Global political economy is a field which appears at the confluence of international relations and political economy. I should also emphasize that it is an interdisciplinary field which involves economics, political science, history, and sociology. Our presentation will focus on the historical roots of global economy and namely how along time Western capitalism became global capitalism.

Modern capitalism emerged as a social system in western Europe in the first half of the 19 th century. The Western European capitalist societies were distinguished by four features.

On economic grounds they were the first societies in history in which economic activities were predominantly organized via market exchange and they were based on private property relations in labor, capital, land, and ideas.

On political grounds these societies were increasingly secularized and based on notions of citizenship and the rule of law, at least in comparison with other societies.

On social grounds, these societies had substantially abandoned formal structures of hierarchy based on birthright, such as distinctions of nobility and serfdom, or analogs of caste found in other societies.

Finally, in the sphere of ideas the modern scientific outlook became increasingly popular.

Societies outside of western Europe or of the territory dominated by European powers shared few of these characteristics.

Economic institutions were rarely organized around market exchange and private property. In many societies were maintained the institution of serfdom of slavery.

The rights of capital ownership were heavily circumscribed by state authorities and international trade was discouraged, for example in China and Japan.

By the same time, new ideas were viewed with skepticism and usually as a threat to the status quo.

Also, political institutions were typically based on traditional authority structures rather than rational law.

Property was often seen as the natural claim of the state, while cultural and religious institutions reinforced political and economic hierarchies by the

privilege of birth or membership in a particular religious or ethnic group.

The XXth century was the century of two conflicting ideologies. In economics, capitalism met his main competitor – socialism/communism. However, history eventually proved that communism is just the longest road to capitalism.

The Word War I and its heritage prepared the territory for the Second conflagration. It’s main consequences were namely: the collapse of three important continental empires, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, National-Socialism and Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, and extremely important: The Great Depression, when the weak financial and monetary system of the world dissipated and pushed the world in an economic catastrophe.

After second world war United States hoped to build a new world order and established the Breton Woods system, which incorporated the IMF and World Bank. However, soon it was clearly that there is an insurmountable contradiction between Western bloc and Eastern bloc. Cold War inaugurated not just the ideological battle between liberalism and communism, but also between capitalism, or market

economy, and planned economy. The world was split and left place for the rivalries between these two antagonizing approaches.

The dissolution of the USSR in economic terms translated in the triumph of capitalism as the dominant form of economic organization. Most the former socialist countries adopted it in the last decades and through the instruments of globalization Western capitalism became global capitalism.

Conclusion: History is not over and as long as we have minds we should make them work toward higher ends. If it is true that the dignity of man lies in its freedom to say No, then we should never cease to question and to challenge the status quo. There is room for institutional innovation. Marx was wrong, but it is still uncertain who was right.