History, technology, and the capitalist state: the comparative political economy of biotechnology and genomics

The assumption that technological innovation constitutes an inevitable facet of something called ‘globalisation’ is called into question by comparative historical investigation. In the areas of biotechnology and genome research, for instance, the United States and Germany – two advanced industrial states – have demonstrated remarkably different historical trajectories. While the US was a driving force behind the explosion of biotechnology as an industrial sector, Germany was unable to muster much effort until the late 1990s. Explaining this difference, this article utilizes historical political economy to characterize these states and their relationship to capitalism. The lag in German efforts is understood as a function of the pre-capitalist vestiges of the state and their peculiar effects on capitalist social relations.