Jeremy Segall and Ken Stroger

February 8, 1998

Political Science 160, Section 005

In International Politics by Robert J. Art, and Robert Jervis, the authors discuss the relationship between economics and politics in the section from pages 269-395. For the most part, we agree with the statement that politics and economics are related. Furthermore, we believe that economics and politics are almost one in the same. While taking economics courses ourselves, micro and macro economics, we have realized that economics and politics tell the same story. Economists tell the story from the numbers' point of view, whereas the political scientist tells us what the actors in the story were thinking. We believe that no political decision can be made without thinking of economics, while no economic decision can be made without regard for politics. This is, in essence, what Art and Jervis want to convey to the readers.

In the first essay, The Nature of Political Economy, by Robert Gilpin, the point of view is expressed that politics is nothing without economics, and vise versa. The reasoning that Gilpin presents is that wealth is the primary focus of an economist, and that power is the primary focus of a political scientist. Although neither of these two theories are clearly definable, Gilpin draws the connection between the two by stating that, ultimately, wealth is power, and power is derived from military force. Since military force is a very political subject, wealth and power are, in essence, the same thing.

In the next section, Robert Keohane discusses the hegemonic stability theory in the world's economy, with regard to politics. The hegemonic stability theory states that when a single nation-state controls a major portion of the world's economy, the world will be, relatively, at peace. For the most part, we agree with this theory. Even Keohane states that this theory is not fool-proof. If there was one economic power, there would be a lot less confusion. This goes along the same lines of the thought that people have that if they ran things the way that they wanted to, the world would run a lot smoother. If only one country chooses how things go (they act as somewhat of a dictator for world politics) there would be no opposition, and things in the economic realm would run smoothly. While this theory may not hold true in all situations, it will at least provide for cooperation between countries, as they have to agree on things when one country can not rule absolutely.

In Stephen Krasner's essay on the North-South economic relations with respect to power and wealth, Krasner discusses how Third World countries can increase their wealth. He argues that by adapting more “economically rational” policies, the Third World countries could make a start at getting a better economy. He also says that the Northern countries need to help the Third World countries by helping them restructuring their economies. This can be done in a multitude of ways. Some of the things that we have read about (specifically in Skidmore) include having the Northern companies go into the Third World countries and buying land and hiring their people to work in their factories. This is a good argument, because we feel that a Third World economy has no chance, unless it receives help from the North.

Robert Reich's article Who is Us? is written as a recommendation for the US government. In the essay, Reich discusses his opinion that the United States government should give support to all companies that operate in the US, regardless of where their national headquarters are. If a company is based in the United States, but does most of their business outside of the US, then, Reich argues, they should not receive as much support as the other companies. In response to this point of view, Art and Jervis present an article by Ethan Kapstein. In his article, Kapstein argues that Reich is “misguided.” Kapstein goes on to say that large corporations want to help their home countries, and therefore, companies in the US should not be punished for investing overseas. Although this seems to be hypocritical (helping the US's economy by taking their business and jobs overseas), an explanation could be that they are looking at their personal interests first, and the interests of their economy second. They do not want to hurt their economy, but for financial reasons must take their business overseas. They may assume that it comes down to having a company that operates out of the United States or not having a company at all. This seems to follow Krasner's argument that to help the Third World countries there have to be MNC's there. In actuality, using imports really helps the US economy because that way the US could trade with economies that can produce complimentary products at a lower cost (or lower opportunity cost).

In closing, we feel that the economy and politics are closely intertwined. So close, in fact, that they could easily be mistaken for each other. This is because the economy and politics are the same thing, just looked at from different angles.