Marxism: Historical Development §

Created Time: September 6, 2021 7:34 PM Database: Evergreen Database Last Edited Time: September 6, 2021 7:40 PM References: Chapter 2 How to write a good research question Type: Permanent Notes

Marxism: Historical Development §

New Interpretations from the 1980s §

• Marxism as an important weapon in the critique of Realism

• Marxism contributed to Critical Theory in IRs and IPE

  (interplay between states & markets, the state system, the capitalist world economy, the spheres of power and production)

• Arguments against “collapse of Soviet Union killed Marxism”

  • End of Cold War: relevance of Marxism increased with the passing of age of bipolarity & the new phase of economic globalization (Neo-Liberalism)
    • Marxist ideas are still relevant because great inequality between North and South nations due to economic globalization. The problems only got worse.
  • Neo-Marxism Analysis of Karl Marx’s biography shows Capitalism broke down Chinese Walls and unifies the human race
    • Marx’s ideas came true

• 9/11 showed that Marxism has little grip on the most fundamental realities of international politics

  • Marxism assume the triumph of capitalism would be short-lived and would eventually lead to destruction and replacement by Communism
  • Marxism has poor grasp of the importance of the nation-state and violence in the modern world, a point that Marxists conceded in the 1970s and 1980s
    • Modern forms of globalization have been accompanied by renewed ethnic violence and national fragmentation, which Marx and Frederick Engels, insightful though they were about the march of capitalist globalization and growing economic inequalities, could NOT have foreseen.

References §

1. Chapter 2 Marxism & Neo-Marxism (main)