International relations is a discipline that involves the interactions between states. This discipline has especially become critical due to recent experiences with colonization and the two world wars in the first half of the nineteenth century. Even before these experiences, such interactions had not escaped thinkers who existed. Social philosophers such as Karl Marx delved on the subject of economics, a critical aspect of international relations, albeit out of the need to rectify what they thought were problems in government policies that existed during their time. In fact, Karl Marx theories were more so inspired by the industrial revolution which happened during his time. These ideas were too new and contradicted already established political systems such as Monarchies. Even then, Marxism gained traction with time and attracted a following that enhanced and put the ideas into practice marking the beginning of an economic revolution revolutionary. Vladimir Lenin and Immanuel Wallerstein were among the most important enhancers of Marxist theories. My paper aims at supporting and demystifying the elements of theories formulated by these two great thinkers.
Background of Marx and Engel Theories
Karl Heinrich Marx was an economist philosopher from Germany who was a strong critic of political and cultural establishments of his time. He was born in 1818 in Prussia to Jewish parents (Aitken & Valentine, eds., 2014, 60). He studied at the University of Bonn and later to the University of Berlin where he was influenced by his Professor Hegel to challenge ideas and institutions at that time. After his degree, he delved into journalism eventually becoming a writer. He later collaborated in many works with Engel who had similar opinions.
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Karl Marx formulated Marxism as an economic theory. Marxism postulates that society is made up of capitalists and proletariat. While capitalists own and decide methods of production, proletariats only provide the needed labor for the production. Marxism identifies this as unequal criticizing it as an inefficient economic model (Roemer, J., 2009). Marxism critiques capitalist theories such as Adam Smith's free-market capitalism. Free market capitalism is based on established laws of demand and supply which are influenced by competition. Marxism opposes the demand and supply basis rather than the ability of a human to make the good.
An important component of Marxism is the labor theory of value. Underlying this concept is the notion that the value of an economic good should be derived from the amount of work required to produce it (Adler, P., 2011). For instance, if a cup takes two days to produce while a Jug takes one, the cup is more (twice) valuable than the jug. This component only demonstrates that Marxism strives to achieve the balance needed in the society between owner and laborers. From a Marxist perspective, capitalism will always focus on the profit by competition and reducing the cost of production by technological progress with disregard to laborers. This view offers many explanations to other problems that arise in capitalistic societies and has often led to Marxism being attributed to socialism.
Relationship Between International Law and Marxism
Marxism is a critique of the capitalist economic model. As such, this theory is relevant to international relations since economic power is one of the most significant components of states. Marxism reasons that the world population is categorized into economic classes. As a result, problems created by capitalistic systems due to the unending commitment to increase profits diversely affect the majority of the population composed of common laborers. Marxism examines the effects of the capitalistic system. Specifically, Marxism focusses on the use of economic power to exploit others. Economic exploitation is an important element of international relations since economics power is crucial to the functioning of every state. This is even more relevant to the contemporary world where globalization is becoming more significant.
Marxists criticize various shortcomings in international relations by focusing on multinational companies that source cheap labor from poor countries that have no human rights protection. Marxism also identifies how political systems create economic elites that manipulate the working class for individual benefit. On an international level, international organizations can be criticized for policies that exploit workers or disregard the environment. Marxism focuses to help people from the working class to liberate themselves from economic exploitation. In this way, it would eliminate most social problems and advance world peace (Buecker, 2003).
Vladimir Lenin
One of the greatest contributors to Marxism is Vladimir Lenin. Lenin utilized Marxist theory to analyze the eruption of imperialism that was already headed for a crisis. This was just after the death of Karl Marx characterized by the rise of colonial power. During this time imperialism had divided the countries into two; countries that exploited others and those that were oppressed and dependent. The transition of capitalism to imperialism during this colonial era established the international relations perspective (Kubálková & Cruickshank, 2015, 13). Lenin described imperialism as the decay of capitalism which was massively parasitic. Lenin’s theory identified significant contradictions of the transition of capitalism to imperialism which in effect only served to increase crisis and favored revolution. The crisis was two-fold: within their industrial metropolis and in colonial outposts. First, the contradiction between labor and capital where workers from industrial areas in the third world were put into positions of power. Secondly, imperialist cartels contradicted each other interests leading to imperialist wars to redevise their resources. Lenin utilized his theory when he became the leader of Russia to overthrow capitalism. In this way, he established the contradiction between imperialism and socialism.
A central aspect of Lenin’s theory was his connection between oppressed nations and the oppressors which was named the national question which claims that a nation is only free insofar as it does not enslave another nation. This question incites and encourages the working class from oppressors to join hands and ally with the oppressed to bring down the rulers who were the main beneficiaries of the colonial times (Brewer, 2002, 110). In this way, he creates the perspective that proletariats from both sides were the biggest losers while capitalists won. Lenin’s argument was correctly utilized in the Chinese revolution led by Mao Zedong and led revolutions from worker-led armies in the countryside to the cities.
Lenin’s theory remains relevant for as long as capitalism models the economic structure. Capitalism suits the civil structure of humans but provides for numerous problems of inequality. Contemporary economic issues such as the sovereign debt crisis have become so common in many countries. Such instances only demonstrate the new form of capitalist problems. A recent example is the deliberate lending of huge loans to African countries in order to control them when they fail to pay. This instance is similar to Lenin’s oppressor-oppression position. Such problems are accumulating and proving more than ever that capitalism is a failure. As such, there is a need for a revolution to counter these effects. Leninism inspires the need for a revolution to reset these evils.
Immanuel Wallerstein
A more recent Marxist theory and one of the most successful was put forward by Immanuel Wallerstein called the world systems theory. This theory incorporated redefined imperialism as a state-led process from the traditional view. In an attempt to understand the development of states since as early as the 16th century in relative to each other, Wallerstein distinguished three groups of states. From this analysis, the dependency between different states specific to the industries and economies they have more expertise can be established. In this way, his theory widened its scope from states into broader units.
Wallerstein described the world system as a larger system composing the core, periphery, and semi-periphery (Martínez-Vela, C., 2001, 4). The core is made of the wealthy states that own the most resources from their own states and in poor states. These states in the core benefit from methods of production by utilizing poorer countries to meet their labor needs. Those in the semi-periphery lie in the middle as they do not benefit fully and are not fully exploited. While poorer countries provide labor and resources, wealthy countries develop foreign policies that establish a balance in the system of inequality. This theory maps the exploitative situation of the world economy depicting wealth as flowing from the periphery into the center making rich countries even more economically stable.
Another important postulation aspect of the world system theory is its prediction of temporal trends. The theory predicts that global capitalist economies undergo a series of temporal periods of economic growth and decline. The accumulation of these inherent temporal features would increase the probability of a crisis in the international economic system that would bring production to a standstill. At this time, the world system would require a reset by replacing it with another new system.
Wallerstein’s theory has direct relevance in international economic relations. The theory can be applied to anticipate and explain the effects of the failing of the current world system. Recent events in the global economy prove the theory true. The financial crisis of 2008 represents one of many global economic crises that would eventually vent out to create one massive economic blackout (Blundell-Wignall, Atkinson, Lee, 2009). Although the crisis may not hit the world all at once, significant economic blocks may be hit and the effect magnified from countries to continents.
Criticism of Marxism International Relations
There are numerous criticisms raised to Marx’s thoughts on international relations. One of the problems is the undeterred focus on economics. The theory focusses on domestic and international economies while there are many other factors at play. It is simplistic and fails to account for the effect of politics, diplomacy, and power by tying all world issues and motivations on economic interest (Davenport, A., 2013). As such, it does not achieve anything further than being a critic of the problems of modern capitalism.
Although capitalism is accepted as a bad economic model as Marx posited, some predictions offered by Marxism have not yet had occurred. For instance, there is still no communism, large scale classless society. In addition, workers have not abandoned identities to dispel economic inequality internationally. This failure may be a suggestion of many factors that Marx left out of the equation when postulating his theory.
Finally, some occurrences that Marxism claims are not entirely Marxist ideas. For example, the exploitation of resources through foreign policies of rich states is not entirely a Marxist conception. This feature may be explained through other theories such as political realism. Therefore, Marxism possesses some insufficiencies that limit it only as a critique of capitalism as an economic model.
Conclusion
Karl Marx’s theory provided an elaborate critique of capitalism as a suitable economic model. Marxism has particularly highlighted the problem of inequality between two social classes: capitalists who own resources and proletariats who provide the labor (Callinicos, A., 2007, 545). This problem has been attributed to the capitalists’ need to make more profits and reduce the cost of production in order to create value for the products.
After Marx’s death, Lenin’s thoughts of imperialism took the stage at a time when colonialism was widespread. In his thoughts, he highlighted the division of states into two oppressor and oppressed states. Oppressor states used resources from the oppressed states to produce goods for their own use. Lenin identified contradictions and temporal problems in imperialism. He called on for revolutions by uniting proletariats from oppressed and oppressor states by aligning their interests.
Wallerstein established that the world economy is divided into three factions of states: the core, periphery, and semi-periphery. He showed that resources move from the periphery flowing into the core through the capitalist laws of demand and supply. This serves to show that rich countries remain richer while poor ones are exploited. However, Wallerstein also predicts the eventual dawn of an economic crisis that will signify the end phase of capitalism.
From the discourse, Marxism is a classic theory that offers a critical approach to capitalism. It identifies various areas of inequality focusing on global economics. Many other thinkers have contributed to its ideology and made it more complete and practical. As such, it is successful since it has accurately established economic problems in capitalism from which thinkers such as Lenin have based their approaches. However, it has been weak in that it only suffices as an economic model that does not account for other factors contributing to social problems. This has narrowed its adoption and limited it as a way to highlight constantly evolving problems under capitalism.
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