Economic globalization vs mercantilism

Jacques Fontanel ()
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Jacques Fontanel: CESICE - Centre d'études sur la sécurité internationale et les coopérations européennes - UPMF - Université Pierre Mendès France - Grenoble 2 - IEPG - Sciences Po Grenoble - Institut d'études politiques de Grenoble

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Abstract: For mercantilism, the main objective of economic action is to increase the power of the Prince (Machiavelli). With the rise of capitalism and the market economy, liberal economists strongly criticized state management of the national economy. The centralization of political power was often seen as a major brake on the market economy and thus on economic development. Since 1990, the history of capitalism seems to have stopped being written within national borders. We are moving from the wealth of nations to the wealth of the world. However, despite the existence of the World Trade Organization, there is in fact no supranational authority capable of imposing rules on multinational markets, which are often speculative and interested mainly in short-term profit, thus threatening the sovereignty of nations. Yet market system generalization is often perceived as a factor of democracy. This statement is debatable. As states have lost most of their economic power, the electorate is the victim of a democratic illusion comparable to Keynes' monetary illusion. The risk is the progressive establishment of international plutocratic systems which, within each state, will defend private interests, sometimes in competition from state to state. War and economic war are not over.

Date: 2001-01-03
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Published in American Economic Association Congress, Jan 2001, New Orleans, United States

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