Author: IPE
INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY LECTURES
1POL547 INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY SEMESTER 1 2007-2008 Dr. Richard Barbrook Room 408 Wells Street Extension 2313 R.Barbrook (a) wmin.ac.uk Option: International Political Economy Code: 1POL547 Staff: Richard Barbrook and Nik Howard Time and Location: Thursdays 2.00pm – 5.00pm Fyvie Lecture Theatre Assessment Scheme: Essay (2,500 – 3,000 words): 30% Unseen Examination: 70% Assessment Criteria: Full […]
Author: IPE
IPE ESSAY QUESTIONS
1. Why does international political economy determine the way that you live your life? 2. From the black ships of 1853 up to the bubble of the late 1980s, Japan’s path to modernity has been more exogenous (externally driven) than endogenous (internally generated). Discuss. 3. In what ways did Nationalism and Marxism offer persuasive theoretical […]
Author: IPE
IPE LECTURE 11
You can’t understand where you’re going to without knowing where you’re coming from… Adam Smith’s theory of social evolution = the greatest intellectual achievement of the 18th century Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment. 140,000 years ago: hunter-gatherer tribes; 12,000 years ago: agricultural villages; 4,000 years ago: market towns; 300 years ago: capitalist cities. The duration of each successive […]
Author: IPE
IPE LECTURE 10
“At the height of the Cold War, the US military funded the creation of the only working model of communism in human history. It’s called the Internet.” – Richard Barbrook, The Legacy of McLuhan, Fordham University, New York (1998). 1998 Wall Street dotcom bubble: new economy stocks = 225% price rise v. old economy stocks […]
Author: IPE
IPE LECTURE 9
“And was Jerusalem builded here, among these dark Satanic Mills?” William Blake, Jerusalem (1804) Romantic critique of industrialisation: oppressive, alienation, pollution and philistine. Alternatives to capitalism: Luddites -> Owenite agricultural colonies -> Cooperative Movement -> Guild Socialism. William Wordsworth = 1790s revolutionary republican -> 1843 Poet Laureate. Tory Radicalism: countryside = feudal hierarchy and religious […]
Author: IPE
IPE LECTURE 8
John Maynard Keynes in 1930s predicted the “death of the rentier”: finance capital -> state capital. Washington Consensus of 1990s founded upon the free flow of “hot money”: state capital -> finance capital. Different forms of money: exchange -> store of wealth -> capital = money making money. Pre-modern economies: wealth as flocks and land […]
Author: IPE
IPE LECTURE 7
August 1914: implosion of global liberal economy. 18th and 19th century wars of British empire v. European and Asian rivals = opening up foreign markets to British goods and investment. Imperialism of free trade: British industrial products traded for raw materials and luxuries from agricultural nations. Political independence = economic dependency. 1776 American Revolution = […]
Author: IPE
IPE LECTURE 6
30th January 1649: public execution of Charles 1st – “the man of blood” – for high treason in Whitehall, London. English Civil War as struggle between rival paths to modernity: Catholic absolute monarchy (France) or Protestant commercial republic (Netherlands). The Levellers and the 1647 Putney Debates: male suffrage; parliamentary democracy, political rights; and religious toleration. […]
Author: IPE
IPE LECTURE 4
1642 English Revolution: liberalism; 1789 French Revolution: nationalism; 1848 revolutions: Marxism. 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, London, as the high point of liberalism: steam engines; telegraphy; “perpetual peace”; gold standard; Royal Navy; imperialism of free trade. August 1914: the collapse of the Victorian world system. The Universal State -> the Time of Troubles (Arnold […]
Author: IPE
IPE LECTURE 3
There is no international political economy before 1492 – only long distance trade routes. Feudalism is the aristocracy appropriating the agricultural surplus of the peasantry. Money is for fighting wars, saving souls and buying luxuries. The measure of wealth is the number of dependents: soldiers, servants, priests and entertainers. The aristocratic household is the prototype […]
Author: IPE
IPE LECTURE 2
What is IPE and why Japan? Is Japan irrelevant or ‘nothing’, as Francis Fukuyama indicates in his book, The End of History and The Last Man? Japan may not have become Number One, in Ezra Vogel’s words, but does that mean it is ‘nothing’? The Number Two political economy in the world cannot be ignored […]
Author: IPE
IPE LECTURE 1
Globalisation; world market; global capitalism; world economic system; international financial markets; global money markets; TNCs; multinational corporations; global brands; G8; IMF; World Bank; WTO; TRIPS; United Nations; Davos; World Social Forum; ILO; NGOs; Greenpeace; Amnesty International. Modernisation: urbanisation; development; industrialisation; democratisation; feminism; civil rights. Empire: imperialism; neo-colonialism; Americanisation; Coca-colonisation; North v South; proletarianisation. Neo-classical economics: […]
Within this MySpace version of the electronic agora, cybernetic communism was mainstream and unexceptional. What had once been a revolutionary dream was now an enjoyable part of everyday life.