The “Gulf” imperialism. Thoughts and assumptions on the present stage of development of the capitalist mode of production

Bonzio questions those standpoints which consider the Gulf War as simply a North-South conflict. He argues that behind the North-South conflicts, there are North-North ones (that is those between the big powers in the centre). He differentiates between the horizontal and vertical conflicts within the capitalist world. Similarly to the regulation school, he thinks the engine of development are the changes of age of technology and organisation which also determine the conflicts. He links the vertical conflicts to the period of relative stability, while the horizontal ones to the changes of epoch proving that ultimately, it is always the North-North conflicts that are decisive. He thinks the capitalist world economy is the entity of centripetal and centrifugal movements, this first of the two being overweight While underlining the two-directional nature of the movements, he criticises the oversimplifying theory of exploitation of periphery. He stresses that it is the totality of centre-semi-periphery-periphery relations that ensures the reproduction of the capitalist world economy.