POL 309 Week 2 Economy - Summary of lectures, reading and seminar work
Three Great Eras Affecting Political Economy Flourishing Age (200,000 BC to 1750) o Carbon
Energy Age (1750-2100?) Post-Carbon Energy Age (2100 to Human Extinction ?) The world
before CPEoEarth is 4.5 billion years old. : 13,000,000 years ago: the Neolithic revolution.
Strong pastoral style. People now live in cities. o Fall of the Roman Empire (5th century AD).
Principal supply of wealth is land - consequently territorial conquests.oFeudal social corporation
develops:A device of parcelized and overlapping styles of sovereignty wherein nobles (kings,
princes, spiritual leaders and different elites) promised to guard peasant manufacturers in go back
for a component in their product (read: tax, commonly set via way of means of custom).oUp till
the sixteenth century or so, and relying on wherein you appearance in Europe, this tax changed
into paid in kind, now no longer in money.oGold is added because the dominant forex in Europe
via way of means of approximately 550 BCE – Croseus, Lydia (current Turkey).oThis rural
existence – wherein maximum of the world’s wealth is coming immediately from the
land/agriculture – and peasants operating it, changed into complemented by way of means of the
brilliant port towns wherein others specialized in long-distance trade.oThe Chinese excelled at
this early on however their rulers subsequently destroyed their early ocean-going vessels to
consolidate their home power.
Here, we must notice that right now in history, the most ‘advanced’ civilizations have been
withinside the Middle East, India and China – which have been with the aid of using no means
‘modern’ however in comparison to Europe, have been some distance extra ‘rich’ and
‘civilized’.oBut in Italy withinside the thirteenth century some of city states arise that
commenced to excel in long-distance change. Eventually, extra European groups just like the
Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and English commenced to ideal their personal structures of
sea/ocean navigation and shipbuilding and embarked upon long-distance change as well.oA
frame of notion begins off evolved to broaden round this change known as Mercantilism.The
number one intention of mercantilism changed into to make certain that extra bullion changed
into getting into the economic system than changed into leaving Mercantilism changed into a
political motion and an monetary concept that advocated:The use of the state's navy electricity to
make certain neighborhood markets and deliver assets have been protected.Tariffs can be used to
inspire exports (which means extra cash comes into the country) and discourage imports
(sending wealth abroad).In different phrases a fantastic stability of change should be maintained,
with a surplus of exports.
The concept of mercantilism was first proposed in 1763 by Victor de Riquiti, the Marquis de
Mirabeau, and Adam Smith, who strongly opposed his ideas. Emerging capitalism or
markets/market societies. The origin of wealth is found in the economy in work and its division
according to some. Marx questioned how this system came about and proposed a new theory of
wealth. Exploitation - therefore: political economy. (First published in 1867). Political economy
would split into neoclassical economics and political science, which still dominate today.
Of course, these are historically different, but any system of domination - where a few people
own most of the wealth/resources of a working class society - must be justified by an ideology
that reinforces this relationship of domination/acquisition.The main source of wealth is access to
land/agricultural products. Wealth could also come from long-distance trade (buying cheap
abroad and selling a lot domestically), controlling slave labor, running a tax office, or outright
confiscation and simple wars of conquest. At that time there was no capitalist private property.
What we now call economic growth is closely related to the rate of organic energy and
photosynthesis. date and political economy, so any understanding of progress is also very
limited.
Luxury commodities are limited to the powerful. For most of our period – at least in Europe - we
are talking about an international rule in large part through the dictates of the Catholic Church
and to a sizable extent, the Holy Roman Empire (regularly in competition). Protestant
revolution/reformation and later the medical technique task Holy dogma. Christendom is now
fractured.of Business’ at the moment is appeared down upon through the ones in authority. True
distinctive feature comes from being of noble blood – because of this that you or your ancestors
come from a collection of individuals who fought valiantly in wars of conquest.oDifferences in
human beings – together with their phenotypes – are understood as differences originating in
climate, religion, customs, and language. There is no ‘medical racism’ as of yet (this comes with
inside the latter 1/2 of of the nineteenth century – specifically after Darwin and bolstered through
Western colonization).oIntellectuals begin to discover classical Greek and Roman concept for the
duration of the seventeenth century and mixed with speedy modifications at the floor including
the English, American, French and Haitian Revolutions – we begin to get new political theories.
But we additionally begin to see the incipient emergence of classical political economic system
with the paintings of Boisguillebert (1646-1714), William Petty (1623-1687) and the Physiocrats
(1694 as much as Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations in 1776). The predominant kind of political
economic system questioning that classical political economic system will in large part react
against, become mercantilism, which we are able to say originates around 1492 with the
conquest of the ‘New World’ via the means of Columbus. The ‘market’ does now no longer play
a critical position in peoples’ lives in the course of this duration. While markets are sincerely
round, maximum human beings aren't depending on them for his or her survival and social
reproduction. During our duration we additionally see the slow monetization of exchange and
transactions, however cash is varied (shells, beads, gold, silver etc) and cash transactions are in
no way the historic norm at this point. Gold and Silver end up the maximum covered by way of
means of Europeans in huge component to pay for imports from the East/Asia.oTrade and tour
are very unstable ventures at the moment and the delivery and verbal exchange infrastructure
could be very negative and in large part depending on human, animal and water and wind power.
We won't really have any change until coal becomes the main fuel source and the UK (and later
the US and Europe) start to dump the fuel source. Organic energy (mainly wood/coal) and
savings. The advent of surplus renewable energy (and thus the questioning of its distribution) is
largely due to carbon energy.
In the end, despite their differences, the classical political economists would realize that
something entirely new was happening: the emergence of the market economy. The big question
for us is, what happened to the story of the emerging market economy finally embracing the
world where almost everything has a price?
