We also may have come to a stage where economic interactions such as the exchange of goods, provision of services and the movement of finance have become so internationalised that further increases in globalisation cannot deliver greater prospects of peace. Also, the quality of Kant’s foedus pacificum has been dealt a severe blow by nations such as the UK choosing to leave the European Union, adversely affecting the utilisation of soft power via common membership of international organisations. The chances of the well-ordered, tolerant societies envisaged by Rawls living in peace within themselves and with one another have greatly diminished with the recent rise in inequality, the growing wealth and income share of the richest 1-10% of the population, and the rise in varieties of populist politics. It is also argued that common foreign policy goals reflected in the membership of international treaty organisations (such as NATO and the European Union) also produce peace. Moreover, the disruption to integrated financial markets makes war less likely between countries caught up in that web of inter-dependence. The nature of production makes the output of more sophisticated goods and services increasingly reliant on “ideas” that are research and development intensive, and the various stages of production occur across national boundaries. The nature of advanced capitalism makes territorial disputes, which are mainly contests over resources, less likely, as the market mechanism allows easier access to resources. The intensity of international trade in an economy is the least important feature in the peace engendered by capitalism. In a well-ordered society, based on public reason, human rights are respected, and the distribution of primary goods (a decent living standard, dignity, respect and the ability to participate) for each citizen’s functioning is acceptably arranged.Īnother version of the liberal peace theory based on economic interdependence is the ‘capitalist’ peace notion. These are mainly constitutional liberal democracies, which arrive at such a polity based on an idea of public reason. Mirroring Kant’s thoughts is the contemporary philosopher John Rawl’s notion of peace between liberal societies, which he refers to as peoples and not states. The European Union is the most obvious, albeit imperfect, example. This requires the adoption of a republican constitution simultaneously by all nations, which inter alia would check the war-like tendencies of monarchs and the citizenry the cosmopolitanism that would emerge among the comity of nations would preclude war. Ideal theories of the liberal peace can be traced back to the work of Immanuel Kant, who in his essay on the Perpetual Peace argued that although war is the natural state of man, peace could be established through deliberate design. Liberal peace theories posit that peace among nations is not a result of a balance of power, but rests on the pacific nature of commonly held values, economic interdependence, and mutual membership of international organisations. But the logic of the capitalist peace still holds water the intricate nature of the economic interdependence between advanced market economies almost entirely rules out war, but other hostile attitudes can still persist, and even grow.
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