Marxist Theories of IR
"The history of all hitherto
existing society is the history of
class struggles."
(The Communist Manifesto)
Introduction
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Key figures: Marx, Engels and Lenin
Key concepts of Marxism for IR
Influence of Marxism on IR
Critiques of Marxism
Is Marxism obsolete?
Conclusion
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
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Family: German Protestant
Jews
Lawyer, journalist, doctorate
on Greek political thought
Young Hegelian
The Communist Manifesto
with Engels in 1848 –
coinciding with 1848
revolutions across Europe
Refuge in Paris, then London
Led First International
(working man’s association)
See Francis Wheen’s
biography
Friedrich Engels (1820-1895).
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Son of German industrialist
Managed father’s cotton factory in England
Long political collaboration with Marx
Key works:
The Condition of the Working Class in England
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
Marx’s philosophy
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Key influences:
• Hegelian idealism – dialectical thinking
• Feuerbach’s materialism
• Criticises one-sideness of both idealism and
materialism
• His historical materialist approach
attempted to overcome the one-sideness of
both idealism and materialism
• Key to overcoming one-sidedness of idealism
and materialism by testing ideas in
‘revolutionary or practical-critical activity’ i.e
.political and social experiment
Marx’s critiques of Idealism and
Materialism
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Works exploring Marx’s critiques of
idealism and materialism and
attempts to overcome dualism of
base v superstructure etc
e.g. Franz Jakubowski’s Ideology and
Superstructure in Historical Materialism, Pluto,
1990
‘the man who knows reality no longer stands
outside history like Hegel’s “philosopher” but is
himself a factor in transforming social relations.
Theory no longer merely exists post-festum but
becomes a lever in the revolutionary process.’
Consciousness and Being
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‘It is not the consciousness of men that
determines their existence, but their social
existence that determines their consciousness.’
Marx, 1856 Preface to “The Critique of Political
Economy”
What does Marx mean?
Aristotle on humans as social beings by nature
Modern theories on the development of human
consciousness
Link to tool use
see e.g. Voloshinov’s linguistic theories
see e.g. Raymond Tallis’ The Hand
History making subjects
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Historical/dialectical materialism
Human agency in human-made material
conditions
‘Men make their own history, but they do
not make it just as they please, they do not
make it under circumstances chosen by
themselves,
but
under
circumstances
directly encountered, given and transmitted
from the past’ Marx, Brumaire
‘man’s consciousness not only reflects the
objective world but creates it’ Lenin,
Philosophical Notebooks
Marx’s Theory of Alienation
Marx’s Theory of Alienation
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“whom am I now to believe, political economy or ethics? ...
It stems from the very nature of estrangement that each
sphere applies to me a different and opposite yardstick –
ethics one and political economy another; for each is a
specific estrangement of man and focuses attention on a
particular field of estranged essential activity, and each
stands in an estranged relation to the other.” Human Needs
& the Division of Labour, Marx 1844
See Istvan Mezaros’ Marx’s Theory of
Alienation , Merlin Books, 1970
http://www.marxists.org/archive/me
szaros/works/alien/index.htm
Dialectical approach
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From Hegel’s dialectics
Dialectics as understanding of social
relations in motion
e.g. value only value if in motion
Dialectical historical development: thesis,
antithesis, synthesis
Contradictory forces and relations under
capitalism
– social production v private appropriation of
profit
– socialising v alienating aspects of capitalism
Contradictory character of capitalist
commodity production
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Commodities as use values v exchange values
Commodification – everything becomes a commodity
including human life
Products may be socially wanted but particular social
groups in need may not be able to buy them
E.g. famine politics
housing problems
E.g.
Contradictory character of capitalist
production
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Social production i.e. groups of workers
producing things for others not for themselves
Private appropriation – profits going to owners of
factories not to factory workers
Contradictory character of
money
• gold as money form
• Particular commodity v universal value in
exchange
• Capitalism as value in motion
• Money form (currency, credit etc) easing
circulation
• operation of market not the same as barter
economy
• every sale does not necessarily lead to
purchase new purchase
• potential hiatus in circulation
• E.g. current credit crunch
Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924)
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Key figure in 1917 Russian Revolution
Leader of Bolshevik Party
Key works:
Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
State and Revolution
What is to be done?
Lenin- Imperialism: Highest Stage
of Capitalism
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Imperialism = monopoly stage of capitalism
Concentration of production & creation of
monopolies
Contradictions of monopoly v free trade
Dominance of finance capital
Export of capital not just goods
Different from earlier empires and even earlier
European colonial rule
Lenin- Imperialism: Highest Stage of
Capitalism
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Lenin quotes Cecil Rhodes in 1895:
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‘The Empire…is
a bread-and
butter
question. If
you want to
avoid civil war,
you must
become
imperialists.’
John Hobson’s Imperialism, A
Study, 1902
 Lenin’s work
drawing upon
Hobson’s
work
 Large
extracts in
Lenin’s
Imperialism
Fate of Lenin’s Imperialism
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‘imperialism’ became a generic term
with little content….the category
imperialism was extended to cover
almost any relationship of
subordination or control.
Today, Lenin’s ‘grounding of
imperialism in issues of the
boardroom has been almost entirely
forgotten’ (Lewis and Malone in
Lenin, 1996, p. xiii).
Common criticisms of Marxism
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utopian
ignores conventional struggles for power
and security arising in anarchical system
(Ken Waltz)
economic determinism (Martin Wight)
over-estimation of class political struggle
working class not revolutionary
underestimated nationalism
criticisms underscored by Marxist concepts
becoming rigid
Responses to criticisms
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Economic determinism?
Various Marxist strands downplay dialectics and
suggest causal determinism
But dialectical method - understanding relations as
in motion, involving contradictory relations and
forces not simple static, causal determinism
Equating theoretical approach with results of
approach at particular historical moment
‘Most criticisms merely state the obvious – that the
world is not the same as when [they] wrote’ (Lewis
and Malone in Lenin, 1996, p. xiii).
Marxism’s influence on
International Relations theories
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Influence on International Political Economy and
development theories
Modernisation theory as response to Marxism
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Dependency or Underdevelopment theories
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• Rostow’s Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist
Manifesto, 1960
• Andre Gunder Frank, Samir Amin, Raul Prebisch
Gramsci and Neo-Gramcian theories
World-systems theories
• Immanual Wallerstein
Post-colonial theories e.g. Edward Said’s
Orientalism, Culture and Imperialism, Hardt
and Negri’s Empire
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Continuing influence on critical theories e.g.
concepts of agency, emancipation etc
Dependency or underdevelopment
theories
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Key theorists: Andre Gunder Frank, Samir
Amin, Raul Prebisch
Formal political control (colonialism) not
necessary to create dependency, possible
through economic means
Uneven development and underdevelopment
Capitalism leading to uneven development and
hindering development of developing countries
Not opposed to industrialisation
But entanglement of industrial sectors with
foreign capital relations
Seek strategies to develop independent national
economies free from international capitalist
political economy.
Relevance of Marxist theories
today?
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Relevance of Marxist theories of class struggle,
capitalism, imperialism, militarism to
international politics today?
How do we understand humanitarian
intervention? e.g. Bosnia, Kosovo
How do we understand global governance? e.g.
Bosnia, Kosovo – economic drain rather than
economic extraction
Why invade Iraq if could better dominate a
country and extract more profit with formally
independent state without costs of occupation?
Responses
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Dialectic understanding of social relations v
Marx’s particular analysis of social relations
under capitalism in particular period
Dialectic analysis of social relations in
motion will not be same as Marx’s analysis
of 150 years ago
E.g. Marx’s analysis of idealism in German
Ideology perhaps more relevant than Capital
in explaining today’s international
humanitarian interventions.
Further reading and resources
• E.g. communist manifesto in cartoon version that
I told you about:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=znMkqEnO6d4
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E.g. Reading Marx’s Capital with
David Harvey
13 2-hour podcast lectures
http://davidharvey.org/