Marxism and International Relations Theory

Marxism: A New Debate

• Three major theoretical debates occurred in IR theory.
• Idealists versus Realists was the first debate in the 1920s and 1930s.
• The second involved methodology and behavioralist revolution in the 1950s and 1960s.
• The third major debate began in the 1960s and was the structuralist debate.
• Structuralists question whether traditional problematique should be the starting point for studying IR.
• Structuralists question whether war represents something more fundamental to social discourse than merely the interaction of states.
• A new school emerged, drawing from the Marxist conception of European class and economics.
• This new school also drew from Hobson and Lenin's global extrapolation of the political economy pattern, and the Latin American school of economics.
• The Marxist paradigm started with a view of an unfavorable position in the global division of labor, involving weakness, vulnerability, penetrability, and inequality.
• A new problematique then arose, concerned with the causes of economic inequality and conditions for fairer world wealth distribution.

Marxism School

• Marxism is not a single theory.
• A core belief is economics is the driving force behind IR.
• IR occurs within a global system based on class, not the nation-state.
• The contemporary international system's capitalist nature and extent differentiate it from past international systems.
• Unlike the European industrial capitalism of the early 19th century, the current capitalist system is global and post-industrial.
• Mechanisms keep Third World states from developing and contribute to uneven global development.

Core Assumptions

• The analytic unit of Marxism considers social classes, transnational elites, and multinational corporations.
• Issues are viewed by Marxism as economic factors being most important, regardless of what those may be.
• The individual's actions are determined by economic class
• Human nature is neither good nor bad; it's determined by the economic condition.
• The state is an agent of international capitalism and the executing agent of the bourgeoisie.
• The international system is highly stratified and dominated by the international capitalist system.
• A core belief is that there should be radical change.
• Major theorists are Karl Marx, Lenin, Wallerstein, and Gunder Frank.

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• Marx was a 19th-century German theorist.
• Key works include "The Communist Manifesto" (1848) and "Das Kapital" (1867).
• Marxists owe an intellectual debt to Marx's methods of analysis and insights into the functioning, development, and expansion of the capitalist mode of production.

Class Struggle & Historical Materialism

• "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles".
• Historical materialism analyzes the process of historical change and predicts its direction by analyzing the logic of human systems of production in individually historical periods.
• History becomes the story of class conflict generated by economic modernization.
• Humanity progresses through stages driven by the desire to fulfill material needs.
• Stages include hunter-gatherer (familial seeking basic shelter), tribal (familial), feudal (proto-capitalism/class system), Capitalism (alienation), and Communism.

Marx's Contributions to IR

• Economics drives the world via historical materialism.
• Human history is driven by class struggle between the haves and have-nots.
• Capitalism shows law-like qualities in development and expansion.
• Marxism views the state as an instrument of the dominant classes, like aristocracy or capitalists, that oppress and exploit the other classes.
• States conduct policies, including foreign policy, according to the ruling classes's interests.
• Economic disparity makes an exploitative situation where a small core dominates a large periphery.
• Bourgeoisie versus Proletariat classes may expand to comprise states instead of only people.
• Only a revolution of industrial workers can save humanity from oppression and injustice by establishing communism.
• Society must be studied in its totality, not piecemeal and any one stage can only be viewed in the context of the overall global capitalist system.
• Analysis occurs on a world-system level defined by economic processes and links, not juridical, political, cultural, geographical, or other types of unites.

Imperialism & Lenin (1870-1924)

• John Hobson (1858-1940) theorized imperialism emerged due to low wages and underconsumption by workers, over saving by capitalists, and overproduction.
• Capitalists would sell to foreign colonies required to purchase them to resolve these issues.
• Lenin led the Russian Revolution and was also an IR theorist.
• Lenin theorized"Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism."
• Lenin sought a theory explaining the need for capitalist exploitation of lesser-developed countries and causes of war among advanced capitalist states.
• Lenin adapted Marxism to explain early 20th-century developments.
• Capitalism concentrates wealth in a few banks and industrial corporations, causing unbridled imperialism.
• Imperialism becomes a global struggle among international corporations and banks for territories and resources.
• Advanced capitalist states exported capital to colonies for "superprofits," bribing the domestic working class.
• Revolution got averted in advanced capitalist states by exploiting poorer countries.
• Once advanced capitalist states divided the globe into colonial areas, competition caused interimperialist wars and capitalism's downfall.

Dependency Theory

• Dependency theory indicates a situation where the economy of a country is conditioned by the development and expansion of another country.
• In the 1960s and 1970s, economists used neo-Marxist ideas to explain persistent struggles in developing Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
• Walt Rostow authored "The Stages of Economic Growth: a non-communist manifesto."
• Key Dependency Theory theorists were Andre Gunder Frank, Theo Dos Santos, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
• Underdevelopment in LDCs resulted from external factors related to the global capitalist economy, not inefficient domestic policies.
• Underdeveloped LDCs gets purposefully underdeveloped by advanced capitalist states to prevent autonomous development.
• Imperialism turned Africa, Asia, and Latin America into sources of cheap food and raw materials for colonial powers.
• Third World states were forced to trade for industrial goods on unfavourable terms.
• The periphery became the core's wealth source due to the core's capacity to exploit and siphon off resources.

Trading Relations & Labor and Capital

• Most trade occurs between pairs of core countries.
• Core countries usually trade mostly with themselves.
• Each peripheral country largely trades with a single core country, which continues a pattern established during colonial times.
• There is little trade between different peripheral countries.
• A labor supply to produce the crops or minerals existed to serve as the foundation of the colonial economy and exported to the imperial power.
• Labor to produce the crops or minerals could be local or imported.
• Labor was needed in large amounts
• Labor needed to be controlled politically and available at a low price to create a surplus that earned profits for the colonial power.
• Capital provides the basis for commodified agriculture or mineral production, supplies cash for machinery and equipment, supplies labor power and builds infrastructure and transport.
• Capital could be supplied by the imperial power, but sometimes came from local comprador capital sources.

Infrastructure & Effects of Dependency

• Structuring economic institutions and roles serves Western needs.
• Native elites got installed to control their nations to fulfill the needs of the West, and these elites depend on Western support.
• Pro-Western dictators, like Batista, Somoza, and Trujillo, oppressed their own people but rendered their countries as fertile ground for Western military and economic support.
• Economic arrangements serve Western capitalism versus promoting economic development.
• Western capital is invested in LDCs extractive enterprises instead of promoting native productive capabilities.
• Roads/railways facilitate raw material transportation to ships for transport to the West versus promoting the development of regional native enterprises.
• An International Division of Labour came into effect.
• The commoditization of production took hold
• Suppression or failure to develop local manufacturing took hold
• Production concentrated on a small range of goods, while labor involved only simple skills and low wages.

Societal & Demographic Effects

• Empowerment occurred among classes who were beneficiaries of the system, including traditional elites, middlepersons, landlords, and bureaucrats.
• Ethnic diversity from the immigration of new laborers took hold
• Marginalized poor saw an increase (farmers who cannot pay taxes, workers without land).
• There was a rapid mortality decline (colonial administration, transport infrastructure, medical expertise).
• Continuing high fertility rates become an obvious effect.
• A high rate of population growth became implied.
• Population growth did not involve industrial economic expansion.

Dependency problems

• One empirical problem with Dependency Thoery too grand or general.
• The theory best describes Africa (especially sub-Saharan), and its existing structural situation, but not so well on Asia.
• One issue with the theory is dependent ties hold a peripheral country back.
• Some dependent countries have since advanced (Australia and Canada, for example).
• A limitation is the theory indicates dependency cannot be escaped.
• Australia and Canada have not fully escaped dependent trade relations.
• Formerly dependent societies, like Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, show every sign of developing core structures.
• It can be asked whether it is the the states dependent trade links or power relations within the peripheral country itself that limits development.
• It also makes a difference if a peripheral country made poor because capitalist invasion or not enough capitalism gets introduces from the core and developed in the periphery.

Explore the resurgence of Marxist thought in International Relations theory. Discover how structuralists challenge traditional approaches and delve into the global implications of class and economics. Understand key concepts such as global division of labor, vulnerability, and inequality.