Marxist Perspectives: Capitalism and Imperialism Week 5 - 25 - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Marxist Perspectives: Capitalism and Imperialism

PSI 330 International Security

Week 5 - 25 October 2017

Marxist Perpectives: The Core

• The Main Focus
• Class Struggle and Material Interests of those classes embody
• Mode of Production and production relations
• Understanding of the International Relations
• Marx: heterogeneous state of war and peace
• Lenin: homogenous state of war among independent countries

Marxist Perpectives: An Overview

• Approach to War and Peace
• Is war progressive or reactionary for the proletariat?
• What is the link between the military sector and economic progress?
• How should one understand the role of the state for the defense of

national economic interests on the international scene?

Classical Marxism

• Explaining social change and sources of conflict
• Class struggle have primacy over the forces of production
• The conflict arise at the relations of production, reflecting upon the

political structures

• War is intrinsically linked to the class struggle
• Occurrence of War at different levels:
• At National Level: Revolts, Strikes and Civil War
• At International Level: Inter-state war

Classical Marxism

• Sources of War (International Level)
• War between Capitalist and Pre-Capitalist Societies
• Search for ever widening markets -> effectiveness of capitalist

production outweighed the pre-capitalist production, as well as weakened political and military resistance.

• Independent interstate relations can only happen among societies

among similar modes of production

Classical Marxism

• Mode of Production Determines How War are Fought (Engels)

“Armament, composition, organization, tactics and strategy depend above all

• n the stage reached at the time in production and on communications. It is

not the “free creations of the mind” {D. Ph. 43} of generals of genius that have had a revolutionizing effect here, but the invention of better weapons and the change in the human material, the soldiers.” (Engels 1947) “the military capabilities of a particular weapons system, which define its role in a particular military unit, reflect the manufacturing capabilities of a particular defense company” (Kaldor 1982, p. 15)

• Contradiction in arms production

Classical Marxism

Classical Marxism

• Economic conflict tend to replace military ones
• Economic Interdependence
• Unwillingness of Bourgeoise to wage war with other developed nations

due to costs

• Capitalism may tend to more peaceful than the previous modes of

production

• War can still occur:
• inequality, exploitation, and the domination process engendered by the

international division of labour

• Class struggle continues

Classical Marxism

• Socialism would bring Peace (Engels)
• abundance, absence of exploitation, solidarity.
• Workers are by nature devoid of national prejudice
• National independence and bourgeois democracy was necessary for

crushing the vestiges of feudalism and in the development of the proletariat. (Marx)

Theories of Imperialism

• Marx:
• Imperialism as another way to counteract decreasing profits
• Imperialism as a force of social change
• Hilferding:
• The Imperialist policy as a result of rise of financial capital
• Financial capital -> The necessity of protecting the domestic

industries -> Reinforcement of the role State -> Increased Militarism

• Development of firms and internationalization -> Agreement

between powerful capitalist states

• Exploitation of non-industrialized nations

Theories of Imperialism

• Luxemburg:
• War is the result of differences modes of production
• Imperialism as a solution for the demand blocks
• Opening up new markets and exploration of non-capitalist states
• Conflict among Capitalist states may arise due to disagreements of

sharing the territories

• Military expenditures as a solution to defend and conquer empires.

Theories of Imperialism

• Lenin:
• Imperialism = Economic and Political Division of the World
• Institutions and forces -> Imperialism
• Institutions = monopoly capital, merger of industrial and bank

capital, and the state

• Forces created by Finance Capitalism:
• Superabundance necessitates the search for profitable

investment

• Export of capital, rather than export of goods.
• Underconsumption drives monopolies to seek market in the

undeveloped areas of the world.

• Control of markets and sources of raw materials is sought.

Theories of Imperialism

Revolutionary War

• The Mass Resistance to War vs The War of the Masses
• Transferring the class struggle into military (via conscription) (Lenin)
• Anti-war sentiments
• Mao (On Guerrilla Warfare):
• A war waged for the emancipation of people
• Guerrilla Warfare as a part of overall anti-imperialist struggle is employed

by the weak

• Aims of the Guerrilla Warfare:
• Weaken the adversary through local attacks
• Expand the theatre of war to national level
• Transferring the hegemony from external power to an immanent power

Militarism

• “the project of policing a global system of multiple states has generated [an]
• pen-ended militarism which displays to the world a constant threat of war,

any time anywhere, with no clear objective or end- game” (Wood 2007, 166)

• Changes in military technology instigates militarism by creating constant arms

production economy (Shaw 1988)

• Arms production will bring the demise of the Capitalist production (Engels)
• Political advantage: Creating national unity against an external threat
• Dividing the working class
• Economic advantage:
• Arms Production and the Restoration of the Rate of Profit
• The Critique of Economic Advantage

Fundamental Questions

• How would Marxist theory answer the four fundamental questions about

security?

• What is Security?
• Whose security?
• What are the primary threats?
• How can security be achieved?