"Capitalism was from the beginning an affair of the world economy and not of nation-states… . Capital has never allowed its aspirations to be determined by national boundaries." Capitalism has been such a fundamental globalising influence precisely because it is an economic rather than a political order; it has been able to penetrate far-flung areas of the world which the states of its origin could not have brought wholly under their political sway.

DEFINE: Clarifies that capitalism's nature as an economic order rather than a political one explains its uniquely global penetration.

Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Moderni…, loc. 174