1.

INTRODUCTION

The theory of Marxism has been influential in global politics since its introduction by Karl Marx in
analyzing International Relations. It differs from conventional theories of international relations
such as realism and neo-realism in that it is critical of the current state of affairs in the
international system.
The concepts of Marxism approach international relations focusing more on economic-sector
interactions in the political field rather than human interaction, which deals with governance and
policy problems.

2. Background and some works of Karl marx

Born in 1818, Karl Marx is one of the most prominent thinkers with many writings on topics
about the economy, about society, politics and political economy, etc.
The theories and the works of Karl Marx were inspired by fellow economists such as Adam
Smith and David Ricardo, however, his works and theories didn’t enjoy such mainstream
adoption, as the former did. This, however, doesn’t mean that Marx’s theories and works didn’t
shape the modern world. It is well known that countries like the USSR, China, and Cuba have
and had indeed adopted the projects proposed by Marx in his work. His most famous works
include The Communist Manifesto and Das Capital, works published together with Friederich
Engels - a good friend of Marx. Those work of his intended to show how unstable the capitalist
form is, how much of an inequality gap it created, how much the workers (the proletariat) we
exploited for a very little pay, which then advocated for the need of communism - a system that
should replace capitalism, following a revolution from the proletariat who will have had enough
from the capitalistic system that is only oriented on profit and fails to reward the hard labour of
the workers adequately. Out of the two works mentioned, Das Kapital is the work which is
regarded to be more academical, where many theories on commodities production, labor
markets, the social division of labor, and a basic understanding of the rate of return to owners of
capital. Apart from the work, Marx also had many theories, some of which include the
exploitation and surplus value (exploitation is the reason why capitalist were able to generate
profit - exploiting the laborers who create a surplus value and get paid inadequately), the labour
theory of value (the value of a good is represented by the amount of labour hours needed to
produce it), the historical materialism (This theory posits that society at any given point in time is
ordered by the type of technology used in the process of production. Under industrial capitalism,
society is so ordered with capitalists organizing labor in factories or offices where they work for
wages), etc.

3. Theories / Concepts / Ideas of Karl Marl related to IR

To begin with, it is important to make a distinct emphasizes on the two marxist

approaches which are classical and neo-marxist. Classical Marxism puts more emphasis on
states as the level of the analysis, which is more of a domestic approach, while Neo-Marxism, a
contemporary concept, focuses more on a relationship between rich and poor counties, taking
the level of analysis to a global level.
 Understanding the Marxist approach to international relations, we must go through the
origin and functioning of capitalism at the domestic and international levels. Marxist concept
asserts that the capitalist mode of production and the modern sovereign state-system are two
sides of the same coin. Marx thought of these two elements as inevitably interdependent. The
concepts of Marxism approach international relations focusing more on economic-sector
interactions in the political field rather than human interaction, which deals with governance and
policy problems.
Probably the main concept proposed by Marx, connected with ir, is the fact that he sees
the world driven by economic means, and that the capitalistic companies communicate on an
international level with the main desire to sustain or increase their wealth, thus making
themselves more powerful internationally. The terms First and Third World that we have now,
could be explained by Marx’s ideas, where the First World is the capitalistic system he critisizes
for controlling all production means, and the Third World is the proletariat who supply the natural
resources to the First World and are also exploited to work for a not adequate pay. This very
much collides with what Peter Wislon and Spyros Economides had concluded in 2002. He also
strongly criticizes the democratic form of government, saying that the democracy only serves to
make the rich even richer, which is why certain states maintain certain relations with other
states.
A Marxist IR approach to migration shows the importance of historical materialism as an
approach to IR. First, Marxists are critical of the fixed aspect of borders because they create
relations of dependency and inequality between peoples by restricting and controlling their
access to resources and labour. Some Marxists argue that we need a global concept of
citizenship to counter how states exclude non-citizens from benefits and access to labour and
resources. After all, from a Marxist point of view, peoples of all nations are united in their
oppression by capitalism and the modern state system that separates them and sets them
against each other, so people should be freed (or emancipated) from this status. Consequently,
Marxists see borders as fixtures that unfairly determine relations of dependency and inequality –
or in other words, who has the right to what.

4. Neo Marxist International relation theories

Marxism
Dependent theory
World-systems theory

Neo-Marxism basically evolved in an attempt to address the questions of the political

and cultural realm along with the economic determination, which was not the case in the
classical Marxist international relations theory. However, a neo-Marxist is substantially
concerned with culture, ideology, the role of the capitalist states, politics of knowledge,
nature of authoritarianism, and most importantly, the emancipation of the contemporary
world.
 Neo-Marxism theory developed in the second half of the 20th century within the classical
teachings of Marxism. Neo-Marxism is not a single concept; it incorporates other schools
of thought and approaches to world politics, such as world-system theory, dependency
theory, Gramscian ideas of hegemony, and critical theory. These concepts can be found
in the writings of Kant, Hagel and other modern Marxist thinkers.

Marxism actually surfaced during the industrial revolution period in the 19th century. It basically
emphasizes the critique of the economic and political systems of Europe in the form of the
Communist Manifesto published by Karl Marx and industrialist Fredrick Engels. The importance
of class struggle and financial linkages in Marxism above inter-state rivalry politics has
significant implications for international relations and be can be simply explained using the
image below, which describes the class struggle between capitalist and laborers which in turn
analyzes causes and effect of capitalism as explained above in point 3. The marxism theory in
short states that, there could be a social and economic revolution due to the exploitation of the
working class in the capitalist system.
● Ideology - Ideology is a system of values and beliefs of a society or group. Ideology
tends to be explicit, or at least have a significant explicit component, and it serves to
protect the material conditions of a society by distorting them. For instance, capitalist
ideology includes the value of self-reliance and being 'self-made,' while also insisting on
free competition. This obscures the fact that those who are born into rich families have a
significant edge in competition.
● Class

IR relations theories have coined out of the marxism theory and in this theories. We would
tackle the major contributions of Marx which relates to IR and these theories are the
dependency theory and the world-systems theory. Kaxl marx proposed that, the world is
separated not based on political lines but is seperated economically. Hence economics is given
priority over politics. As explained above in point 3, The marxist theories of IR is of the view
that, the global state system was created by the capitalist and hence its main goal is to use the
system to protect to protect the interest of the rich capitalist states and its firms that seek to
increase their wealth. This main ideology led the theory of the world-system theory proposed by
Immanuel Wallerstein based on the main idea and philosophy of Karl Marx. As Karl marx
viewed the capitalist (Bourgeois) of exploiting the working class (Proietariat), The world-system
theory which is the most successful international theory developed directly from Marxism.
According to this theory, the world systems is developed on a three level hierarchy which are
the core (first world), periphery(third world), semi periphery (second world). Just as Marx
ideas on capitalism, in the world system theory, the first world (core) are made up of wealthy
nations (G20 countries) which have and benefit from the means of production. The third world
(periphery) consist of impoverished nations (Sub Saharan Africa, Latin America, Central Asia)
that supply bulk of natural resources and human resources exploited by the wealthy nations.
The semi peripheral are those nations that as core to the peripheral but act as peripheral to the
core(Mexico, Nigeria etc)
According to the Marxism, the peripheral countries supply cheap human labor and
capital whereas the core states create foreign policies to maintain the status quo system of
inequality. WTO is one of the organiztions that the core countries use in Achieving such goals.

The dependency theory (by Raul Prebisch)

This theory like the world system theory, explains that, the core nations (western rich
countries) uses international politics to acquire natural resources from the peripheral nations.
Marxist claims that, the underdevelopment and poverty in the periphery is the result of the
economic, social, political structures within countries which have been affected by their
international economic relations. Marxist also observe that, the terms of trade for
underdeveloped countries relative to the developed countries had deteriorated over time: the
underdeveloped countries were able to purchase fewer and fewer manufactured goods from the
developed countries in exchange for a given quantity of their raw materials exports
Example For example, the post-war accomplishment of Western capitalism (the core)
was attributed to the fact that the Western nations were able to exploit cheap labor and natural
resources from the poor countries (the periphery).

Summary
To see how relevant the Marxist international relations theory is in analyzing
contemporary global politics, one could see its evolution from classical Marxism to
Neo-Marxism, which is all about analyzing international relations at the global level.1
Neo-Marxism broadly analyses the social and cultural influences that perpetuate the working
class’s suffering from domestic to global level and addresses issues such as exploitation,
domination, and marginalisation.
These issues remain consequential in international politics in the contemporary world. In
other words, classical Marxism puts more emphasis on states as the level of the analysis, which
is more of a domestic approach, while Neo-Marxism, a contemporary concept, focuses more on
a relationship between rich and poor counties, taking the level of analysis to a global level.

5. Criticism
The FIRST criticism leveled against the Marxist approach is that it only focuses on issues
relevant to IR, for example, finance and trade. However, if Marxism is criticized in this manner, it
is because IR and politics have been synthetically detached from economics by
modernity.Hence, this criticism is only relevant if international economics is separated from
international politics.

There are three main criticisms of the Marxist approach. The first one is
known as excessive determinism. Several scholars argue that the state or
political actors cannot be viewed as simple expressions of the fundamental
socio-economic system of a society. This accusation of excessive
determinism has brought afore another common censure of the Marxist
approach, which is accused of intolerance, orthodoxy, and dogmatism.

Several academicians have proposed explanations for the scantiness of Karl Marx’s
writing on International Relations theory. According to Halliday, Marxism failed to
address three fundamental issues of international theory: world-system theory
versus state-centrism, traditionalism versus behavioralism, and realism versus
utopianism. Karl Marx employed a bit of these debate and hence failed to address
the ideological spectrum.

The third criticism claims that Marxist approach is unsuitable for the international
arena. For example, the realists postulate that the state is the only legal unit of
analysis of international relation (Halliday, 1994, p.14).

More importantly, world-system theory is perceived as being vitally concerned with

the function of economics in establishing all elements of political and social
relations, in addition to being extremely pessimistic, providing few avenues of real
escape from the capitalist system. The current academic Marxist theories seem to
reflect this assertion (Halliday, 1994, p16).

6. Conclusion
Despite several critiques thrown against Marxism and the breakup of the former Soviet Union, it
is crucial to emphasize that, as various other Marxist scholars have interpreted, Marx’s concepts
are still highly relevant in the modern world. To create their theoretical and intellectual
framework, they used Marx’s theories. The Marxist contribution to international relations theory
may be interpreted in terms of revealing the underlying mechanisms of global capitalism in
which key historical and global events took place.

Apart from that, unlike realist researchers, who believe that the battle for power and security
dictates the organization of international politics, Marxist scholars have stressed production,
property relations, and class struggles as an essential counterweight to realist ideas. The critical
point about the Marxist analysis of international relations is that it rejects the realist notion of a
separation of domestic and international politics.

The Marxist approach focuses on classes, which implies that a society’s social and economic
characteristics determine society’s foreign interactions with other governments. Moreover, there
really is no viable alternative to the Marxist analysis of capitalism, as world-system theory and
dependence theory give critical and significant insights into the underdevelopment of the third
world region.