ABSTRACT
Tea and text cultivated intuition as methodological process about international political economy (IPE). Theorists treat capitalism as foundational in three senses: they examine the ethical and political problems capitalism creates; they treat capitalism as something with an identifiable and coherent logic; and they study capitalism's history as something structured and palpable that unfolds and changes in space/time. A few early marginalist economists just might pass muster. Though often working urgently to close the fissures and resolve uncertainties created by nineteenth-century capitalism, they – as founders – debated foundational issues. W. Stanley Jevons explained and justified the utilitarian assumptions of his political economy instead of presuming them, while Alfred Marshall, with explicit reference to Hegel, saw his static models as part of a science that comprehended the unfolding of human consciousness. Karl Polanyi's influence was pivotal, as he married his critique of historical capitalism with an excavation of the benefits of non-capitalist economies.
