Elisabeth L Tamedly - Socialism and International Economic Order

FOREWORD

THE CREATION OF AN efficient institutional framework for regulating international economic relations is one of the fundamental concerns of economists. Theorists and practitioners recognize that international trade has been one of the major sources of economic wellbeing; they know that no state can renounce such a wealthgenerating activity. Yet, the increase of obstacles to the interchange of goods and services between nations since 1914 has led to what is generally termed economic disintegraion.
A great deal of literature undertakes to describe and analyze these various obstacles. However, little effort has been devoted to the investigation of the fundamental causes of economic disintegration—causes that can only be explained by theories and philosophies that engender changes in the internal economic and political orders of nations. This study is an inquiry into these fundamental determinants of international economic cooperation.

These determinants will be more easily understood if the primary characteristics of an international economic order are examined. Two such characteristics can be distinguished. The first concerns relationships among individuals residing in different areas of the world who deal with each other on the basis of private interests. Clearly, the problem of their economic intercourse on a worldwide level is essentially identical to that with which any restricted community is faced. This problem has been solved in the past by the establishment of private law which delineates certain minimum standards of behavior and is enforced by the community.

The second aspect of the problem is inherent in the existence of sovereign national states. For centuries, men have attempted to devise a system of international law that could subject states, as private law subjects individuals, to the rule of commonly accepted codes and to the judgments of an international arbitration agency in cases of disputes between national governments. All these systems have been frustrated by the fact that the creation of an international coercive force which would automatically enter into action when any state refused to comply with the provisions of international law has been regarded as an inadmissible interference with sovereignty. Even universal and compulsory recourse to a supranational court is usually rejected on the same grounds.
Intergovernmental relations therefore have a fundamentally anarchic character. Ultimately, of course, they, too, constitute human relationships, but with the difference that they are based not on a convened standard of right and wrong, but on power. It is a country's political and military strength, on the one hand, and the political and military strength of its opponents, on the other, that form both the basis and the limit of national aspirations. The last resort is war which, as Karl von Clausewitz said, is "nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means."[...]