Does globalization uphold the Marxist approach to IPE?
Karl Marx's theory of capitalism and Interdependence
Often there is a misconception (such as propagated by his Indian followers) that Marx saw capitalism as an unmitigated evil, to be avoided at all costs. Marx was unalterably an Enlightenment proponent of progress (or today development), and this is what the development of capitalist economies and globalization represent for the world economy today. The Communist Manifesto itself reads almost like a paean to the forces of globalization-
"As capitalism revolutionises the means of production and social relations, it smashes the barriers of feudalism and mercantilism everywhere, destroying old feudal bondages"
He described capitalism as giving a cosmopolitan character to production and correctly predicts that self-sufficiency will become past as nations interact freely and there will become a, "universal interdependence of nations". He also says that the spread of capitalism will make national one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become less possible and further still he grumbles that, "the intellectual creations of individual nations will become common property".
Cover of the Communist Manifesto’s initial publi...
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
A portrait of Karl Marx.Marx was also a resolute internationalist (although upon nationally based capitalist development of the 1840s, not global developments seen since). Indeed Marx supported free trade measure of the day, most significant of which was the Corn Laws in Britain. However in a sarcastic and scornful speech made in January 1948, before the Democratic Associations of Brussels, Marx said his support of free trade was for two reasons. Firstly the spread of capital makes most favourable conditions for the worker, and also he said that the free trade system was destructive and this would hasten a social revolution.
Marx recognized the capitalist economy as being exploitative of the labour class by the bourgeoisie. Instead he views capitalism as the final and necessary stage of class society before capitalism collapses and socialism...