International political economy in the age of open Marxism

In the last decade or so, transnational historical materialism has fashioned the most ambitious, and perhaps the most politically conscious, expression of critical epistemology in the analysis of global accumulation. It has made an immense contribution to the understanding of the structural power of capital in the world economy, and has been especially important in the analysis of the transnational construction of neo-liberalism, and of the mechanisms by which global imperatives of accumulation have installed themselves as overdetermining principles of political unity. However, though it has claimed the heritage of Gramsci's philosophy of praxis, transnational historical materialism has not seriously addressed questions of political strategy in the world economy, and has not been able to define a political practice adapted to the global social formation that it has defined as its object of analysis. This article proposes both a critical reassessment of the epistemological claims of open Marxism, and an examination of the political strategy it invites.