ABSTRACT
Capital flows not just within the structure of the colonial system, but according to international conditions of profitability. The temptation is to simply revert to the other extreme of a global perspective, on the premise that all economic processes are globalised, and national space has been transcended. Patriotism provides the rationale and the reproduction of national difference provides the means by which a global class process can be presented as national processes with cross-class national complicity. The change, though it should riot be overstated, is in the form of competition between capitals, and of the role of nation states in mediating the competitive process. The international mobility of capital is different because capital is breaking free of national ties, and the nation state no longer secures directly for capital an extra-national space in which to expand. An analysis of the international/national nexus pivots directly on the role of the nation state with respect to international accumulation.
