Scott Burchill
In
the 1850s, Karl Marx believed that the spread of capitalism, or what today we
would call globalization, was transforming human society from a collection of
separate nation-states to a world capitalist society where the principal form of
conflict would be between classes rather than nations. According to Marx, the
conflictual properties of capitalism could not be contained. A political
revolution led by the working classes would overthrow the capitalist order and
usher in a world socialist society free from the alienation, exploitation and
estrangement produced by capitalist structures.
Needless
to say, the pattern of historical change anticipated by Marx 150 years ago has
been thwarted by the persistence of the nation-state system, its propensity for
violence, and the grip that nationalism maintains upon our political identities.
Marx’s reputation has also been tarnished, perhaps unfairly, by the appalling
interpretation and application of his ideas in a number of failed communist
states.
So
what, if anything of value, does Marx have to say about the current impact of
globalization upon our advanced industrial societies?
Marx
was the first theorist to correctly identify capitalism as the principal driving
force behind increasing levels of international interdependence, a process that
he believed was both transforming human society and uniting the species. With
remarkable prescience Marx argued that the very essence of capitalism is to
"strive to tear down every barrier to intercourse", to "conquer
the whole earth for its market" and to overcome the tyranny of distance by
reducing "to a minimum the time spent in motion from one place to
another".
Resistance
to the expansion of capitalism was, according to Marx, futile. National economic
planning would become impossible as barriers to trade and investment collapsed.
In a famous extract from The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels describe how
globalization prizes open national economies and how global markets determine
the pattern of economic development across the planet: "The bourgeoisie has
through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to
production and consumption in every country. Š All old established national
industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged
by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all
civilised nations. Š In place of the old local and national seclusion and
self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal
inter-dependence of nations".
Globalization,
according to Marx, was a progressive, if transient phase in human history. The
universalising processes inherent in capitalism promised to bring not only
unprecedented levels of human freedom, but also an end to insularity and
xenophobia. According to Marx and Engels, under globalization "national
one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible. Š The
bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the
immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian
nations, into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy
artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the
barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels
all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production;Š
In one word, it creates a world after its own image".
However,
unlike liberals who regard the collapse of national economic sovereignty as a
positive development, Marx highlighted the darkside of interdependency, in
particular the social consequences of exposure to the rigours of market life. In
the 1840s, Marx was already observing a backlash against globalization. People
had "become more and more enslaved under a power alien to them (a pressure
which they have conceived of as a dirty trick on the part of the so-called
universal spirit, etc,), a power which has become more and more enormous and, in
the last instance, turns out to be the world market".
Remarkably,
Marx also anticipated the de-regulation of the world’s capital markets in the
1970s and was convinced that the rapid and unrestricted flow of money across
territorial boundaries would disrupt many societies and exacerbate class
tensions within them. In 1848 he asked, "what is free trade under the
present conditions of society? It is freedom of capital. When you have
overthrown the few national barriers which still restrict the progress of
capital, you will merely have given it complete freedom of action. Š All the
destructive phenomena which unlimited competition gives rise to within one
country, are reproduced in more gigantic proportions on the world market. It
breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie to the extreme point".
Economist
David Hale recently claimed that opposition to free trade in the US is
"heavily influenced by perceptions that voters themselves now view trade
issues in terms of a domestic class struggle, not as promoting exports and
global integration". Marx wouldn’t have been surprised. Although he was
describing a world already being transformed by capitalism in the middle of last
century, Marx’s observations about the power of markets, class tensions and the
emergence of a universal capitalist society resonate even more loudly today.
Scott
Burchill
Lecturer in International Relations
School of Australian and International Studies
Deakin University
221
Burwood Highway
Burwood Victoria 3125
AUSTRALIA
Phone:
(03) 9244 3947 (Burwood Campus)
Fax: (03) 9244 6755 (Burwood Campus)
Email: [email protected]
Website: arts.deakin.edu.au/sais/Staff/burchill
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a critical analysis of current international issues and events visit IR Online
at: http://arts.deakin.edu.au/IR/