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Summary Robert Cox, Production Power & World Order
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Book Review, Grade: 8.5
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THEORIES AND APPROACHES: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS | M.SC. POLITICAL SCIENCE - VU UNIVERSITY AMSTERDAM.Prepared for: Dr. Philipp Pattberg.
Prepared by: Arjen Leemburg (VU student number: 2048957).
Amsterdam, 19 October 2011.
985 words.
A book review.
PRODUCTION, POWER AND WORLD ORDER.
Social forces in the making of history.
By Robert W. Cox.
How did we arrive at the current economic crisis (2008-?)? Production, power and world order (Cox, 1987)
provides a comprehensive answer to this question. Also, Cox epitomises the ramifications this crisis might have
on the capitalist economic system that is in place at the moment. Central in the Coxian argument is the role of
the structures of production and how these compositions lead to inevitable contradictions. The current capitalist
system is rooted in the structures that focused on reproducing the material conditions under which existing
societal life is possible (for example feudalism). The emergency of a state system in Europe during the fifteenth
and sixteenth century was a consequence of elites seeking to find the optimum form of accumulation that
allowed the nobility to gain abundantly more capital and expand their accumulation outside their initial borders (it
is easier to organise expanding commercial dominions through the form of a state). States (in particular the
United Kingdom in the nineteenth century) fostered the capitalist system, as an alternative to mercantilism to
increment the accumulation of capital.
Production, power and world order manages quite well supplying an exposition why the United States, despite
its excessive public debt, is able to maintain itself as a hegemonic player. There is a sense of consent among
other states to endorse the system of production designed during the Pax Britannica and that advanced under
the current Pax Americana regime. By investing surpluses (from peripheral consumers to major capital holders)
in the core of the capitalist system (the United States) it is in everyone’s interest not to question the
accumulation of debt in the United States. Key is that the peripheral states have subscribed to the capitalist
system as designed by the United States and put at work through institutions such as the International Monetary
Fund. To illustrate this point: the American Marshall Plan was an incentive for European states to subscribe to
the American capitalist system. The Marshall Plan can primarily be seen as a means that allowed capitalism to
triumph over socialism in the European domain (a competition of ideas).
In order to mitigate the contradictions of the capitalist economic structure, states designed welfare systems that
enabled mass consumerism. These Fordism models were meant to enhance the drivers of accumulation.
Growing income inequality might be rooted in the fact that the capitalist structure is presently (initiated by
THEORIES AND APPROACHES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS | BOOK REVIEW | ARJEN LEEMBURG (2048957)
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