This thesis explores three parallel histories in post-World War II global economy, liberalisation of telecommunications networks and services, the rise of open shipping registries in the transport of raw materials at sea, and the mass logging of tropical forests in the post-independence era, focusing on the role that four intergovernmental organisations played in these processes through commodification and post-commodification socialisation. The four international organisations are, respectively, the International Telecommunication Union, the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization, the UN Conference on Trade and Development, and the International Tropical Timber Organization. The thesis argues that states are a manifestation of their local relations of production and that the three historical developments can be explained by the struggles between two types of capitalist state/society complexes that have emerged since the rise of capitalism in the late 17th century. The first type is generated by the organisation of production relations by the market and exhibits a de-territorialising logic of expansion (Lockean state/society complex). The second type is underpinned by the organisation of such relations by bureaucratic vanguards and directed towards territorially confined accumulation. Finally, the thesis demonstrates that the three histories reflect the ultimate victory of the Lockean mode, materialised through a hegemonic fit between shifting material capability, a shared image of production relations, and institutionalisation through norms and institutions.