Real (E)State - valuing a nation under imperial rentier capitalism

• Main Author: Schwöbel-Patel, Christine
• Other Authors: Feichtner, Isabel, Gordon, Geoff
• Format: Book
• Language: unknown
• Published: Routledge 1480
• Subjects: JX International law; KC International Law; Greenland; Rentier
• Online Access: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/168904/; http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/168904/7/WRAP-Real-%28E%29State-valuing-nation-under-imperial-rentier-capitalism-Schw%C3%B6bel-2023.pdf

That nation states have a market value may appear non-sensical to international lawyers, who rely on concepts such as sovereign equality to identify the formal position of a state in the so-called international community. In this chapter, I explore the relationship between international law and imperialism as key components in the transformation of the state into facilitator of rent-seeking practices – a process, which determines the value of a nation. I argue that a web of international laws intersect that support a global stratification of rentier capitalist states and those from which they extract value. Central to this order is the propertisation of certain territories. To explain imperial rentier capitalism, I describe the historical and contemporary propertisation of Greenland – a topic that gained some attention in 2019, when President Trump expressed his intention to buy Greenland as part of a ‘real estate deal’.