This structure defines who has access to money, how, and on what terms. So the finance structure is really a description of how certain resources are allocated and distributed between and among nations. In this sense money is a means, not an end. Second, money creates an obligation between people or states. This occurs through loans, which must be repaid, direct investment where a foreigner gains control directly over the use of resources by, say, purchasing a factory or a farm.
Financial bargains create obligations, which join the interest of different peoples.
Nations with poor access to knowledge in the form of industrial technology, scientific discoveries, medical procedures, or instant communications, for example, find themselves at a disadvantage relative to others. Increasingly in the world today, the bargains made in the security, production, and finance structure depend on access to knowledge in its several forms. They are like lenses that we can use to view and interpret the international political economy. Mercantilism , or economic nationalism, which looks at IPE mainly in terms of international interest. This philosophy is associate with the discipline of political science and the theory of realism.