Governing International Political Economy

Formative Essay Prompt
Lent Term 2016
In The German Ideology, Karl Marx famously argued, ‘we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process…Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence…[M]en, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.’

In response, JM Keynes closed The General Theory with, ‘the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back…[I]t is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.’

Based on what you have learned in this course, which perspective best describes the relationship between ideas and foreign economic policy? Do great intellectuals and ideas influence policy? Or do those figures and proposals associated with policy shifts come to the fore because they fit the dictates of material interests and circumstances?