Some Thoughts on International Economics and Problems of the New International Economic Order

The quest for a change in the structure of international economic relations stems from the reaction to the crisis of the ‘old economic order’, the main framework of which had been established as a result of the change in the power relations in the world that had been in evidence since the First and, especially, the Second World War. There are many causes of the said crisis but two among them are of particular importance: one, the growing contradiction between the internationalisation of the productive forces in the world embodied in the expansion of the transnational corporation, (TNC) and the national basis of the rules of the game in the ‘old economic order’; second, the unevenness of the development process and growing disparities between countries predominantly in the industrialised world, including the emergence of the two groups of countries (developing and socialist) dissatisfied with the old rules of the game, either because they suited the interests of the already established economic powers, or because they fitted into the mode of operation of the capitalist economy and did not recognise the modalities of operation of the socialist one.