PSCI 1200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: International Political Economy, Mercantilism, World Politics
16 Dec 2015
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Document Summary
The question: from local markets to global political economy. Economics is the study of production and distribution of goods. Changes that are important for understanding todays global and wealth political economy: the role of states in creating capitalist markets, how technologies matter, how work is organized, whose work is valued. From roughly the 16th century, centralized states adopted mercantilist policies to enhance their wealth through foreign exploration, trade, appropriation, slavery, plantation economies, and military conquest. Internally, mercantilism promoted positive trade balance (more exports than imports) and protection of domestic production; externally, it increased aggressive exploitation of new" lands and prompted conflicts. Industrial capitalism transformed the scale of production, who produced what goods, by what means and with what value. Liberalism produced an unstable tension: between freedom expressed in economic terms (through private property and unconstrained market agreements) and equality expressed in socio-political terms (through democratic processes) Capitalist industrialization forced people into wage workers.
