The World System is Not Neo-Liberal: The Emergence of Structural Mercantilism.

In the popular debate about globalisation, supporters and detractors seem to agree on one thing—that a globalised economy can be described as 'neo-liberal'. I challenge this. The world system is far from liberal, in fact in many ways it reflects the system that early liberal economists railed against—mercantilism. I contend that neither liberalism nor orthodox Marxism is a useful lens through which to view and understand the international order. New Left ideas of dependency theory and world systems theory are useful, but what they describe is not neo-liberal capitalism, but mercantilist capitalism. To explain this I offer the concept of 'structural mercantilism' as a new and more accurate descriptor of the current world economic order. This concept refers to the institutional and ideational structures which have been built by and in the interests of rich countries and corporations, and can be used to explain how rational thought can lead to irrational outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]