The Contendable Material Conditions of Economic Organization

This paper develops a conceptual model of the material conditions through which economic organization becomes structured and subject to differential control. Building on recent debates in international political economy on interdependence, global production, and structural power, it identifies four fundamental categories—raw materials, logistics, technology, and production—as irreducible forms of material mediation that underpin the organization and reproduction of economic systems. Rather than offering an empirical description of contemporary economic processes, the paper isolates the minimal functional conditions through which matter becomes available, connected, transformed, and concretely realized as organized economic life. These mediations are not treated as sectoral components of the economy, but as structural dimensions whose control generates relations of dependence, vulnerability, and power. From this perspective, contemporary geopolitical competition is interpreted as a derivative phenomenon emerging from the differential control of these material mediations. The paper thus proposes a shift from the analysis of economic interaction to the reconstruction of its underlying material conditions, suggesting that conflicts over resources, infrastructures, technologies, and production capacities reflect deeper structures in the organization of economic systems. In doing so, it offers a unified framework for understanding economic interdependence as a structurally mediated condition of power, rather than as a purely relational or strategic phenomenon.