Three Modes of Economism

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Abstract
As ordinarily used by political scientists, the charge of ‘economism’ refers to a violation of the political sphere's privileged presumption of autonomy. More specifically, it refers to an exaggeration of the economic sphere's importance in the determination of social and political relations and a corresponding underestimation of the autonomy and integrity of the political sphere. With the aim of further clarifying the concept and its applications to the study of war and peace, this paper examines three distinguishable modes of economism: variable economism, where political outcomes are said to be attributable wholly or predominantly to economic causes, logical economism, where international political life is interpretable only insofar as it can be comprehended within the framework of economic logic, and historical economism, involving a double limiting of state practice and international political theory in the joint reproduction of an economistic social order. Statist economism, the paper contends, is a dangerous form of historical economism characteristic of advanced capitalist society. As the successor to the institution and doctrine of laissez-faire, statist economism entails both the transparent reduction of state practices and legitimations to economic interests and a diminishment of the creative and adaptive capacities of the modern states system.

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