allow for blame to be pinned on certain countries and not others.

This chapter outlines how the development, diffusion and adoption of new technologies have shaped economic growth. Several major technological phases are identified, which differ from periods distinguished by global wars or major changes in growth patterns. Before 1940, large-scale industrialization and new technologies originated in the United States, diffusing to western European countries. Outside the Western core different development strategies were deployed. Only after 1940, countries in western Europe largely caught up to American productivity levels. The combination of technology diffusion and export-led growth in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and, more recently, China and India have enabled significant growth in living standards. The changes in cross-country income-level inequality have also had their within-country counterparts. The more recent period of IT-enabled growth primarily benefited high-skilled workers in Europe and the US, while low- and middle-skilled workers not only met competition from machines, but also from workers in low-wage countries.

Chapter 2 tracks the early stages of what I call embedded industrialization based on waterpower and increased use of biomass. After mid-century, an increasing number of industries and regions of the country mechanized manufacturing and mining with wood-burning steam engines in addition to waterpower. The state-promoted construction of a vast railroad network in the 1880s further accelerated industrialization. By the late 1880s, embedded industrialization and long-established activities, particularly silver mining, began approaching ecological limits to growth. The most easily accessible forests dwindled at alarming rates and no more rivers could be harnessed for waterpower. Embedded industrialization also faced social constraints: peasant communities clashed with factories and railroads over water and wood. The increased strain on non-fossil energy sources motivated Mexico’s state and economic elites to search for new ways to power industry. Due to its prestige and connection to European and US industrialization, coal became the favored alternative.

This chapter debates historical responsibility for climate change. The argument from historical responsibility has a legal dimension, as it is often used to assert the heightened mitigation and compensation obligations of some states. The debate here begins with the question of whether certain historically high-emitting states are legally bound to provide some sort of compensation for past levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Sarah Mason-Case and Julia Dehm answer this question in the affirmative, arguing that international law, but also notions of justice, provide bases for recognizing historical responsibility and for claiming reparation for the wrongs inflicted. Alexander Zahar, on the negative side, attacks the assumption that historical emissions and their growth rate since Industrialization are known accurately enough, such as to allow for blame to be pinned on certain countries and not others.

There is an ongoing debate about supply chain linkages between African and foreign firms and the impact of GSCs' activities on African states. This chapter contributes to the discussion by studying the impact of the US and Chinese presence in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) region, via supply chains, on economic growth and development comparatively. It argues that the expanding supply chain trade, especially the rapidly growing trade with China, is diversifying intermediate goods and services exports from SACU states and expanding their industrial capabilities. Politically, SACU is at an inflection point; initial gains from GSC trade could spur further economic liberalization or could incentivize ruling coalitions to double down on inward-looking policies. The chapter also highlights some emerging trends in SACU supply chain trade with the two great powers, using intermediate goods and services trade data. It ends with a discussion of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on supply chains in the SACU region.