Economic ties between different states are developing and developing for a long time. Today, many people, starting with students and ending with retirees, easily operate with the terms "international economy", "crisis", "gross domestic product." However, there were times when all these concepts and definitions did not exist. Economic cooperation between countries was reduced to a simple exchange of goods. In China, silk fabrics were produced, and in Central Asia cotton was produced. In Europe, mined silver and smelted other metals. The most high-speed sailing vessels were built here, which were also used for trade with "overseas countries", and for conducting military operations.
At a certain stage in the development of human civilization, it was believed that the international economy is some number of national economic systems that exchange commodity products among themselves . Spain supplied to England wine and fruit, and in return received looms and steam engines. "Games of exchange," as one famous researcher of the development of trade relations calls this process, originated in antiquity and continue to operate at the present time. Of course, the modern international economy is a complex and multifaceted system, which is completely different from its progenitor.
In this context, it should be noted that some basic principles have been preserved. Only the exchange of goods occurs now in a variety of ways. Today, any citizen of the European Union has the opportunity to purchase the necessary item or a complex household product directly from the manufacturer, which is territorially located in China. Such internationalization of the economy became possible in connection with the emergence and rapid development of information technology. To this we should add that this term means not only the trade in goods, patents, machinery or financial resources.
A characteristic feature that distinguishes the current situation is the opportunity for any person not only to purchase goods in this way, but also to find a job outside the state of which he is a citizen. Mechanisms of this kind have never been provided by the international economy of an individual person in history. There are grounds to say that such processes weaken the foundations of national states. But, on the other hand, they are given the opportunity to acquire new technologies, update existing enterprises and create new ones, thereby improving the living standards of their citizens.
A common phenomenon today is joint ventures. At the same time, the emergence of transnational corporations was recorded more than a hundred years ago. The peculiarity of such a company is that its nationality can not be determined. Its structural units are placed, figuratively speaking, on all continents. And the above examples do not exhaust the list of characteristic features that the international economy has acquired today. The process of its development will continue in the future.