This chapter focuses on the origins and function of money within the field of global politics. It covers the myth that money developed in a politically neutral way as the most functional mode of exchange. Instead, money’s emergence and function has been deeply intertwined with the power and violence of the empire, including its conquests and enslavements. Thus, the influence of politics and economics on one another is impossible to detach in terms of contemporary global politics. The chapter then expounds on the historically strong connection between money and state power. Additionally, it also tackles the possible future of money which involves cyptocurrencies and local currencies.
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7. Money
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6. International Political Economy: Marxism, Mercantilism, Liberalism
This chapter examines the three most important classical theories within the field of International Political Economy (IPE): mercantilism, economic liberalism, and neo-Marxism. It considers the relationship between politics and economics, and between states and markets in world affairs, that IR has to be able to grasp. It suggests that IPE is about wealth, poverty, and power, about who gets what in the international economic and political system. The outlook of mercantilism has much in common with realism, while economic liberalism is an addition to liberalism. Mercantilism and economic liberalism thus represent views on IPE that are basically realist and liberal. The chapter concludes with a discussion about the original theoretical position of Marxism and how this has inspired neo-Marxist IPE theories.
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10. Major Issues in IPE: Economic versus Political Power, Development, Globalization, How to Study the Real World
This chapter examines four major issues in International Political Economy (IPE). The first concerns power and the relationship between politics and economics, and more specifically whether politics is in charge of economics or whether it is the other way around. The second issue deals with development and underdevelopment in developing countries. The third is about the nature and extent of economic globalization, and currently takes places in a context of increasing inequality between and inside countries. The fourth and final issue concerns how to study the real world from an IPE perspective and it pits the hard science American School against the more qualitative and normative British School.
