1983 Three Modes of Economism

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Three Modes of EconomismAuthor(s): Richard K. AshleySource: International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 4, Special Issue: The EconomicFoundations of War (Dec., 1983), pp. 463-496Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The International Studies AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2600557 .

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Internationaltudies uarterly1983) 27,463-496

Three Modes of Economism

RICHARD K. ASHLEY

Arizona tateUniversity

As ordinarily sed by political cientists,he chargeof economism' eferso aviolationof the political phere'sprivileged resumptionf autonomy.Morespecifically,t referso an exaggerationf he conomicphere'smportancenthe

determinationf ocialand political elations nd a correspondingnderestima-tion f he utonomynd integrityf hepolitical phere.With he im offurtherclarifyinghe oncept nd ts pplicationsothe tudy fwar andpeace,this aperexamines hreedistinguishable odes of economism: ariableconomism,herepolitical utcomesre aidto be attributable hollyrpredominantlyoeconomiccauses, ogical conomism,here nternationalolitical ife s interpretablenlyinsofars itcan be comprehended ithin heframeworkf economicogic, ndhistoricalconomism,nvolving double imiting f tatepractice nd internationalpolitical heoryn the ointreproductionfan economisticocial order. tatisteconomism,hepaper contends,s a dangerousform f historical conomismcharacteristicf dvanced apitalistociety. sthe uccessor o the nstitutionnddoctrinef aissez-faire,tatist conomismntails oth he ransparenteduction f

statepracticesnd legitimationso economicnterestsnd a diminishmentfthecreativend adaptive apacities fthemodern tates ystem.

Among political scientists, ny protracted discussion of 'economic causes' of statepractices, ncludingwar, is destined sooneror later to encountera veryseriouscharge.Tantamount to an accusation ofblasphemyagainstthedisciplineofpoliticalscience,thecharge connotes an exaggeration of the importance and autonomy of the economicsphere. More to the point, it connotes an exaggeration of the economic sphere'simportance in the determinationof social and political relations,and as a result,an

underestimation f theautonomyand integrityf thepoliticalsphere.The charge, n aword, is 'economism'.

In currentusage the word 'economism' has thestatus ofwhat I would call a 'tabooterm'. t is a term hat has no purposeotherthan to securethe boundariesofdisciplinarydiscourseby signalingwhenargumentthreatens ostray nto alien terrain rbywarningwhen alien argument threatens to penetrate or subordinate the discipline's time-honoredrulesofdiscourse.Among sociologists,psychologism' s a taboo term.Amongmany social sciences 'historicism'has a similar status. As generally used, the term'economism' shares threequalities withtaboo terms n general.

First,taboo terms re historical, nd theirhistoricitys typicallybound up withtheemergence and evolution of the disciplineswhose boundaries they guard. The term

psychologism,for instance, recalls Emile Durkheim and his struggle to establish

0020-8833/83/04463-34 03.00 ? 1983 nternational tudiesAssociation



464 ThreeModes fEconomism

sociology n opposition toutilitarian hought,with ts ndividualistprinciples.When theterm s used, the full motiveforce fthishistoric truggle s brought nto play. The sameis true of economism' among political scientists. ts use recalls the struggles f modernpolitical science to establishthe independence of political economy.

Second, the use of taboo terms s not an ordinary practice but an extraordinarypractice a practice signalingdisciplinary risis.During ordinaryperiods n the ife fdiscipline, there s little nclination to stray across disciplinaryboundaries because thesymbolicdivisions thatdefinedisciplinaryboundaries correspondwell enough with theregularized social divisionsthat the disciplinesat once address and affirm. aboo termsare not needed. However, during extraordinary eriods when the objective categoriesof actual social practice no longer conform to the symbolic divisionsof disciplinarylabor disciplinary rises nsue. Disciplinary boundaries are disputed and, hence, tabooterms are brought into play in order to discipline iscourse by eliciting collectiverecognitionof one or another boundary. Once again, the generalization holds for theterm economism'. The termowes its currencyto the widespread questioning of once

secure boundaries between nternationalpoliticaland economic discourse a question-ing exemplifiedby thissymposium. n turn, this mplies a struggle mong contestingviewpointsto definenewboundaries, the imitsbeyondwhichpoliticaldiscourse cannotproceed. The taboo term economism' at thispoint is brought nto play.'

Third, when taboo terms re used, they have a peculiar status: they are critical butimmune to criticism.They appear in ritual disavowals of errant practices ('This is notpsychologism'), and theyappear in categorical criticisms fpracticesthatstrayacrossonce-unquestioned boundaries ('Smith's argument is psychologistic'). But the termsthemselves nd the relationsand practices theyconnote are typicallyundefined andsuspended beyond the reach ofcritical analysis.This is quite evidently hecase with theword economismin currentusage. One can fairly afely ay that the term refers o an

overestimation of causes located in the economic sphere, a kind of economic'determinism'.However, thesafety fthesaying s due to the fact thatso little s reallybeing said: the definition'begsjust thosedisciplinaryboundary questionsthat the termitself s invoked toguard.2As a taboo term, hough, economism' has to have thisvaguequality. Since itsrole is to affirmhe domain of that which must not be said', the termmust exclude questions and argumentsfrompolitical discourse without saying thatwhich it excludes.

It should not be hard to see that taboo terms re scientificallyndefensible.fwe take tas a truism hat science sdistinguishable romnon-science among otherways) in termsof its institutionalizationof the need for critical self-reflectionnd self-correction-including critical reflectionon a science's own disciplinaryfoundations then anyscholarly argument that bounds queries and explanations by invokingunexaminedtaboo terms s at oddswiththerequisites f cience.A disciplinecan secure ts statusas ascientificiscipline only by making disciplinary boundaries, including the taboo termsthatguard them,theobjects of criticism nd debate.

The injunctionholdsfor ll social sciences, nprinciple,bu-t or olitical cience t takeson an additionalweight.Taboo terms re inherently olitical terms, nd their uthorityis inherentlya political authority.This is because taboo termssecure disciplinaryboundaries which n turn mpose and legitimate imits n political and social discourse,constrain thesymbolicresourcesavailable to contending parties,and circumscribe hesocial reordering ossibilitiesmaginable withinthat discourse. Taboo terms re, ifyouwill, expressionsand instruments f political power, ust as disciplinarydivisionsofscholarly abor are themselves eflections f he power ofdominant organizing principles



RICHARD K. ASHLEY 465

of society n opposition to contestingprinciples. No political science can claim to beauthentic f t leaves this aspect of power unexamined. As Pierre Bourdieu (1977:165)has observed. 'The theoryofknowledge is a dimension of political theorybecause thespecifically ymbolic power to impose the principles of the construction freality in

particular, ocial reality is a major dimension ofpolitical power.' Notingthis,politicalscientists an take their own disciplinary boundaries, and the taboo termsthat guardthem,as proper objects ofpolitical science itself.

With this n mind,I want to probe critically heterm economism'withthe ntentofrenderingthe term not a darklyallusive symbol of a disciplinarytaboo but a conceptwhose implications for international relations theory and research are definite andpublicly defensible.My strategys to examine threealternative modes ofeconomism':'variable', 'logical', and 'historical'. Each of these modes presupposes a particularunderstanding fpolitics, heboundary separating political practice from conomic life,theproper scientific osture withrespect to thisboundary, and, most mportantly, herange and limits of international political inquiry. In each of the threeinstances, I

explore specific mplications ofthe economism charge and weigh prescribed remedies.How, specifically, are norms of political science being violated when an analysiscommits a specific formof economism? What should political scientistsdo whatavenues of nquiryneed to be pursued or extended to avoid or overcome thisform feconomism?

In fairness, should say at the outset that my presentationof the threemodes ofeconomism s ikely o be viewed as controversial some would sayheretical. n partthisis because it s dangerous to deal with taboo termsnfields hathave yettoridthemselvesofprescientificreas ofdarkness,taboo zones, or domains of that which mustnot besaid'. In larger part, however,thepresentdiscussion s controversial ecause itcontainsan argumentthat s criticalof the currently redominanttrend toward statism mong

NorthAmerican scholarsengaged in the scientific tudyof nternationalpolitics,war,and peace.

In view of the renewed interest n the state, its interests, nd the structures f theinternational tates ystem, tmightbe tempting oconclude that the field s evidencinga renewed nterestnpoliticaldeterminants nd that,accordingly, he trend s anythingbuteconomistic nits centralemphasis. Againstthis onclusion, my argument s that thestatist rend, n itsmain dimensions,nonethelessportendsthe reductionof nternationalpolitical theoryto the logic ofeconomy. I argue further hat the statist rendtherebyproducesa perspective nwhichpolitical practice sdevoid of ll independentcapacitiesto reflectupon or to check economic processes and, as such, can only surrenderthedetermination of political outcomes, including war and peace, to the essentially

technical logic of economic change. The new statism s, in short,an apology for theworldwidehegemonyof a deadly logic ofeconomyin determining ocial and politicaloutcomes. In this, suggest,thestatist rend s no accident. A successor to laissez-fairedoctrine, it reflects he evolved legitimationsof the advanced capitalist state underconditionsof crisis. If the studyof internationalpolitics is to avoid thissuperficiallyanti-economistic conomism, twill be necessary orecover richerunderstanding fthelogic of politics a logic in keeping with Karl Deutsch's profoundlydialecticalunderstanding and deployit tocomprehendthe evolved legitimations fthe stateandthe role ofknowledgein the currentcrisis.

This, in very scanty terms, s my argument.At thispoint, a scanty presentation sall that s possible.The conceptsthatwould permit sharper depictionawait develop-

ment.



466 ThreeModesofEconomism

Political Economic

variables variables

FIG. 1. Variable economism. rrow ndicatesmainflow fcausation.

Variable Economism

The simplest and most obvious mode of economism is the mode I call 'variableeconomism'. As diagrammed in Figure 1, variable economism involves the one-waydetermination of political outcomes, as measured in terms of political variables, by

variationin economic variables. More specifically,t involves (a) theoverestimation fthepolitical nfluence feconomicvariables,which are takentobe exogenousand henceindependent of political variables, and (b) the underestimationof the influenceofpolitical variablesin the determination fpoliticaloutcomesoreffects.n sum,variationin political variables is explained exclusivelyor predominantly n termsofeconomicvariables whose values are determined ndependentlyofpolitical factors.3

Looking back historically, ne discoversno lack of arguments exhibiting variableeconomism'. For instance,the charge can be applied to arguments deployed on bothsides of the historic ontroversy etweenadvocates ofprotectionism nd proponentsoffreetrade. Advocates ofprotectionismhave typically rgued on behalfof thepolicy asthe best means ofacquiring political power and preparinga countryforwar.Johann

Fichte tookthe even moreextremepositionthat nternational ommerce ed inevitablyto war, and hence he called fora 'polyphonic humanity n which each nation, havingclosed its frontiers, chieves the full expression of its individuality' (quoted fromHirschman, 1980: 7). On the other side, advocates offree rade since Montesquieu andAdam Smith have taken exactly the opposite position. Montesquieu, forexample,claimed that The naturaleffectf ommerce s tobring bout peace. Two nationswhichtrade together render themselves reciprocally dependent . . .' (Hirschman, 1980: 10),and John Stuart Mill agreed, arguing that It is commercewhich is rapidly renderingwar obsolete, by strengthening nd multiplyingthe personal interestswhich are innatural opposition to it' (Mill, 1900:582). In general, liberal writersfrom SmiththroughLionel Robbins (1939) have taken the position that free radenot only brings

peace but also enhances national power in readiness forwar. On theirface,all of theseargumentswould seem to be deserving of the charge ofvariable economism.

Within the collectivememoryof North American studentsof nternationalpolitics,however, the charge of economism has only rarely been aimed at these classicalarguments, ll of which implicitlypresuppose a capitalistorder. The charge has muchmore oftenbeen reservedfor hose theories hatpoint up theessentially ontested basisand historical limits of capitalism as a whole, namely Marxist-Leninist theories ofimperialism and, more recently,neo-Marxist world systems heory.

As applied to these theories, the charge of variable economism is immediatelyrecognizable as an extension of a time-honored criticismoften advanced regardingMarxisttheoryngeneral: thecriticism hat t sguilty feconomic determinism. ritics

who make thischarge,forexample John Plamenatz (1961), Karl Popper (1961), and




H. B. Acton (1962), readily point to Marx's claim that the mode of production ofmaterial life determines the social, political, and intellectual life process in general(Marx, 1955: 157).4 By reading Marx as if he were referring o modes of production asspecificeconomic variables existing ndependentlyofsocial, political, legal and other

relations an interpretation harplyat variance withMarx's own claims criticshavelong been able to find nsuch snippets basisfor heir onclusionsthat Marx's theorysaform feconomism. GraspingMarx's famousclaim that the hand millgives you societywith the feudal ord; the steammillsocietywith the ndustrial apitalist,the same criticshave long triedto substantiatetheir laim thatthemastervariables in Marx's economyare found n productive technology.Marx's 'crude economism' is therebyrenderedaneven crudertechnologicaldeterminism.

Followingthis ead are unsympathetic ritics fMarxist-Leninist mperialism heoryor neo-Marxist world system theory.Like Plamenatz, Popper, and Acton, critics ofMarxist international theory ake the economic sphere to be a distinct, ndependentlyexisting phere of ifewhose elementshave no intrinsic olitical aspect and, as such,can

be definitely eparated from hesocial, political, and legal aspects of ife. Scholars likeKenneth Waltz (1979) and Benjamin Cohen (1973) regard capitalism only in itseconomic aspects,as a variable organizational principlefor conomic life; nd they husunderstand all referencesto capitalism to referexclusively to variables that areeconomic, .e., variables that are assumed to have no intrinsic oliticalcontent.Startingfromthese premises,which are in factalien to Leninist or Wallersteinianarguments,critics can regard these argumentsas 'economic theories' ofpolitics. And, having soreduced them,they an thenfind heargumentsguiltyof reductionism nd rejectthemout of hand. They can regardthearguments s economistic theories hatfailtorespectdisciplinaryboundaries, neglect political causes ofpolitical outcomes,and bringtheirexplanationsto rest n 'economic causes'. Take, for nstance,Kenneth Waltz's strained

treatment fWallerstein:

Karl Marxtried o explain hepolitics fnations y their conomics. mmanuelWallersteinries oexplainnational nd internationalolitics y the effectsthecapitalistworld-economy'as on them . . Wallerstein rgues that in thenineteenthnd twentieth enturies herehas been only one world-systemnexistence, he capitalistworld-economy'.he argument onfuses heorywithrealitynd identifiesmodeloftheory ith herealworld .. An international-political heoryerves rimarilyoexplain nternational-politicalutcomes.talsotells ssomethingbout the oreign olicies f tates ndabouttheir conomic ndother nteractions.ut aying hat theorybout nternationalconomics ells ssomethingboutpolitics,nd thata theoryboutinternationalolitics ellsussomethingbouteconomics,oesnotmeanthat ne such heoryan substituteortheother.n telling ssomethingbout iving eings, hemistryoes notdisplacebiology Waltz 1979:38).

Tantamount to the invoking of a taboo, Waltz criticizes Wallerstein for violatingpoliticalscience'sdisciplinaryprivilege, privilegewhose moral forceWaltz invokesbutdoes not see a need to question or ustify.

Through the 1960s and most of the 1970s, the preponderance of North Americanstudentsof international politics implicitly sided with Waltz's position and strictlyobserved the taboo against variable economism. Widely assigned volumes on thescientific tudyofwar, peace, and international politics,forexample Dean Pruittand

Richard Snyder's (1969) Theorynd Research n theCausesof War or William Coplin and




Charles Kegley's (1975) Analyzingnternationalelations,ncluded little r no reference oeconomic causes of nternationalpolitical outcomes. Of the 59 articles n the standardgraduate volume of the period,James N. Rosenau's (1969) Internationalolitics ndForeign olicy, nly one could be said to have come close to a systematic reatment f

economic determinants-Harold and Margaret Sprout's treatment f EnvironmentalFactors in the Study of International Politics'. True, the literature made occasionalmention of economic causes' or economic interests' n foreign olicy and internationalpolitics;but thesereferences ere usually eitherdescribing elementsofnational power',or offeringrejoinders to radical theories of imperialism.5 In sum, among NorthAmerican students f nternationalpolitics,Morgenthau's principleofthe autonomyofthe political sphere' was not ust a troublesomeprincipleofcompetentpolitical practice.It was taken forgranted as a fact an objective given' or natural condition of globalreality-legitimating the near-total exclusion of economic variables fromsystematicscientific inquiry.

By the middle part of the 1970s, however, thingshad changed. The 'given' order,

including the eparation ofpolitical and economic spheres,was no longer elf-evident.nmatters of resource vulnerability and petroleum embargoes, monetary crises andworldwiderecession, conomic processes nd relationsno longer seemed independentofpolitical interventions. he political effects f thedifferential xperiencingof economicconditionsand changes became increasingly pparent, especially as states ncreasinglysuccumbed to unevenly felt temptations to intervene in response. Suddenly, theever-so-commonsensical realist depiction of international politics in terms of anautonomous power-political ogic lost ts magic. Practical realistprinciples which hadboth a normative and objective status seemed suddenly artificial nd arbitrary,notnatural and necessary. These principles had to be either repaired and reconfirmed rradically transformed.

At the risk of oversimplification, think that the North American social scientificresponseto this risishas so far xhibitedthree verlapping phases. The first hase recallsthe position of liberal internationalistproponents of free trade. This was the phasecharacterized by sometimeshystericalargumentsof a modernist or transnationalistsort arguments noting the growthof interdependencies, nventorying olitical andsocial consequences, highlightingeaks nthe vessel of overeignty',nd anticipating heimperativeor ongoing transformation f the fragmentary rder of the modern statessystem.What RobertGilpin (1975:220-228) calls the sovereigntyt bay' model neatlydescribes thisfirst-phase osition.6Although seldom noted, thispositionis extremelyeconomistic, for it attributesdeep political change primarilyto technological andeconomic changeswhich are themselvesunexplained or attributedto themysteries f

necessaryhistorical progress'. Extremely implistic nd superficial, nd exhibiting ittlesense ofhistory, heposition s open to the criticism hat t too eagerlyseized upon thegiven political order's changing agenda ofpublicly recognized ssuesas evidence ofdeepstructural hange in the order itself.

The second phase, which had somethingof an expose quality, helped to drive thispointhome. In the face of the first hase's hyperboleregardingdeep system hange, thesecond phase was a phase ofsoberingreflection n the worldas ithas persistentlyeen.As exemplifiedby Nazli Choucri and Robert C. North's (1975) Nations nConflictndAshley's (1980) The PoliticalEconomy f War and Peace, this phase of argument brokesharplywiththebelief, mplicit n thefirst-phase iagnosisofchange, that nternationalpolitical practicesand outcomeswere at one time mmuneto socio-economicprocesses,

including especially processesoftechnologicaland population growth midstenviron-




mental constraints.Based on examinations of European international politics in the1870-1914 period and post-war nternationalpolitics among China, the Soviet Union,and the United States, the Choucri and North and Ashley studies found significantsupportfor hepersistent elevance of the so-called lateral pressure hesis: he thesis hat

the long-termdynamicsofdifferential echnological and population growth can andveryoftendo generatetendenciestowardforeign xpansion,collisionsof economic andpolitical interests,militaryrivalry, nd heighteningconflict nd propensitiestowardviolence.The interpenetrationf nternationalpoliticsand relationsofproduction andexchange amidst environmental imits,these works suggested, was nothing new. Itmarked no change in the given order. What was new, at least in the context of thepost-war study of international politics, was the mounting collective awareness flong-term olitical-economic relations.Now, as beforenhistory, eneralized awarenessof thepoliticalcontentofsocio-economic change became possible onlywhen long-termprocesses of differential rowth had already begun to exhibit some of theirworrisomeconsequences for nternationalpolitics.

The political implications of this second-phase line of argument deserve attention.Relative to liberal interdependence writings, the argument might seem to beconservative, or t warns againstthe mistakeofassumingthetransparency f thegivenorder and henceofreading changing appearances (e.g. newissues) as evidence of ystemchange.At the ame time, t has a radical aspect. It isextremely riticalof hegivenorderinsofar s it mpliesthe ntrinsiceadlinessof system, fwhichcapitalism scertainly heextremecase, whose premiervalue is technical success and which institutionalizes heexpectationofdifferential rowth.Like Leninist mperialism theoryorWallersteinianworld systems heory, ts radicalism violates the taboo against variable economismbylocating causes ofwar and preconditions orpeace beyond the controlof those agencies,states and statesmen, who claim to act on behalf of public political interests n the

regulationof collective nsecurity. t thereby hreatens o expand the reach ofpoliticaldiscourse by politicizingthe sphere of economic decision which some people have avested nterest n immunizingfrompublic political responsibility.

'Growth,'Choucri and North (1975:1) had argued, 'can be a lethalprocess.'Takenseriously, he argument implies that ifsociety s to take control of the processes thatgenerate deadly and possiblyruinousviolence, thenthe sphereof decision which hadbeen labeled 'economic', and which had been granted autonomy vis-a-vis ollectivepolitical discourse,would have to be made answerable to politics.The 'dynamics' ofgrowth ould no longerbe givenover tomysterious, xternal,quasi-natural 'economic'processes o whichsociety s a wholereacted,but could neithermonitornorcontrol, ndwhichnonetheless haped theconditions, imits, nd, in many ways,the felt nterests f

political life.On the contrary, he dynamics' ofgrowthhad to be reappropriated bysociety as a whole. They had to be regarded as consequences of the politicaldecisions and hence publicly responsibledecisions ofwomen and menwho share aninterestn shaping theircollective futures hroughfull will and consciousness.

Aswith all arguments hat violate social sciencetaboos, the ateral pressure rgumentelicited strangereactions seemingly designed to give the semblance of an intelligentresponsewhile avoiding the need to considerseriously ts mplications. Warmed-overHobson and Lenin', a verydistinguished cholar once growledwhilewaiving away theargumentwitha toss of the hand. 'Deterministic',others aid. 'Economistic', chargedstillothers. uch ritualized reaction was typicalofresponses osecond-phase arguments.Even though the full import of second-phase argumentswas to expand he reach of

political inquiry implying a need to expand the effective esponsibility f public




political interaction over hitherto 'extra-political' economic dynamics a typicalreactionwas to object to the economistic'message theseargumentscontained.

The third-phase reaction can be viewed as a 'corrective' to this 'economistic'tendency, and it is this phase that now predominates in the scientificstudy of

international politics in North America. As exemplified by the work of North andThomas (1973), Waltz (1979), Keohane (1980, 1982a), Gilpin (1981a), Modelski(1981), and many others,7this phase is very much reminiscent of neo-Keynesianinternationalismn Britain.8 t can be said to have two distinctive spects.

The first nd foremost f theseaspects s a renewal of nterest n the state as the ine uanon fan autonomous sphereofpolitics. Whereas Choucri and North, Ashley and othersecond-phasewriters aw the state as an historically mergent nd ever problematicalphenomenon whose reproduction is in need of historical explanation, third-phasearguments end to regard the state as a transhistorical iven. The state s viewed as the'essential actor' whose interests, ower, decisions, practices, nd interactionswithotherstates define and exhaust the scope and content of international politics as an

autonomous sphere. From the point of view of third-phase analysts, there is nointernational political life absent of states, prior to states, or independent of states.Political interests that are not reducible to state interests e.g. transnational classinterests) nter the international political realm only insofar s they are mediated bystate interests.9 rom the same point ofview, the ontological priority f states, theirinterests, heirunceasing competition, nd state-systemictructuresswhat accountsfortherelativeautonomyof thepolitical spherevis-a-vissocial and economicchange. Thesestructures nd theserelations re understood to refractnd give specific oliticalcontentto economic dynamics. Shifting oncentrationsof wealth accumulation, forexample,findtheirfull ignificancenotonly n narroweconomic terms, ut also in terms f theirimplicationsforrelative power among states.

The other distinguishing lement of the third-phaseposition is an emphasis on thetwo-way etermination of international politics and economics. As Robert Gilpin(1975:42) put it, The relationshipbetween economics and politics . . is a reciprocalone.' Having defined the nternationalpolitical sphere n terms f states and interstatestructures, hird-phase arguments do not deny what can no longer be denied: thateconomic changes have pronounced 'political' effects.Economic changes (such asdifferential rowth) impinge upon states, their interests, heir practices, and theirinteractions. The political content of economic patterns and changes, that is, thesignificanceof thesepatterns and changes when viewed through the lens of thestateengaged in competitionwith other states, s emphasized ratherthan ignored. At thesame time,and in the opposite direction, arguments characteristicof the thirdphase

typically tress he roleofpolitics namely, the state, the states ystem, nd competitionfor ower-in thedetermination f conomic outcomes. A common third-phase heme sthe possible role of the hegemonic state as collectively interested regulator of astagnation-proneworld economy. Another theme s the role ofthe competitive nterstatesystem n making possible and necessary the evolution of property rights and theemergenceof an independently xisting phere of economy.

On the face of things, t would appear that the third-phasereaction has found aformulafor voiding economism, t least variable economism,whileacknowledgingthepolitical significance feconomic change. The formula nvolvesasserting hehistoricalpriority nd independence of state-relatedvariables, motives,and structuresvis-a-visinternationaleconomic structures; ssumingthemediating nfluences f stateinterests

and state-systemic tructures; nd allowing for political' (i.e. state-mediated) return




effects n economic processes and relations. When this formula s followed, the linearform f variable economism represented bove cannot be said to apply.

Upon reflection, hough, t should be clear that thisparticular olution to the problemof variable economism, like the posing of the problem itself, bscures a substantially

deeper problem. However reductionist t may seem to offer ne-sidedpolitical accountsin terms feconomic variables, and however worldlywise t mayseem to make room forindependent political determinations nd two-way causal relationsbetween politicaland economic variables, the inear definition fvariable economismand the third-phaseformula or voiding it reston a falsepresupposition.The mistaken ssumption s that tis possible to arrive at some fixed,unproblematic,and apolitical categorical distinctionbetween political and economic variables inhabiting distinctpolitical and economicspheres.No such distinction exists beyond history. nstead, all such distinctions reproductsof historyor, more correctly, f political struggles to shape, reproduce, ortransform ocial orders and symbolic systems.

When this fact is taken seriously,a striking bservation becomes possible. State-

related variables-state capabilities, interests, olicies, or the international structuralrelations aid to emergefrom hesecapabilities' interests nd policies do not necessarilytranscend economics merely because they are state related. Such a categoricaldistinction, akingthe state as the pivot point in the distinctionbetween political andeconomic spheres, s a holdover from aissez-faireationalizations of tate practice and isno longer valid today. As I discuss later on, the advanced capitaliststate is ever moredeeply involved in the management of the capitalist economic life, and much of itslegitimation the basis for loyalty and hence for the state's very being is in thesestarkly conomic terms.As a result, he mere factthat a theory enters n state practicesand state-proclaimed nterestsby no means guarantees the theoretical centralityofpolitical rather than economic considerations. In fact, a theorymight depict a state

merely s an economic actor with different ools-an actor no lesscommitted o its ownaggrandizement than any other.

The implications of this line of reasoning for third-phasetheory are important,especially fwe give any weightto what the second phase had tosayabout the ong-termcauses of war. The second phase ofargumenthad located significant auses ofwar indifferentialrowth a tendency ccelerated and legitimated n capitalismas a normaland normalizing xpectation. Now, in the name of voiding economism,the thirdphasereinstates he theoretical centrality f the role and interests f the state and the statesystem.Yet it s possiblethat thethird-phase mphasison thestate,farfrom ecoveringthe independent role of political determinations, signals instead an expansion ofeconomiclegitimations o subdue and subordinatethepolitical n ourunderstandings f

the state and its practices. If this s so, then the thirdphase would not indicate howpolitics mightcheck or redirect hedangerous dynamicsunderscoredby second-phasearguments. On the contrary, it would portray politics as necessarily impotentbefore even thebearer of-these same tragictendencies.

My contention s thatthis s precisely he errorof the thirdphase thattoday'sNorthAmericanstudyof nternational elationsrepresents.t isstill ooearlytoclose n on thatcontention,however.To preparethewayit snecessaryfirst oconsider thesecondmodeof economism.

Logical Economism

The second mode of economism is called logical economism. Unlike variable

economism,theconcept of ogical economismpresupposesno hard and fastdistinction




betweentwomutually xclusivespheres r setsofvariables, one consisting f ntrinsicallypolitical variables and one consisting f ntrinsicallyconomic variables. This concept snot inconsistentwith Charles Lindblom's (1977:8) claim that 'In all the politicalsystemsof the world, much of politics is economics, and most of economics is also

politics'.The logical economism concept is founded on the premise that 'economics' and

'politics' are abstractionsreferringmore or less consistently o distinguishableogics ofsocial action which are overlapping and, in most historicalsettings, ndissociable inpractice. Economics' and 'politics' are abstractions n that the distinction etweenthemrests on the theorist's idealization of distinct logical relations let us call them'logics' whose bare logical formshave no necessaryctual counterparts n practicaldistinctionsbetween economic and political action. They are theoretical abstractionswhich provide alternative frameworksby which theoristsorient and bound theirquestioning and interpretations foverlapping aspects ofthesocial world.

Scholarscan easily ose sight fthe tatusofthese ogics as intellectual bstractions nd

leap to the ntellectualist onclusion that what is distinguishable n theory s distinct npractice. And, in fact, many are prompted to make this mistake because, in theirparochialism, they too readily generalize to all of the past and future the practicalprinciples of a predominantly capitalist order that partially reifies the abstractdistinctionbetween economic and political aspects of life. Nevertheless, even if thesystem ne examines is characterizedby a widelyhonored boundary betweenpoliticaland economicdomains and rules ofpractice,twothingsmustbe remembered:First, hedistinction etweenspheresofpractice s tself n historically onstituted tructure fthesystemwhose perpetuation has to be explained, not assumed. Second, the theorist'sobjectivelydistinct olitical and economic logics thetheorist's bstractions-are neverreducible to thosepractical spherestowhich societyhas accorded the names polity' and

'economy'. Instead, the theorist'spolitical and economic logics cut across, help toexplain, and highlight he historical imits f anypractical distinction etweenpoliticaland economic aspects of ife.

Starting fromthis premise, logical economism can be straightforwardly efined.Logical economisms the eductionf the ractical nterpretiverameworkfpolitical ction o theframeworkfeconomicction:thereductionf the ogic ofpolitics o the ogicofeconomy.herelation can be presented n twoways.

The first s by way of the Venn diagram in Figure 2. U is the universal set of allrelations in reality. Area P is that set of relations,abstracted from U, which can beinterpreted ccording to a political logic. For reasons that should become clear as weproceed,P isbounded by a dashed line to ndicate that theboundaryseparating political

from non-political relations is itself inherently problematic.0 In principle, theboundaries ofP could encompass all of E, or all of U for that matter. E, on the otherhand, is thatpartially overlapping setof relations, lso abstracted fromU, that can beinterpreted ccording to an economic logic. The intersection f P and E is that area ofpolitical life hatcan be interpreted n terms f economic as well as political logic. Withthis in mind, an argument may be said to be guilty of logical economism if itsinterpretation fpoliticss restricted o the intersection f P and E--if it comprehendsonly those political relations which satisfy he logic of economy and neglects thoseaspects ofP which intersectwith thecomplementf E.

The second way ofpresenting heconcept of ogical economism s to offern analogyto anguage. Consider two anguage systems, ne a political anguage system nd one an

economic language system.The two overlap in the sense that there s a considerable




U

('p C1~

FIG. 2.Logical economism. Political interpretation educed to theshaded intersectionofpolitical (P) and economic (E) logics.

degree of translatabilitybetween the two: much that one can say and think n onelanguage one can also say and think n the other,and without much loss of meaning.However, each language has its imits, nd thesemay not be identical. Some things hatone might ay in the political language, for nstance, might be incomprehensible n theeconomic language; no amount of attemptedtranslation ould compensate for he factthat the economic language might not be rich enough to grasp certain politicalarguments, oncepts, and claims. From this tandpoint, n argumentor theory s guilty

of ogical economism f t insists n privileging heeconomic language as the exclusivelanguage withinwhich to interpret nd converseabout political practices, nstitutions,and possibilities.That is,political argumentsor theories re viewed as comprehensibleonlyinsofar s they are translatable nto thelimited anguage of economics.

The substance and theoretical importance of this definition rest on how oneunderstands the two abstracted logics ofeconomyand ofpolitics. It proceeds in threesteps:first,ketching he ogic ofeconomy-a logic I understandtobe essentially social;second,with the aid of Karl Deutsch's teachings,consideringthe substantiallyricherlogic ofpolitics a logic that is intrinsically ocial; and third,returning o my centralargument nd suggesting hat the nowpredominant third-phase'emphasison the stateisalmost entirely ubsumable within he ogic of conomy and that, s such, t condemns

internationalpolitical analysis to the status of a logically economisticenterprise.

TheLogic ofEconomy

The sketch fthe ogic of conomy starts yunderscoring presuppositionmplicit n alldiscussionsofeconomy.This is thepresuppositionthat it is possible to beginfromthepoint of view of a given ocial system be it a household, a group, an organization,anationalsociety, r a worldsystem whose boundariesand identifyingtructures an bedefinedfrom he start n a politicallyeutral ay. The conceptofa social system,iketheconceptof conomy, s tselfn abstraction, nd an intensely oliticalone at that. As anyself-respectingolitical scientistwould point out, n any period in history heboundariesand identifyingtructures f social systems re at once products of,and continuously

subject to, political struggle.The establishmentof systemboundaries and structures




always involves the repression or negation of counter-claims as to the truth andlegitimacyof alternativeboundaries and structures.Any attempt to specify he properboundaries' always has the effect f ncluding some aspects of realitywhile banishingothersas 'environmental'; and any attempt to specify he identifying tructures f the

system',will imply the ruling out of those systemgoals and values whose realizationwould require transformation r adaptation of those tructures. hus, instep two,whenconsideringpolitical logics,we will have reason to reopenthe ssueofthe givenness'ofsocial system.

For now, t s necessary o point out thatany attemptto define logic of conomy restson a provisionalconditionforwhich that ogiccannot tself ccount. It depends upon thepriorpolitical production oforder suchthat, t leastfor time, t spossibletoproceedasif herewere a singular, ontradiction-free,nd apolitical nderstanding f social systemand its boundaries. It rests, n otherwords, on the freezingof a continuing politicalstruggle uch thata system an be defined n terms f tscurrently ominantform, ndcurrently ecessiveor repressedforms an be ignored.

The indispensability of this presupposition becomes evident when the logic ofeconomy is defined. The definition is in terms of a relation between work andproduction. Workrefers o the social system's expenditures of scarce energiesin themanipulationand controlofobjects nthesystem's nvironment.Work thuspresupposesdefiniteboundaries between social system nd the environmentwhose aspects can beregarded as external objects. Across these boundaries, manipulation and control ofobjects is a relation of work, and hence can be an economic relation. Within theseboundaries, the same manipulation and controlrepresents social relationofpower anddomination. The distinction is very much a matter of perspective: a relation ofmanipulation and control s seen as a workrelation when the agent and object have thestatus of systemand environment,respectively. For example, the Roman legions'

deploying of force to turnexternal nations into slaves of the Latifundia was, in thisrespect, work relation as much as a political relation.) But the same relation becomesamatterof power and domination when the boundaries are defined uch that agent andobject ofmanipulationand control re understood s partiesto the same social system.Productioneferso the social system's ransformation ftheenvironment uch that t canobtain what it values, requires,or needs in order to maintain or reproduce its givenstructures nd, hence, to surviveas the structure-definedntity t is. The concept ofproduction thus presupposes not only a system-environment oundarybut also a givenset ofsystem tructureswhich,iftheyare to be reproduced, require the satisfaction fcertain demands upon the environment. t is the priorexistenceof these tructures,ndtherequisites f theirreproduction, hatdistinguishes etween transformationshat are

'productive', .e. ofvalue in terms fthese tructural equisites, nd transformationshatare wastefulor useless.

Using theseterms, ne can say thateconomicsminimally nvolvesan input-outputrelation between work and production: work transformshe environment o produceresourcesneeded for he reproduction f thesystem's tructures. ne can go further nddefine logicofeconomy by taking nto account threethings.The firsts thescarcity freserve nergy apacities of system t any time; a system lways has a finite apacity todo work. The secondisthe alternativeforms fwork and associated transformationshatthe ystem ould undertakewith the ame investmentsf nergy; t anytimetheenergiesof social systemmight nprinciplebe deployedtomanipulatethe ystem's nvironmentin a wide varietyof ways. The third is the alternative quantities and qualities of

recources actually or possibly derived as a result.Considered together, hese elements




allow us to reach an important conclusion: all social systems confront what, inretrospect,we can reconstructr nterprets objective choices' in the nvestments f carceresourcesto do work, to produce, and to reproduce the structures f the system and,hence, the ability of the system o do work). Some 'choices' lead to adequate or greater

gains in termsof the structures f the system a relativelyhigh ratio of production towork. Others do less well, and may even expend more energythroughwork than they'produce' for he reproductionof ystem tructures.At any time,there s in principle anideal or most preferred choice' which maximizes efficiency, hat is, maximizesproduction n answer to system emands and relative towork. The ogicbywhich socialsysteminds nd acts naccordance ith his referredchoice' s the bjectiveogicof economy.

The statusof thisobjective ogic ofeconomy needs someexplaining. On the one hand,the logic has the status of an abstract theoretical contrivance a framework nalystsimpose in the analysis of a social systembut which partiesto a social systemmight notthemselves ecognizeas the framework f theirown actions. The conscious contempla-tion of objective choices in these raw economic terms as economic choices elating

work to production-is a very modern phenomenon when considered in the contextof thewhole of human experience. Only within the last few hundred years, and thenprimarily t the center of capitalist life, has economic behavior been self-consciouslyunderstoodbywomen and men in ust these transparent erms,.e. in terms f a logic ofeconomy.

On theotherhand, even as regardspre-capitalist ocial systems, he ogicofeconomyhas an objective status ndependent of the knowledge,will,orpractical principlesof theparties. t has an objectivestatus n that thegrowth, evelopmentand survivalprospectsof social system epend upon itscapacity toapproximate (however unconsciously ndimperfectly) logic ofeconomy: thatis, to orientpracticesdoing work and producingresourceswhich can in turnreproducethe ystem's tructures. ystemswhich failtodo so

willwither nd die. Systemswhich,forwhateverreason,develop highly fficientmodesof work and productionwill thrive at least for a time), perhaps turningother socialsystemsnto the environmentalresources of their own furtherre)production. It is assimpleas that.

When we elaborate this ogic ofeconomy,we arrive withouttoo muchdifficultyt averyfamiliarmodel of ocial action. This is a model of rationalhoice or, more correctly,of particularmode ofrationality: echnicalationality.oughly followingHerbertSimon(1957) and Charles Lindblom (1968), one can outline technical rationality s follows:thegiven ecisionmaker, having given alues, goals, and objectives of a consistent ndtransitive ort, onfronts given roblem,considersthe available options and attendantlikelyconsequences, evaluates the consequences in termsof values and objectives, and

thenchooses theoptionconsistentwith preferences. otice thatthisfamiliar endition fa familiardecisionalgorithmmaps almost perfectly nto theunderstanding f conomiclogic just considered. In fact, by presupposing the essential givenness and internalconsistencyof the decisionmakerand his values or goals, by regarding as given thedefinition f a problem (the gap betweendesirable and actual system onditions) to besolved,and by treating s unproblematica distinction etweenvalues to be servedandoptionsto be taken,thealgorithm xactly replicatesthe ogicofeconomy's presupposi-tionofgivenboundaries between (a) fixed nd apoliticallydefined ystem tructures obe reproduced (the basis forgoal and problem definition)and (b) a manipulableenvironment to be objectified and controlled in the interest of reproducing thosestructures. ike the ogic ofeconomy,technicalrationality eflects ot at all on thetruth

contentof values or ends, and neveron the structures r boundaries of the agent, but




onlyon the efficiencyf means. In short, echnicalrationalitys theunreflectiveogic ofeconomypar excellence.

Again, however, tmust be remembered hattechnicalrationalchoice is a model, likethe ogic ofeconomy,and nota universallyworkable practical principle. n the modern

era, mostpeople would readilyagree, the model has takenon an importantrole as thepremier ustificatory rameworkfor human action. When called upon to justifyouractions, this s the frameworkwe are expected to employ; and to the extentthat thisexpectation generally holds, each of us is socially bound to practices which lendthemselves o reconstructionnd defense n thismodel's terms.Yet the factremains:theregularizationof ctual social practicestransparentlyonformingo sucha model, whenit occurs, s a developmentto be explained, not assumed. Outside of bourgeoisculture,practice transparentlyconforming to this technical rational logic, founded onunreflected nd unconcealed self-interest,ould not be rewardedbut condemned. Evenwithinbourgeois culture,conformityo the model has its definite imits.

TheLogic ofPoliticsIt is helpfulto begin a descriptionofa logic of politicsby recallingthe fundamentallacuna encountered in discussingthe logic of economy. As just defined,the logic ofeconomy presupposes a solution to a problem that it can neither pose nor solve: theproblemof theproductionof n orderly ystem, social order,withinwhosecontextonecan legitimatelypeak in singular,politicallyneutral terms of a definite et of systemboundaries and a definite etofsystem tructures.While utilitarians inceHobbes havesought to offer nstrumentalist ccounts of orderly social aggregates (e.g. socialcontracts) as consequences of the vectoring of essentially economic choices andexchanges among rational-egoist ndividuals, theorists s diverse as Talcot Parsons

(1937), Mancur Olson (1965),and.Karl Marx have shown that these utilitarian

accounts are fallacious at best.'2 The problemof theproductionoforderis a politicalproblem,to be posed and grasped withina logic ofpolitics.

In The Analysis f nternationalelations, arl Deutsch (1978) addresseshimself o thislogic in answeringthe question: 'What does politicsdo that s notbeingdone byotherhuman activitiesor institutions?'His answer is grounded in a communitarianratherthan utilitarian perspective on action, order, and change in society.'3As such, itestablishes logic ofpoliticscomplementing nd notreducible to the technicalrationallogic ofeconomy.

Politics,Deutsch (1978: 22) writes,has a 'double nature'. It is 'that field of humanaffairswhereupon domination and habitual compliance overlap'. In an often-quoted

statementhe asserts that 'Politics consists n the more or less incompletecontrol of

human behaviorthroughvoluntaryhabitsofcompliance incombinationwith threats fprobable enforcement.n its essence,politicss based nthenterplayfhabits f ooperations

modifiedy hreats'1978:19). He continues:

Politics, hen, s the interplay fenforcementhreats,which can be changedrelatively uickly,with the existing oyalties nd compliancehabitsof thepopulation,which re morepowerfulutwhichmost ften an onlybe changedmuchmore lowly. hrough his nterplayfhabitual ompliance ndprobableenforcement,ocieties rotect nd modifyheir nstitutions,he allocation ndreallocation f theirresources, he distributionf the values, ncentives,ndrewardsmongtheir opulation, nd thepatternsf teamworknwhichpeoplecooperate n theproductionnd reproductionftheir oods, ervices,nd lives

(1978:21).




Four overlapping observations help to draw out the 'logic of politics' implicit inDeutsch's communitarian perspective.

(1) The first efers o the status of the ogic of politics, ike the ogic ofeconomy, as anobjectively necessary relation framing and orienting the analyst's inquiry. More

specifically, verynduringocialsystems understoodobear an objectiveoliticalrelation:relationfdominationnvolvinghemaintenancefthedominantrder and the ffectiveuleofdominantlasses, sectors,nd coalitionsn oppositiono other lasses, sectors,ndforms oforder throughhe nterplayfhabits f compliancend threatsf enforcement.he statementsignals an objectively necessaryuniversal truth,the pre-textof all political inquiry.Upon commencing ny analysisof social system, political analystknows mmediatelytolook for hepolitical relation,therelation ofdomination (which mplies exploringforsubordinatedor repressedparties, classes, groups,social orderingpossibilities, emem-brances ofhistory, raditions, nd so on). And he or she knows to look for he relationofdominationevenwhen he arties o systemreunawaref, rperhapseny,onflictingnterestsrpossible lternativeso thegivenorder.For example, women and men can become so

thoroughly abituatedto a givenorder thatthey ome toregard tsrulesand institutionsas 'part of our nature', in Deutsch's words. What the analystcalls compliance is thenunderstoodbytheparties,not as a matter fconscious obedience toexternalauthorities,butmerely s a matterof being themselves'.Fromtheanalyst's objective pointofview,however,thishabitual compliance is no less a matterof politics ust because thepartieshave internalizedand no longer recognizeor question the fact of theirdomination.Onthe contrary, the near-universalizationof habitual compliance signals, not the end ofpolitical domination,but itsnear-perfection.t signalsthecrowning chievementofanorder of domination whose success depends to a very considerable degree uponsubstituting abitual compliance for ostly nd clumsythreats fenforcement. o longas thepotentialfor esistance r departuresfrom oluntary onformityxists so long as

there existsthe possibilitythat resistanceswill arise and the 'credible probabilityofenforcement'will at some point have to be called into play-the relation at workremains at base a political one. For the political analyst, the key concern is always touncover thehistorical bjectivetruth fa social order: ts two-sided oining ofvoluntarycompliance and domination at the same time.

(2) The second observation s thatpolitical ogic s an nherentlyocial ogic,n contrasto heasocialityf heogic f conomy.ecall thatthe ogicofeconomy startswitha fixed, harplybounded, and independently structured ubjectivity a social system acting on anexternal,object environment.The environment ppears to the social system s a dumbgenerality a subjectless et of xternal relationswhich exist ndependent ofthe system'sconsciousnessor will and which operate according to some fixed set of laws. It has a

normative ontent,not n tself, ut only nsofar s it s or s not a socially valued object ofwork and production because it does or does not offer he means of satisfying herequisitesof reproducing the system's structures. Learning in connection with thisenvironment s purelya matterofexpanding knowledge of objective relations n a waythat enhances the social system's ffective each ofcontrol and efficiency f means.

In sharp contrast,where he ogic of economyits social system gainstenvironment,hecommunitariannderstandingfpoliticalogic ddressestselforelations ithin social ystem.tpresupposes a prior intersubjectivity, background of shared understandings andrecognized norms and institutions, oining interacting parties. These cooperativelyshared 'habits of compliance' the remembrances, norms, values, expectations,andbeliefs that 'go without saying because they come without saying' (Bourdieu,1977:168) are theessentialfoundationswithout which there can be no political life.




Political logicsare inherently ocial logics n thattheynecessarilyplay off he habits ofcompliance' that, ike the rules of a language system, efine the shared socialityoftheparties and make possiblethe coordinationof mutual understandings nd expectationsin an open-ended process. They necessarilyplay off f collective habits ofcompliance'

even when the intent s to change them.As Deutsch has stressed, he properanalogy is to social communication.Politics, ike

social communication,cannot be adequately understood as a processwherein each ofseveral parties approaches others as external objects of its own intrinsicpurposes.Politics, like social communication, becomes possible only where each party canapproach others n the expectation that thereexistsor can be founda backgroundofmutual understandingsand habitual practices which orients and limits the mutualcomprehensionofpractices,the signification f social action, and the coordinationofhuman energies.This understandingofpolitics s what allows Deutsch to exclude fromthepolitical domain 'mere acts ofsubmission to the immediate threat of naked force',such as theobeyingofa robber or a foreign rmyofoccupation. These 'are processesof

force,not politics' (Deutsch, 1978:22). Indeed, theycome much closer to thelogic ofeconomy,wherein social system therobber, ay,or the nvading country) approachesitsenvironment including the robber'svictims, or xample, or the occupied country) smere objects of means of control.

The significance of the intrinsic ociality of political logic becomes clearer whenconsidered in connection with that most political of concepts, power. From thecommunitarian pointofview, political poweris notan attribute fpartiesto a politicalinteraction; t s not attributableto the nherent ualities or possessions fgiven entities.Rather, the ower f n actor, nd even ts tatus s an agent ompetento ct,dependspon nd slimitedy he onditionsf tsrecognitionithin communitys a whole. his is so because, asDeutsch (1966a, 1978) points out, political power is anchored in the coordinationof

expectations regarding capabilities to 'inflict anctions' or engage 'substantial shiftsnthe allocation of highly salient values' and because the coordination of theseexpectations, n turn, s anchored in the habits of compliance characterizing a socialwhole.The habitual and mutuallyaffirming racticesofwomen and men at once reflectand reproduce the coordinated expectations of society as a whole. In turn, theframework f habit-anchored expectationsprovides the social basis of political powerwithin he system. or any agent tohave power, t must first ecure ts recognition s anagent capable ofhaving power, and to do that it mustfirst stablish tscompetenceinterms of the habitually observed norms,values, beliefs, nd principles by which thecommunityconfersmeaning and orients and organizes collective expectations. It isalways by way ofperformancen reference o such deeply structuredhabits thatactors

gain recognition nd are empowered.It follows that building power always has a community-reflective erformative

aspect. It also follows hat, as Deutsch stresses, ower always has its imits.Althoughanactor can play creatively ff fgiven habits,norms, nd remembrances, nd althoughanactor can sometimes offer p virtuoso mprovisationswhich elicit novel orchestratedresponses to new circumstances, the actor can never exceed the social limitsof itsrecognition.

(3) When the first woobservationsare combined, we arrive at the third: the ogic fpolitics s an intrinsicallyialectical ogic, t oncedependingpon, nticipating,nd calling ntoquestionhe ominantocialorder. n theone hand, as per observation 1) above, politicallogics always involve a questioning ofthe truth ontent of the dominant, habit-linked

order. This occursas subordinate classes,sectors, nd coalitions struggle o recoverand




creativelycombine experiences,remembrances,traditions, nd understandingswhichthedominant order forgets, epresses, r otherwisedenies full ocial significance.Oncerecovered, these experiences, traditions, and their understandings afford a criticalvantage-point upon the dominant order, allowing parties to see that there are

alternatives o that which s habitual and, hence, that the habitual order ofdominationis historically ontingent nd susceptible to change ratherthan natural and eternal. Onthe other hand, as in observation (2) above, political logics always presuppose thepossibility of some background social consensus of shared understandings andexpectations,withinwhose frame t becomes possible to reconcile disparate experiencesand establish a mutuality of intersubjective understanding. Even subordinate andopposingclasses and coalitions have a stake n establishing uch a consensus albeit onedeparting harplyfrom hecurrently ominantconsensus.For it s onlywithreference osucha consensusthat theopposinggroupscan hope to securerecognition or, nd thustolegitimateand empower, theirprograms forchange.

The process, t should be clear, sopen-ended.No sooner does a consensusofhabitual

understanding come to predominate than its opposition takes form. At least, so thepolitical analyst mustassume. The analystmust eekto disclose thatwhich thedominantorder, n the fact of ts dominance, leaves out or represses; nd theanalyst must seek touncover theconditions under which the now dominant structure fhabitual practiceswill breakdown and subordinatedgroups or classes might truggle o realize alternativeforms forder.

It should be equally clear thatthisopen-ended political dialectic is a creativeprocess,a learning process, process not reducible to a matterof technical earning. Neithertheexpansion of technical understandingwith respect to the dominant order's environ-ment, nor the vectoring of technical rational logics of manipulation and exchangeamong groups and subgroups (as in utilitarian accounts ofchange, for nstance) can

account for the creative processesof political change. The process is irreducibleto aphysicalistic ectoring f forcesbecause, as in social communication,no one can obtainand sustain dominance exceptinsofar s theyfirstatisfy he consensual understandingsand expectationsof the social orderempoweringthem.

(4) The finalobservationreturnsus to our original concern with the fundamentallacuna in the ogicofeconomy:the ogicofeconomy presupposesa singular, ntegrated,well-bounded social system n contradistinction o its environment,but it is unableadequately to recognize how problematic is the production of such an order or toaccount for the production of order. The logic of politics complements the logic ofeconomy by posingthisproblem (observation1 , by highlightinghesocio-communica-tive elements of its practical solution (observation 2), and by preservinga critical

perspective n all suchpractical solutions observation 3). Fromthepointofviewof thelogic ofpolitics,thepolitical aspect of ifenevergives way fully o the economic becausethe problem ofestablishinga structurally dentified, harplybounded social order isnever finally olved.Quite theopposite: theogic f conomyemainsforeverprovisional,foreverdependentpon heogic f olitics ocoordinatexpectationsndpracticesnways ecuring,owevermomentarily,hentegrityf social ystem. ithout thepriorworkings fthe ogicofpolitics,we cannot speak of ocial order,of ystemnoppositiontoenvironment, rofa system'sdefining tructures.And we cannotspeak ofwork, production,or the ogic ofeconomy.

The ThirdPhase' Reconsidered

Having considered the logic ofpolitics' and 'the logic ofeconomy' side-by-side, here

should be no question that the former s the richer and has the greater generative




potential. ndeed, it s possible to argue that whereas attempts o translatepolitical ogicinto economic logic require the near-complete rivialization fthe former, olitical ogicis capable offully raspingeconomic logic with no distortionwhatsoever.The one-sidedsubject-object relation nvoked by the ogic of conomy s but a moment bstractedfrom

the open-ended and intrinsically ecursive ogic ofpolitics.The logic of conomy s n thissense the artificially rozenmoment at which t becomespossible, thanksto the freezingof a dialectical social process, to speak in the singular of a system's boundaries andstructuresand to rule out, if only for an instant, the role of communications inconstituting, eproducing, and potentially transforminghose boundaries and struc-tures.The point needs no further mphasis here.

The point to be emphasized centers on the concern which closed the discussion ofvariable economism: the so-called thirdphase of international relations research andtheory nd its renewal ofemphasis upon thestate, tate nterests, tate practices, nd themodern states system.Having contrasted logic of economyand a logic of politics, t isnow possible to go beyond earlier speculations on whether or not the third-phase

'statism'mightbe reducible to a logic ofeconomy. It becomes possible to say ratherdefinitely hat it is so reducible. Research and theory ypical of the thirdphase, whileclaiming to avoid economism in the limited sense of variable economism, areeconomistic in a more important sense of logical economism. As I illustrate, tocomprehend third-phase rguments, ne mayworkentirelywithin he ogicof conomyand need never look beyond it to the richer ogic ofpolitics.

A very onsiderable proportion fNorth Americaninternationalpoliticsresearchhasalways been tidily confinedwithin the logic of economy. For example, deterrencetheory,game theory, nd so-called 'strategicthinking',have always operated entirelywithin the model of technical rational action a fact disapprovingly pointed out byRapoport (1964) and Deutsch (1966a:66-72) on several occasions. Neo-functionalist

integration theorytook technical rationalityto be the orientingframework f socialaction. It is even arguable that Graham Allison's (1971) bureaucratic politicsmodelreally involves the pushing of technical rationalitydown a level or two, such that thestate's policies become a consequence of nteractions nd exchanges among rational-egoistic agencies. Perhaps thisemphasis on technical rationalityas theframework oraction should not be surprising mong internationalist hinkers.The frameworkoftechnical rational action was Hobbes's framework,fter ll, and he deployed itboth inhis contractarianunderstanding fthe state and inhisunderstanding f tate as an actorin internationalanarchy.

Still, the studyof internationalpolitics n NorthAmerica has not historicallybeentotallymonopolized by work anchoredin the ogic of conomy.Deutsch's (1 966b, 1968)

own work on nationalism and on internationalsecuritycommunitiescertainlyoffersexamples ofresearchthat emphasizes the communicative ogic ofpoliticsand that,assuch,cannotbe chargedwith ogical economism. Another xample, as I have arguedonanotheroccasion (Ashley, 1981), is the workof classical realists ikeMorgenthau (1946,1951, 1958, 1978), Herz (1951), Kissinger (1964), or Wight (1979). Theirs is theperspective, if you will, of the ethnomethodologiststo a modern tradition ofstatesmanship.As such, theirapproach is largelyhermeneutical.Theirs is the realityfamiliar to those who are competent parties to the tradition ofstatesmanship.Theirremembrances of things past are the official remembrances of this communityofpractice. Their problematics are those that the parties to thistradition competentstatesmen are prepared to recognize as problematic, not as individuals, but as

statesmenwhoexpectthat theirunderstandings an securepublic recognitionwithin he




overall community f tatesmen nd against thebackground ofcollectively ememberedexperience. While these uthorsemphasize powerpolitics',they pproach internationalrelations from the point of view of a political logic. Like Deutsch, they stronglyemphasize power's social basis and limits.

Against this background, what is noteworthy about the third-phase scholarshipmentioned earlier is that it is dominated by the logic of economy and, accordingly,forsakesny nterestn the ndependent ogic ofpolitics.Some of oday's mostprominentarguments egarding he causes ofwar and thepreconditions orpeace dwell exclusivelyin ust this economic logic. Indeed, it would not be too much to suggest that the thirdphase represents 'new utilitarianism' n the study ofwar in history an undirectedmovement toward the interpretation f nternationalhistory rom he point of view ofstates-as-actorsworkingwithintechnical rational frameworks f action and deployingwar as one among alternative means toward pre-givenends.

Making this case definitivelywould require an exhaustive survey of all the statistworks representing he third phase of contemporaryNorth American international

relations research. Examples will have to suffice. n addition to the many worksrepresenting resurgence of interest n rational choice theory,public choice theory,game theory, nd exchange theory n international tudies, consider the following:

Far and away one ofthe most ignificantnd influentialheoreticalrguments f the ast fewyears-taken by manyto offer he definitive rameworkora 'structuralist'erspective ninternationalolitics-is KennethWaltz's 1979) Theoryf nternationalolitics.As noted arlier,this ook harplyriticizesrguments hich ind auses fpolitical-systemicutcomesndomainsconventionallyegarded s extra-political,nd t offerspolitical heory nchored n statementsabout he tructuref he tates ystem.t would hereforeppeartobe a sociological' erspectiveon the tates ystemather hanan individualisticr utilitarian erspective. owever, espiteoccasional ignifyingeferenceso Durkheim'sociologyWaltz's tructuralheorysmodeled nthe ndividualistationalismfAdam Smith's olitical conomy. he internationalystem'sanemergent roperty, consequence fthecoactionofa multiplicityfunitary, omplete, ndegoistic tates riented ccording o the ogicofraison 'etat.As presented y Waltz,this s asubstantivelympty,necessity-celebratingogic which leaves a priori nds unquestioned,concentratesnstead n the fficiencyfmeans, ndgaugespolicy ndpracticentermsf uccessinrealizing re-givennterestsndends.DespiteWaltz's ssociationf hisogicwithMachiavelli,his ormulationomehow eglectso nclude ny lement fMachiavelli's rucial ndsociallyndhistoricallyependentoncept fvirtiu.altz'sraison 'e'tathus ollapses o technical eason, helogicofeconomy.

StephenKrasner 1978: 12) has attempted o defendwhat he takesto be the basic premiseunderlyinghathasbecomeknown s the tate-centricrrealist aradigm: amely, hat tates

(definedscentral ecisionmakingnstitutionsndroles) an be treateds unifiedctors ursuingaimsunderstoodnterms f henationalnterest'. e defineshenationalnterests thegoals hataresought ythe tate'.Krasner huswouldredirect ealism romts ime-honoredoncernwiththepolitical eterminationfthe tate-that s,how this roblematicntityan survivemidstceaselesstruggle-toward concernwith he tate s a given ntity, corporate omoeconomicus,making ational hoices n theservice fself-generatedand thereforeocially ndetermined)ends.Taking he tate's oundariesndstructuressgiven ndprior opolitical nalysis, rasnerrules oliticsut ofhis nalysis. e is eftwith hefictionf 'state s actor'-itself nideologicalcontrivance-operatingotallywithin he ogicofeconomy.

RobertKeohane (1980, 1982a,b), n his workon the theory fhegemonic tability'nd hisattemptsoexplain he mergencend transformationf nternationalegimes,relies eavily nrational-choicenalysisntheutilitarianocial ontractradition'.While schewingnybelief'in

the powerof Benthamite alculation'to accountdeterministicallyorbehavior, nd while




assuming 'prior ontext fpower, xpectations, alues, nd conventions,'e believes hatarational-choiceheoreticalpproachshouldhelptoaccount or verall rendsntheformation,growth, ecay, nd dissolution fregimes' 1982b: 329). Thus, ikeotherneo-realists,eohaneholds oa utilitarianonceptionforder.This s a conceptionhat tarts rom hepremisehat

thererenorules, orms,mutual xpectations,rprinciplesfpractice rior o or ndependentfactors, heir ssential nds, nd their apabilities.n the astanalysis,fnot mmediately,hisconception olds, heevolution fall rulesfollows rom heregularizationnd breakdown fmutualexpectationsn accordancewith hevectoringfpower nd interestmongstates-as-actors.tfollowshat, or heneo-realist,world f multiplicityf ctors aving elativelyqualpowers a formula or haos, risis,ndpotentialatastrophe.hepotentialityor rderncreasesas thehierarchicaloncentrationfpower mong ctors teepens.

RobertGilpin 1981 ), in his treatmentfWar ndChangen World olitics,rawsheavily nmicroeconomicheory. lthough othighlyormalized,ational hoiceunder onstraintssagainthemodel. mportantly,is ttempto account or he mergencef hemodern tatesystems asystemistinguishablerommpires-anattemptnformedythenew conomic istory-recon-structshatdevelopments if number f ational-egoisticroto-empiresame toappreciatea)

the mmediate hysicalpresence fcountervailingorce ogether ith b) opportunitiesndconstraintsf an emerging orldmarket. he modern tates ystems thuspreservedn ourunderstandings a number fmutually oised, nstrumentallyounter-actingationalegosamongwhomrules might be establishedbut who, like empires, xistand have interestsindependentfany arger ocial whole. Like empires,ach state s understood o relate o itsexternalnvironment,ncluding ther tates,smere bjects fmanipulationnthe ervice f tsinternallyeneratednds.Eachrelates oothers,notherwords, rimarilyccording othe ogicof conomy.

BruceBueno de Mesquita's 1981) The WarTrapmakesno pretense o socialhistory,nd thisinfluentialookcontains lmostno referenceoeconomic ariables. et for ueno deMesquita,the tate sa rational goisticctor, given ecisionmaker,hose racticesre said to result rom

technical ational lgorithmsnderuncertainty.uenode Mesquita s ofcoursenotalone inbelievinghat hemodelof echnical-rationalhoice omehow uts o the ssence f tate ctionbearing n warandpeace.Much of hereadiness ithwhichhis rgumentsacceptedhinges nthe act hat,ntakinghis osition,tdoes o ittleochallengeheprevailingogical conomismfNorthAmericannternationalelations tudies.

Generalizing across this third-phase iterature,one can discern no sensitivity o thepossibilityof social power behind or constitutiveof states, their interests,or theircapacities for mutual influence. Rather, within this literature,power is generallyregardedin terms fpossessibleapabilitieshat are said to be distributed nd potentiallyused among pre-existing tates-as-actors. hey are said to exist ndependent ofhumanknowingorwill,and they re regarded as finally ollapsible,in principle, nto a unique,

objectivemeasure of a singular systemic istribution as iftherewereone uniquely truepointofviewfromwhichthedistributionmightbe measured). Such understandings rerooted n a statist-utilitarianonception of nternational ociety: conception nwhich(a) there exists no form of sociality, no intersubjective habitual basis, prior to orconstitutiveof actors or their ends, and hence (b) the essential eterminantsof theirrelativeeffects n one anotherwill be found n thecapabilities theyrespectivelyontrol.Importantly,n reducing powerto the status of an asocial butpotentially ungible sset,thisconception is incapable of comprehending the social basis and limits ofpoliticalprower.

All the examples from the third phase of North American internationalpoliticalstudieshave muchincommon n that they ll proceed exclusivelywithin framework f

technicalrationality nd, hence, the logic of economy.All proceed within the logic of




economy despite the factthatspecific rgumentsaddress putatively political variables(e.g. state power or national interest) and despite the fact that some, like Waltz,specifically adopt the poses of political scientists defending the field against theencroachmentsof economistic thinkers rom ther fields. nsofar as theyeven consider

subjectiveor communicativerelations, ll dismissthem as psychologicalfactors ratherthan systemicor social) or find them significantprimarily nsofar as they can bedeployed as ideological instruments n the serviceof (or constraints n) state power.Most importantly, ll assume that the logic ofeconomy,in its practical operation, istransparent o theparties.That is,rather thantreat the ogicofeconomyas an abstractsocial logicorframeworkwhichhelpsto orienttheanalyst'squestioningofwhich mightnot figurenactual practice, ll regardthe ogicof conomyas a surface ramework-theobjectivelygivenform frationality withinwhich the actors more or lessconsciouslyorient theirchoices.

In strict erms, herefore,t is fair to say that the thirdphase constitutes movementtoward logical economism in the contemporary study of international politics. It

involves,on the one hand, a heightenedemphasis on thecrucial role ofthe state as anactor in world politics and, thanks to this, one might think that the movement isconccined with reasserting he primacyof politics. On the other hand, however, thissame movement also involves thereductionofthepractical-interpretive ramework fpolitical action to the frameworkof economic action. From the point of view ofinternationalpolitical theory, heconsequences of this economistic drift re troubling.From the point of view ofpeace research,the consequences of reducinginternationalpolitical analysis to the logic of economy are nothing short of disastrous. Threeoverlappingconsequences merit notice.

First, nd mostgenerally, ogical economism sacrifices he possibility f developing atheoryof adaptive learning and political change, what Deutsch (1978:49-59) has

termed a theoryof the 'politics ofgrowth'.When one collapses political logic withineconomic logic, politics s portrayed s mere technique: theefficient ursuitofwhatevergoals are set before hepoliticalactor. It is mpossibleto conceive ofpolitics s a creative,self-reflectiventerprise, n enterpriseby which women and men might reflectonprevailing tructures,trive o shape freely heir ollectivewill, and orient nd organizetheirpractices n thecoproductionand transformation f the structures f their ives.

Second, logical economism notonlysacrifices hepossibility fdevelopinga theory fpoliticalchange but also implicitly ommits xtant theory othejustificationf hegivenorder of domination. In particular, the mode of economism characterizingthe thirdphase of theory and research statist commitments bound within the logic ofeconomy produces a perspectivethatrestricts he maginable agenda of nternational

politics to those issues which can be mediated by a vectoringofpower and interestsamong competingstates-as-actors.Unable to call into question those structures ndboundaries that allow one to define states-as-actors beying technical rational logics,this mode of economism denies theoreticalrecognitionto those nterests, orexample,transnationalclass interests,whose full realizationmight require the transformation fjust those structures nd boundaries.

Third, the logical economism of third-phasetheoryorients t to excuse, but nevertranscendorcriticize, hedynamicsofdifferentialechnologicaland populationgrowthwhich, according to second-phase arguments, are sources of deadly internationalviolence. By immersingpolitical analysiswhollywithin the ogic ofeconomy,the thirdphase's logical economism deprives political analysis of all political standpointsthat

might onceivablyoppose the working fthe ogic ofeconomy npractice.Absolutizing




thenecessity fobeyingthis ogic, because it can conceive of no other,the thirdphasecloses out all real opportunitiesfor effective pposition to the logic of economy'sparamountcy n theshapingof materialchange and thepolitical consequences thereof.The picture that emerges portraysan apolitical politics: an economization of state

practice n which t is impossible for he state to check the ogic ofeconomy because thestate itself s thoroughly captive of that logic. Politics is neutered in its capacity totranscend or reflectcritically upon, let alone effectively heck, the dynamics ofdifferential rowththat contribute to internationalcompetition,rivalry, ension,andviolence. Politics becomes nothingmore than a projection one dare say, a logicalextension of these dynamics by agents that claim war among their means. As forpoliticalscience, tbecomes a despairing apologistfor he historicalnecessity fwar andthe institutionalized xpectationofwar.

To statethesedisastrous onsequencesofthird-phase ogical economism s nottourgea returnto thesecond-phase formofargumentation.That was a phase ofwarning,akind of immanent critique, and that phase is past. Instead, avoidinghe onsequencesf

logical conomismequireseinstatinghe ogicofpolitics s the tarting-pointndframeworkfpolitical nalysis.More than that,it requires the development of a perspectivewithinwhich t spossibletopose and at leastprovisionally nswerquestionssuchas these. Whynow? Why at thisparticular uncture do we experience this mass movementtowardlogical economism n the North American studyof nternationalpolitics?What is thepractical historical significance f this theoreticaldrift?

These are importantquestions, tseems tome,foruntilthey re asked and answeredwe will be unable to see thefulldimensions ftheproblembeforepeace research. t isonethingto say thatpeace researchersneed to recover the communicative ogic ofpoliticsand interpret heworld in its light.To know how it mightactually be done, and whythere are apparently resistances to its doing in the contemporary period, is quite

another.

Historical Economism

Posing thesequestionsbringsus to the thirdmode ofeconomism,which I call 'historicaleconomism'. Understanding the historical economism concept requires a shift ofperspective.Variable economism and logical economism concern analyticdispositionstoward a reality reated as if twere ndependentand external;they husreflect rathertechnicalattitude towardknowledge, seeing concepts as instruments orcapturing anobject reality.As thediscussion ofthe logic ofpoliticsmight have suggested,however,thistechnicalattitudeforgets hepoliticalroleofknowledge n theconstruction f ocialreality. fwe are tounderstand thehistorical ignificance feconomism,we musttry o

put theory nd researchback in thepicture, o tospeak. Theoryand research, nd theirrelations to practical knowledge,must themselves be regarded as proper objects ofinternationalrelationstheory nd research.

Taking thisperspective,one can definehistorical economism as a closed union ofeconomistictheory nd economisticpractice, as in Figure 3. Neithera characteristic ftheory er enora qualityof tatepracticeper e,historical conomism s insteada socialsyndrome,a pathological relation involving a double limitingof state practice andinternationalpoliticaltheoryn thejointreproduction f n economistic ocial order. Bythis mean, first, hat state practice is economistic: t grants to the logic ofeconomyabsolute or near-absolute authorityover the determinationof material change insociety, nd it rationalizes and legitimates tself n ust theseterms. also mean, second,

that theoretical practice, the practice of theorizing, conceptually replicates this




Politicallegitimations

Naturalize/endorse deflect

Authorize criticism

Economisti Economisticstate theory

practices

Reproduce, Substantiate/enforce instantiate

Social structures,including ractical

categories of (habitual)social action

FIG. 3. Historical economism.

economistic relation in its depictions of order. And I mean, finally, hat theoreticalpractice and state practice are mutually affirming:tate practice, workingwithin theframework of its legitimations,reproduces a social order which instantiates and

substantiatestheory,which in turn endorses, ends credence to, and deflects riticismfrom he state's legitimations.

With thisnotion ofhistorical conomism nmind, offer suggestiventerpretation fthe surge toward logical economism in the North American study of internationalpolitics. The interpretation,n brief, s this: themovement toward ogical economism spart of the atest evolutionofhistorical conomismamong advanced capitaliststates.Asan instance of historical economism, the movement toward logical economistictreatmentof the state represents a late twentieth-centurystatist' successor to the19th-century octrineof laissez-faire'. n each instance, there s a perfectmarriage ofstate practice and theoretical practice a marriage that authorizes and enforcesthelogic of the economy'sexclusive hold over thedetermination fmaterialchange. To see

how this might be so, a comparison of two stagesof historical economism, aissez-fairecapitalismand statist apitalism, is instructive.

Laissez-faire apitalism

Perhaps themostfamiliar example of historicaleconomism is the theoreticaldoctrineand practical political institution f laissez-faire. he doctrineconceived of a naturaleconomic order having laws of its own, operating independently of politics, andfunctioningoprovidethe greatestbenefit f ll when politicalauthoritynterfereseast.It erfvisioned heexistenceoftwo separate systems,he political system nd the economicsystem ide-by-side,where the atterwas an exclusivepreserve fprivateenterprise hatprovided formaterialwants and thus organized the everyday ives of thegreatmass of

men and women. In line with classical liberal theory, th-eeconomic systemwas




envisioned not so much as a social system n the sense used here but as an asocialemergentproperty a systemgoverned' by private, elf-interestedhoices of ndividualagents relating nstrumentallywith respect to one another, and to emergent marketrelations, as part of their respectivenatural environments.The individual worker,

trader,or landlordwas in effect nvisionedas a complete social systemnhis own right,relating to all others purelyin termsof the work-production relationsof the logic ofeconomy described earlier.

Two well-known ritiquesof aissez-faireoint up itshistorical-economisticharacter.The burden of E. H. Carr's attack was to stress the illusion of a separation betweenpolitics nd economics'. The illusion, Carr (1946: 117) wrote, had ceased to correspondto any aspectofcurrent eality.But it continued to persistn thought bout internationalpolitics,where it created no littleconfusion.' He offered he alternative position that'economics can be franklyrecognized as a part of politics'. 'Economic forces',hecontinued, 'are in factpolitical forces. Economics can be treatedneither as a minoraccessoryofhistory, or as an independent science in thelightof whichhistory an be

interpreted... The scienceofeconomicspresupposes a given politicalorder, nd cannotbe profitably tudied in isolation frompolitics' (Carr, 1946: 116-117).

Writinga little earlier,Antonio Gramsci mounted a similarattack on 'theoreticallaissez-faire', positionhe equated witheconomism.In the sectionofThe Modern rinceon 'Some Theoretical and Practical Aspects of "Economism"', Gramsci(1971:159-160) stated:

The ideas of the Free Trade movement re based on a theoreticalrrorwhosepractical rigin s not hardto identify;hey re based on a distinction etweenpolitical ocietynd civil ociety, hich smade nto nd presenteds an organicone,whereasnfact t smerelymethodological.hus t s assertedhat conomicactivity elongs o civil ociety,ndthat he tatemust ot nterveneoregulatet.

But since nactual reality ivil ociety nd State areoneand the ame, t must emade clear that aissez-faireoo is a form f State regulation',ntroducedndmaintained y egislativendcoercivemeans. t isa deliberate olicy,onscious fits ownends, nd not the spontaneous, utomatic xpressionf economic acts.Consequently, aissez-faireiberalism s a political programme, esignedtochange-insofar s it svictorious-aState's eadingpersonnel,nd tochange heeconomicprogrammef the State-in otherwords, hedistributionf nationalincome.

From separate vantage-points,Gramsci and Carr make thecase that laissez-faireand thegenerationofa sphereofproductionand exchange independentof mmediatepolitical responsibility is itself political program, an attemptto reify n abstract

ideal. For Carr it is a particularexpression of political power, for Gramsci a formofhegemony. Both recognizethat the roductionf sphere feconomyonopolizingontrolvermaterialhangeyetmmuneopolitical esponsibilityests na politicalfoundationnd s in need fpolitical xplanation.

Statist apitalism

The moremodern form fhistorical conomism s perhaps more difficulto grasp on firstacquaintance, in largemeasure because ofthe residual nfluence f aissez-faireoctrine'scategorical equations of state with politics, society with economy. Like the form ofhistoricaleconomism wedded to laissez-faire, he statistform ofhistorical economismunquestioningly ccepts thenotion that material change will be determined ntirely y

a logic of economy. The difference and here is where confusionenters is that the




modern statist orm llows forthe possibility hat the state tselfmight ntervene n 'theeconomic sphere', mightparticipate as entrepreneur r consumer, or mightperform scollective capitalist in the name of the public good. Statism allows for this whilepresupposing that n itspractices bearing on material interests he tate tselfwill obey he

technicalational ogic f economy.The shift rom aissez-faireo statist orms fhistorical conomismreflects he historical

evolution of the egitimations nd practical problematicsof thecapitaliststate.The shiftin legitimations an be thematized in termsofa dissolution of traditionalegitimationsanchored in the collective and coreflectively ecognized (and often erritoriallyound)experiences of peoples and a movement toward rationalisticand universalizing)legitimationswhich take their significance n termsofmeans-ends logics of necessity,that s, the logic ofeconomyitself.Thematized in thisway, theemergenceof the newstate egitimationssconsistentwithrecurringocial scientific hemes f'rationalization'and 'progress' n capitalism. It is reminiscent, or nstance,of Weber's diagnosis oftheprogressive ationalization ofcapitalist ife.Accordingto Weber (1949, 1972), industrial

capitalism bears a tendencytoward the breakingdown of traditional limits and theprogressive bsorption of all institutions f ife including the state, ts agencies,and itsforms f eadership within technical-rationalmode ofthought hat aims to reduceallaspects of human action to mattersofpurposive-rational action, i.e. efficiencyn theservice of pre-given ends. For Weber, this tendency was inexorable, its outcomeinevitable: the iron cage' of totallybureaucratized life.Weber is certainlynot alone inaddressing his heme,however. The theme ppears inSchumpeter's 1951) rejoinder oLenin's (1966) Imperialism.t is presentin Parsons' (1937) traditional and modernpatternvariable categories. t is implicit n liberal theories f modernization. It can befound nfunctionalist nd neo-functionalistheories f ntegration. t isevident nvisionsof 'post-industrial society' and the closely associated 'end of ideology' thesis. It is

reflected, albeit more critically, in Marx's (1967, 1970) understanding of thecommodificationand alienation of capitalist life, Marcuse's (1960) discussions of'one-dimensionalman', and Habermas's (1976, 1979) treatments fthe scientizationofpolitics' n advanced capitalism.

The shiftnlegitimations eflectednthese themes scloselytied to theevolution,oftenthrough crisis,of the capitalist state's material.problematic. Accelerating with theappearance of economic dysfunctions, he modern state has assumed increasingresponsibility ormanagement of the economy, and it has increasinglycome to belegitimated or delegitimated) in just these terms.This is not to say that the moderncapitaliststatehas transcendedor displaced traditionalsecurity or 'Garrison State')justifications;but it is to say that the modern capitalist state has assumed the task of

sustainingthe accumulation process,that social practiceshave become habituated tothis xpectation, nd that,withtime, he state has come to find primaryjustificationnits performance of this task. Recent arguments by Hibbs (1977) and Tufte (1978)regardingthepolitical business cycle might be read in these terms.

The state's task can be conceived to have two sides, stabilization and replacement.'4The state acts tomaintain economic processes by avoiding instabilities:price control,interest egulation,tax rebates, and so on, are among its means. The state also acts toreplace the market mechanism where the economic process has produced unintendedand dysfunctional onsequences: government consumption, enhancing material andnon-material societal infrastructuree.g. transportation nd education), relieving thecosts of social damages due to private enterprise (e.g. unemployment,welfare, or

pollution), and helping to maintainforeignmarkets.




At least three consequences can be expected to follow from he state's expansion ofadministration ntoareas traditionally ssigned to the private phere. First, he processesof growth and accumulation which once appeared 'natural' are demystified.Thegeneralpopulation recognizes more and more areas of ife s 'political' in the sense that

thepopulation expects themto be withinthe reach ofgovernmentalcontrol. Issues ofchoice, planning, and control are accentuated in the public mind. Second, thisdevelopment generates tendencies toward crisis in public finances and almost per-manent inflation:greater demands upon the state resultingfrom the politicization ofeconomy ead toexpandingbureaucracyand increasing omplexity,which n turngivesrise to an expanding state budget and the problem of thestate's financing tself hroughtaxation and without nterfering ith the accumulation process. Third, the state,whichitselfmakes demands forresourcesand participates n theprocess out of which crisis sgenerated,also legitimatestselfn terms f tsabilityto perform s 'collectivecapitalist',tomanage crisis, nd to reconcile and fulfillmperativesordemands from he economicsystem. If governmentalcrisismanagement fails,' Habermas (1976:69) writes, the

penalty .. is the withdrawal of egitimation.'It is this third onsequence thatprimarily oncerns us here. What is important s not

thatthe state has an economic part toplay; that s nothingnew, as Choucri and North(1975), and Ashley (1980, and forthcoming)have oftenstressed. What is novel andimportant s the utterly ransparent nd unconcealed economic role of the advancedcapitalist state. In the nineteenthcentury, a leading capitalist state might haveperformed conomic functions, orexample, protectionism nd imperialism,but theperformance f thesefunctions, ike the state itself,would have found its rationale innotionsofglory,power,or the good of thepeople', and never n anything o vulgar asthe need to stabilizean economy ncrisis.Today's advanced capitaliststate s a differentstory.Today's statesmencan smilequaintly at Marxist exposes of the state'sstructural

disposition to safeguard the capitalist accumulation process, for statesmenproudlypronounce thisdispositionon theirown. The state'sperformance s rational economicdysfunctionmanager is perhaps its premier ustification.True, the capitalist state'sabilitytomaintain mass oyaltynvolves ustaining hewidespreadbelief hat the ystemadheres to principlesof equality, justice, and freedom. But to a larger degree, andincreasingly, he state's claim to mass loyalty-its principal legitimation restson itsability, n Marcuse's (1960) apt phrase, to deliver thegoods'.

Until relatively ecently, his hift f tate egitimations licited ittleresponse amongstudentsof nternational ffairs.One reason for his ack ofreaction s that the shift asoccurred as a long-term, more or less continuous post-war trend, not as a sharp,discontinuity.Anotherreason,noted earlier, sthat the trend s widely taken forgranted

as theself-evident ourseofhistoricalprogress.A stillmore mportantreason is thattheexpansionofthestate's economicresponsibilities nd theassociated shiftnlegitimationshave occurredprimarilyduring a period of relative plenty,not scarcity; thesustainedaccumulation ofwealth from heclose ofWorld War II through pproximately 1972 leftlatitude for state practices ofsufficient mbiguity to obscure the shift fexpectationstaking place. Domestically,for nstance, the US could assume an increasing responsi-bilityfor economic management while internationally t could distance itselffromeconomic issuesunder pretexts ffreetrade ideology.

Since 1972, however, thingshave changed. On the one hand, contraction n theworldeconomyhas produced a condition ofwidely perceivedscarcityof resourcesrelative todemands-a condition in which the advanced capitalist state's performance as

economic dysfunctionmanager is increasinglybrought to the foreground f political




debate. On theotherhand, the accumulation of tatecommitments o themanagementof theeconomy,accompanied by theexpansion of bureaucracyand the evolution of thestate's public legitimations n theseterms, stablishes the state as a growing drain onresources n its own right.In sum, the post-1972 period has experienced a gradual

awakening to the crisis endencies lways mplicit n the tate's ncreasing conomic role.The awakening to crisis brings with it incredible ideological confusion, perhaps

especially among social scientists.The confusion s made worse, as Carr (1946) mighthave emphasized, by the ingering nfluence f aissez-faireistinctions; he appearancesofthecontemporary rder,as read in the ightofyesteryear's ategories, re sharplyatvariance with theunderlying ctuality. The prevailing appearance is of the politiciza-tion of the economic sphere', which is ordinarily taken to mean the deepeningpenetration fthe state nto moreand moreaspects ofcivil society. n fact,however, theunderlying eality s morenearlya case of the economization of thepolitical sphere', bywhich I mean the subsumption of state practice and state legitimations within theprivileged ogic ofeconomy.

This is where the logical economism of the third phase of today's internationalpolitical studiescomes n. Taking their ues from he tate's egitimations, nd becomingmore anxious to do so as economic crisisdeepens, students of international politicscompose theirqueries in terms f thesystemmanagementproblematic of the state. Toformulate uestions n these terms,however,theyhave no choice but to regard the stateas an economic actor,a rational Homooeconomicus,nd to purge theirunderstandings fpoliticsofthe ogicofpolitics tself.And once this tep s taken, thestudyof nternationalrelations s in the business of reaffirming he state's own justifications.The marriagebetween economistictheory nd economistic tatepractice s consummated. The statistformofhistoricaleconomism is complete.

The statistversionofhistoricaleconomism has much in common with ts aissez-faire

predecessor. Like laissez-faire,he statistversion s characterized by the existence of asphereofproductionand exchange that is monopolized by the logic ofeconomy andindependent of the socially responsible logic of politics. Thus, for both statist andlaissez-faireersions,thematerial 'dynamics' upon which societydepends remain ustthat asocial, quasi-physical dynamics. Far from socially determined, politicallydeliberated relationsthat are subject to thereflectiveompetenciesof women and men,relations fwork and production are renderedphysicalistic rocessesover whichsocietyas a whole exercises precious little political control. Thus, too, genuinely politicalrelations, which are neutered in the determination of material change, are renderedidealisticorsuperstructural lements f ociety.Truly political practicesare relegatedtoa reactive, superstructuralposture, capable of adjusting to but never determiningmaterial change, and political communication is largelyreduced to a propagandisticfunction n support of prior material interests.The material forces that constrainpolitical action and shape conflicting interests are left unchecked by politicalinteraction.

There is, however, a critical difference between the two versions of historicaleconomism. In the case of laissez.faire conomism, the state's legitimationwas notprimarilyor immediately n terms of economic success. As Karl Polanyi (1957) hasarg,ued, nd as Ashley (forthcoming)has elsewheretriedto suggest,practicesofstate,including balance of power politics among states, could thus be decoupledrom thedeterminate matrixof economic interests.Leading capitalist states had a freedom ofmaneuver which allowed for ambiguous symbolic performances, and even forinternational redistributive ractices, which were not immediatelyand transparently




reducible tocalculations ofeconomic self-interest.his made possiblethe accumulationof a kind of 'symbolic capital' (Bourdieu, 1977:ch. 6), that is states' collective andcoreflective ecognitionofpower. This recognitionofpower orientesand coordinatesexpectations n waysproducing politicalpower itself. n turnthebuilding of reserves f

symboliccapital among states served to establish a kindof creativereserve, basis ininternational oliticalauthority, or heorchestration f ollectiveresponses o emergingcrises. n very harpcontrast, he statist tageofhistorical conomismeffects he ogicofeconomy'shegemonythrough themedium of the state itself. t assertsthe state's owndeterminateeconomic interests as one more participant depending upon economicsuccess-in the determinate matrix of internationaleconomic relations. As a result,interstatepractice is increasingly tightlyand visibly coupled to the immediate,quasi-physical collisions and interactionsofglobally determinateeconomic interests.The tighter he coupling, the more thestate becomes a technicalrational actor findingits legitimationswithin the logic of economy, and the less themodern states systempossesses he ndependentcapacity toadapt creatively n responseto crisis.As economic

crisisdeepens, thecreative and adaptive capacity of the modernstatessystem ctuallydiminishes ll the more.

If thisdescription s apt, then it is somethingof an understatement o say that theperiodof historical conomism we are now experiencing s a verydangerous time. t is atimeduringwhichpressures nd demands upon leading states re buildingeven as theirlatitude foradaptive political responsesis eroding. Heightening economic demandsyield thegreaterrationalization of the state and diminishingpolitical latitude,witharesult that the world is fast approaching a modern and very dangerous version ofHobbes's geometric vision of international politics. At the same time, third-phasetheorists o nothing o ease thedangers.Justwhen t should be theresponsibilityf ocialtheorists o question criticallyprevailingideology and expand the symbolicresources

available for reativechange, today'sthird-phase heorists ncritically akeover as theirown the advanced capitalist state's own public legitimations. Like 19th-centuryapologistsfor aissez-faire,heynaturalize and universalize thegivenorder,regarding tas an unsurpassed condition of necessity. They read the present order of statisteconomism,not as a pathological order ofdominationsubordinating lternativemodesoforder,but as a self-evident ealization of n objectiveorderofthingshitherto bscuredbya variety f tavisticfactors. hey thereby itchallegedlyscientific oliticaltheorynopposition to all attempts to expose the limits of the state's technical rationallegitimationsor to establish an alternativepolitical basis upon which to criticizeorescape thedominance of the logic ofeconomy.

Conclusion

Occupying the statist tageofhistorical conomism, thepeace researcherwould seem tobe leftwith a choice between two unsavoryalternatives.The first s denial.The peaceresearchermay recoil at the historical economistic tendencies ust described, denynotionsofrationalistic tates-as-actors utofhand, and attempt orestore he theoreticalcentrality f the ogicofpolitics. This choice may bring thepeace researcher ome senseofmoralrectitude:thepeace researcher voids replicatinghistorical conomism and itsconsequences in his or her own work. The price of this sort ofrectitude, however, spractical irrelevance. For the problem to be solved is not ust a matter ofthird-phase

theorists'economistic mentalities; if it were, then we could just laugh off their




trivializations fpolitics.The problem, rather, s that thesetheorists' ogical economismtooperfectlymirrors pathological tendency n the part ofadvanced capitalist society.As stressed, t s a tendency nvolving he progressive bsorption of ll material dynamicswithinthe ogic ofeconomy. Once material aspects ofsociety re within the sway of the

logic of conomy, ll practice that would ignore or deny this ogic, ncluding the practiceofpeace research, s rendered dealistic.

The peace researcher's second choice is complicity.Acknowledging the tendency,and perhaps presupposing ts transhistorical ruth,the peace researcher may regardstatist and economisticdepictions of internationalpolitical relations as the only aptrenditionsof global actualities. Subordinating political imagination to a positivistinterest nmastering nd universalizing hegiven,thepeace researchermayreasonthathistorical conomism s a fact withinwhose context the peace researcherhas no choicebut towork.

These, it would seem,are thesorry hoices: the denial ofhistorical conomism,whichis a kind of idealism, or complicity n historicaleconomism, which implicates peace

research n the ustificationofdisaster-prone rder. Upon encounteringthis dilemma,the peace researcherought to seek additional alternatives. The task is to develop anagenda of theory nd research that can take seriouslythe economistic tendencies ustoutlined while at the same time preserving a capacity to examine the historicalpreconditions nd limitsof those tendencies. Recalling the Deutsch-inspired observa-tionson the ogicofpoliticsdiscussedearlier, offer ive uggestions or he constructionof an alternative researchagenda.

First, t snecessary o replace the currently ominantconcept of the states ystem s avectoringof power and interests mong multiple states-as-actors beying technical-rational logics of action. It will be necessaryto replace it witha conception of the statessystem s the political face, the habitually authorized public sphere,of a global social

system.n effect, he states system hould be seen as the public sphereof a pluralisticinsecurityommunity a social system n which the generalized expectationof mutualinsecuritys coreflectively ecognized,anchored in habits ofcompliance, and helps tosecure the ntegrityf thesystem s a whole. In the ntersubjective asis of the modernstates system,one finds the basis for the collective and coreflectiverecognitionofevolving circumstances in ways that permit novel orchestrated responses to newconditions.The analytic problem is to disclose the generativebasis ofsuch collectivesocial-political learningprocesseswhilerespecting heessentially luralistic haracter ofthestate-systemicrder.

Second, it is necessaryto comprehend the dominant global order,like all politicalrelations,as a relation of domination. One implication is that the dominant order,

includingthe states ystemwith tspredominantorderingprinciples, xists noppositionto alternativemodes oforder and the classes, sectors,and cultures that would fosterthem.Strugglesforpower and dominationamong states are thus neither hebeginningnorthe end of nternationalpolitics.On the global scale ofmoderncapitalist society, neunderlying owerrelationdeserves pecial attention.This is the relation ofdominationbetween a transnational apitalistcoalition a coalitiondefined s ajoining ofobjectivematerial nterests etweenprogressive nd internationalist ractions fworldcapitaland its opposition including regressivenationalistcapital, pre-capitalist classes, or,under somecircumstances, ocialistmovements.The practicalrulesof nteractionn thistransnational apitalistcoalitionmaybe understoodto constitute he logicof conomy'.The absolutizing of those rules n the determination fglobal materialchange may be

understood to constitute heabsolutizingof this coalition's global dominance.




Third, combining the first wo concerns, t is important to try to grasp the role ofinternationalpolitical practice,including leadership practicesand war, in generatingand perpetuating the political preconditions of the dominant coalition's protracteddominance. How, for xample, do practices among states at once preserve he ntegrity

of the pluralistic states system and produce or perpetuate preconditionsof capitalistaccumulation, according to the logic of economy, on a global scale? In the oppositedirection, and at the same time, it is importantto try to grasp how the historicallyemergentdominance of a transnationalcapitalistcoalitionmade possible theevolutionof a pluralistic nsecurity ommunity, he modernstatessystem, bserving tsessentialprinciples.

Fourth, in contrast to equilibriummodels or static models, it is necessary to trytoascertainand historically ituatethecrisis endencies fthe current rderofdomination.The presentdiscussion ofthe economization ofpolitics' is one example. As noted, theemergence of an historicaleconomisticstage of internationalpolitical lifespells thenegation ofgenuineglobal political autonomyand, as a result,the loss ofthe creative

and adaptive potentialof nternationalpolitical practice.Fifth, t snecessary o try o specify he historical onditions, ncluding theconditions

of crisis n the dominant order, under which habits of compliance with the logic ofeconomy might be called into question. Under what conditions might alternativeoppositional coalitions, perhaps representing reative combinations ofhistoricalmodesofproduction, ompeting ultures, nd social experiences,becomepossible?Under whatconditionsmight uch coalitions resist hreats f nforcementmposed by representativesof dominant authority systems the state, for example, or the major capitalisthegemonicstate?Under what conditionsmight thedominant coalition's controlgiveway ordisintegrate?Under what conditionsmightthedeterminants f materialchangethusescape the logic ofeconomy,coming instead under the control of a substantially

richer, socially reflective, nd socially responsible logic of politics? What groups orclassesmightbe likely o resist he ogicof conomy?How mightnature,and its limits ogrowth', be enlisted n alliance with othergroupsand in opposition to this ogic?ThirdWorld resistance trategies, .g. collectiveself-reliance,speciallymerit ttention n thisconnection.But individuals and groupsprone to resist hecontinuing nd dehumaniz-ing expansion ofthe logic ofeconomy exist n all societies;the possibility falliancesacross worlds' also should be taken seriously see Alker, 1981).

I do not pretend that thesefive uggestionshave, or shouldhave, thestatusofmaximsordirectives. tated quite frankly,mypurposehere has not been to aydown an agendabut to provoke a discussion by casting a differentighton the now somewhat tiredconcern with the relationbetweenpolitics nd economics n international ffairs. have

tried to render theword economism,not a vague taboo term,but a reasonablyusefulconcept in critical scientific iscourse. have considered threeusages of theterm, hree'modes ofeconomism'.

Among students f nternationalpolitics,war,and peace, it remainsdesirable to avoideconomism. I hope it is now clear that avoiding economismis not a simplematter ofpatchinga few tate-related ariables onto one's models. I hope it sequally clearthat, nthe currentperiod, placing the state as the key actor in one's analysis by no meansexemptsone from hechargeofeconomism.Finally,I hope it s clear thateconomism snot ust an inconsequentialmistakethat intellectuals sometimesmake when theytoohastily objectify he societythey study.Economism is a social pathologyofadvancedcapitalistsociety.Escaping economism n this ense snotjustdesirable. It is thepoliticaltaskforour time.




Notes

1. The notion ofdisciplinarycrisis and change implicit here is similar to but goes beyond the well-knownpositionofThomas Kuhn. Informed by PierreBourdieu's important arguments n this onnection,and in

a manner notdissimilar o Foucault's position, the presentnotion s adapted to the essential problematic ofsocial science, namely, that disciplinary knowledge systems participate in the naturalization andlegitimation of habitual practices that in turn reproduce the material structures nd social categoriescorrespondingto and substantiatingthedisciplinarydivisionof abor. In thesocial sciences, disciplinarycrises when real rather than trumped-up) are always political. See the Historical Economism section ofthisarticle; see also Kuhn (1970), Foucault (1972, 1977), and Bourdieu (1977).

2. Ralph Miliband (1977: 9) writes: The term economism" has now come to be used invery oose ways andhas been made to cover a multitudeof ins,real orimaginary. But, n thepresent ontext, t means both theattribution fan exaggerated-almost an exclusive-importance to the economic sphere n the shaping ofsocial and political relations, eading preciselyto "economic determinism".'

3. Variable economism can also be representedin the form of a simple linear equation. In the equationbelow, the dependent variable Pi is a single political variable, a column vector.P is a matrix consisting fall remaining political variables: P2, P3, P4, and so on. E is a distinctmatrix of economic variables. Bpis avectorofcoefficients orrespondingto matrixP. Be is a vectorofcoefficientsorresponding tomatrixE. Uis a vector of errorterms.

P1 = BpP + BeE + U

Referring o this quation, we maysay thatan analysisexhibitsvariable economismif hreeconditionsaresatisfied.One is thatat least some ofthe coefficientsn Be are non-zero.A second is thatall coefficientsn Bpare equal to zero (or veryweak as compared to Be). And a third s that the variables in matrixE areregarded as predetermined withrespect to all membersof P; that is, thereare no additional equations inwhich economic variables are on the left-hand ide and political variables appear on the right.

4. Karl Popper (1944), John Plamenatz (1961) and H. B. Acton (1962). For a more recent, sympathetic,'restatement'of historical materialismon lines thatare open to thechargeofvariable economism,see G. A.Cohen (1978).

5. An exception,ofcourse,was on theobverse side ofthe causes ofwar' coin. The period inquestion was alsothe heyday of neofunctionalist ntegration theory.

6. The model ofcourse takesits name from book byRaymond Vernon ofthe same name (Vernon, 1971).7. Much ofthe recent thrust, he third phase', convergeswith the so-called 'neo-realist' movement in the

North American studyof international politics. This movement is addressed at lengthelsewhere.8. A good summaryoftheneo-Keynesian position,whose mostprominentfigure s perhapsJoan Robinson,

is offeredby Michael Barratt-Brown n his The Economics f mperialism1974).9. This agenda restrictingfunction of neo-realist statism is incisively treated by Craig Murphy in his

responsesto Tucker (1977) and Stephen Krasner (1981); see Murphy (1983).10. The literature on the essentiallycontested character of politics and power is pertinent here; see Gallie

(1955-1956), Hampshire (1959), Lukes (1974, 1977), Macdonald (1976), and Gray (1977).11. One ofthe moreperplexingfeatures f bourgeois ideology is that tsdoctrineof possessiveindividualism'

(Macpherson, 1962) establishes and authorizes an understanding of the individual as a complete, tightlybounded system nhis own right,withsociety regarded as an emergentrelation due to interactions mongthese ndividual 'systems'.Thus, as often emarked,bourgeois life scharacterized byan asocial sociality:a

mode of nteraction nvolvingthe mutual objectificationofpartiesto one social system, s if ach were anenvironmentalor economic object to the other.This is also partofthe secretofcapitalism's robustgrowth:capitalist societyconsistsof women and men who have a double status,both as membersof ocietyand aspotential objects of others' demands, on a par with environmental resources.

12. The critiques vary, of course. The sociological critique, exemplified by Parsons (1937), involves thediagnosis of the so-called Hobbesian problem: in the absence of a frameworkof norms consensuallyaccepted by itsmembers, t might be possible momentarilyto establish an orderlysocial aggregate-a'social contract',for xample among instrumentally ational individuals; but except under conditionsofabsolute stasis, it cannot be maintained. The critique exemplified by Olson (1965) is from withinutilitarianism tself: t nvolves Olson's famous analysis of the nstitution-debilitatingonsequences of thefree-riderproblem. The Marx critique goes beyond these to try to draw out utilitarianism's tacitcommitments: that which utilitarians must presuppose if they are to hold to their instrumentalistorexchange-based conceptions oforder in society.Marx argued convincinglythat themythofthecontract,put intopractice,depends upon a dominant class's abilitytoexternalize thecosts ofkeeping promisesonto

a class which lacks the freedom to contract; the Hobbesian 'state ofwar' is thus held in check throughthe




mechanismfone-sided ower n a 'class war'. Utilitarianrder hus eeplypresupposeslassrelations(and associatedpolitical, egal,and institutionalelations)which ts consciousndividualist remisesprohibittfromonfronting,omprehending,rexplaining. ee O'Neill (1972).

13. See Deutsch 1978). On thecommunitarian-utilitarianistinctions applied toDeutsch, eeAshley(1983). Fora related rgument egarding eutsch, eeLijphart 1981).

14. Here and in thepreviousparagraph am following abermas'sLegitimationrisis 1976); see alsoSchonfield1965) andO'Connor (1973).

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1983 Three Modes of Economism

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