The Post-War International Economic Order

Abstract

Any analysis of the international economic order of the future must necessarily be preluded by an examination of past and present international economic relations. Two facts facilitate examination of the past: first, the nation state is a comparatively recent historical phenomenon; and second, only with the centuries immediately past have science and technology made international economic relations possible or profitable on any considerable scale. The interplay of religious, social, political, economic, and technological forces which led to the breakdown of medieval localism and the evolution of national states is well known. International relations of persons and groups were gradually regularized and conflicts minimized by the growth of national consciousness and allegiance, positive and sentimental, to national language, customs, institutions, ideals, and aspirations. Within the nation, individuals and groups pooled their sovereign rights and entrusted them to the state; but where relations between states were concerned, there was no obeisance to a power which might ascertain and administer the will of sovereign nations. There the problem of international economic relations began in the past; there it now rests; there it will be in the future.