Realism

23 Jun Realism

“Realism” offers a competing account to liberalism with regard to how the world’s strategic and economic systems work and how they should work. John Mearsheimer’s “Offensive Realism Theory” epitomizes the “realist” position. It argues that the international system encourages states to look for “opportunities” to maximize their “power” in relation to other states, and therefore to increase their chances for “survival.”  “Realism” is essentially a strategic doctrine. Its politico-economic counterpart is most often called mercantilism, economic nationalism, or state capitalism. Contemporary state capitalism is more complex than the protectionist models of yesteryear. It entails a more sophisticated generation of managers who have learned about commerce in the world’s best business schools and who embrace globalization. As such, state capitalists use neo-liberalist tools to kick-start growth. These include listing state-owned enterprises on the stock-exchange and the employment of sovereign wealth funds as investment instruments. It is this complexity that has engendered various models of state capitalism around the world. This diversity is most evident in the so-called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) but it is also apparent in developing-market nations like Algeria, Argentina, Chile, Indonesia, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Vietnam.