How Capitalism Intertwined the World

By Sofia Shamsunahar 

When I first picked up the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel in my first year of university, I wasn’t expecting to have the writing completely change how I viewed the world. Reading the manifesto was like putting on a pair of contact lenses for the first time: the world seemed awfully clearer. The manifesto made me aware of how internatio

nal system of the world was incredibly unjust because of capitalism. I view neoliberalism as being born from capitalism, as it explains why capitalism has spread internationally. Analyzing the Communist Manifesto, I will describe how Marxist explain international relations by how they view countries as monetary values that are driven by accumulating profit, and explain how capitalism has globalized the world whilst creating an international hierarchy.

The unjustness dates back to the time of colonization. When European countries colonized “developing” countries, they stunted the developmental progress of those countries. During the 18^th and 19^th century, European countries became stronger and richer through industrialization. By taking advantage of countries’ raw materials, the colonized countries failed to be industrialized[1]. For instance, the colonizers expected the colonized to buy their products, and replace their systems of transaction, like bartering, with a capitalist one[2]. In addition, natives were under threat if they chose to sell their indigenous things over buying the colonizer’s products, which made the colonized not able to develop producing their own goods and dependent on the colonizers[3]. This is results to why countries have an import-export industry[4].

The impact that colonialism has had on developing countries are seen till today. The Communist Manifesto explains that countries are forced into competing into the international economic market in order to survive. This is because neoliberalism has globalized the world: it has influenced countries to aim to have a comparative advantage, which is the idea that mutual gains can be realised when nations specialise in producing those goods in the which their opportunity cost is lowest[5].  Developing countries are forced to compete into the international market because of neoliberalism, as neoliberalism makes countries reliant on external countries if they have an export-based economy[6]. Or, because countries are forced to specialize in a few industries due to comparative advantage, then they rely on international consumers to buy their goods.

However, because countries are forced to compete in the international economic market and have comparative advantage in order to survive, this leads to countries exploiting their own people by labor, and their own land[7]. Why? Because countries need to provide cheap labor and raw materials in order to bring the cost of production down, to achieve a comparative advantage. This leads to an international hierarchy created by capitalism, as countries cannot develop themselves economically, politically and socially if they are forced to exploit their people and their land in order to compete[8]. The countries who are developed take advantage of the cheap products of the countries trying to win comparative advantage, which leads to the developed countries continuing to be ahead of developing countries economically. This idea is similar to how the bourgeoisie benefit from capitalism by exploiting the proletariat.

How has the Communist Manifesto influence international theory? As the manifesto explains, all relationships in the capitalist world becomes monetary. As Marx and Engel’s write, “the bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science into its paid wage labourers”. As everyone needs money to survive in the capitalist world, each job is reduced to a monetary value as, because accumulating profit is the goal of capitalist, jobs are judged and valued based on monetary value. It’s why people are impressed if one is lawyer, because they earn a large amount in comparison to other jobs, and dehumanize those who earn small amounts, such as janitors. Marx even states that the “bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and reduced the family relation to a mere money relation”, explaining that even the loving and biological ties in a family are being converted to monetary relationships due to capitalism. As all relationships become reduced to monetary value due to capitalism, it implies that the relationship which countries have with each other is reduced to monetary value. For instance, accumulating profit is the reason why countries choose to interact with certain countries, become allies with certain countries and why some countries feel threatened by others. Marxist would view international relations by viewing countries to have the goal of accumulating the most profit.

The want of accumulating profit is the reason why there is an international hierarchy created, where some countries are considered superior to other countries[9]. Capitalism has created this hierarchy, as Marxist see the history of the world as a story of class struggles[10]. It is the story of the freeman and the slave, the lord and the serf, and the oppressor and the oppressed. It has been a constant fight between the two parties, which either ended in a revolution or “in the common ruin of the contending class”[11]. The Marxists believe that more and more that society is splitting up into two parties: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat[12].

According to Marx and Engel’s, capitalism is the reason for globalization. “The East-Indians and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development” they write[13]. This quote explains that trading with colonies created a relationship between countries, that made them exchange goods, which made them interdependent. The manifesto claims that the need of “constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere”[14]. Capitalism requires an international market, that needs to expand to survive, which is how capitalism has made the world globalized. As neoliberalism influences countries to specialize in industries they are experts in, it forces countries to join the international market, which is why the international market must touch all surfaces of the global as economies become interdependent.

By having countries more connected through their economies, the world becomes more globalized. Economies being interwoven with each other is the reason why transnational companies are produce and thrived. One can argue that colonisation is the reason why countries are intertwined, as the colonizers have left their imprints in the colonized through ideology, infrastructure, political systems and a change in the historical narrative, however the reason why countries continue to interact with each other, in a Marxist point of view, is because capitalism has forced countries to compete against each other but also rely on each other to survive[15]. Here, rewriting Machiavelli’s famous words, money is power. Money is what makes one superior to another, what makes one be depended on, and is what helps one to have influence in the political sphere.

To illustrate how money is equivalent to power, and taking the idea born in the second wave feminism where “the personal is political, meaning personal experiences link to larger political structures[16], women can be financially dependent on men in relationships due to how society is structured. For instance, pulling from Doreen Massey’s spatial division of labor, women are expected to complete unpaid labor, such as taking care of the home and the family, in order to support the men who must complete jobs in order to survive in the capitalist world[17]. We can see this being evident with how governments justified the gender pay gap, where women’s skills are often undervalued[18]. We also know women are financially reliant on men, because of the number of how women choose to stay in abusive relationships due to being financially dependent on men[19].

Marx and Engel explain the impacts of capitalism. It has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, and idyllic relations, but giving the bourgeoisie “the upper hand”[20]. It has changed social hierarchies by “pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors,” and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, then callous ‘cash payment’”[21]. This furthers the idea of how capitalism has influenced international politics by creating an international hierarchy, by giving the more economically progressive countries the upper hand. A hierarchy based on political or social progression no longer exists, but is replaced with how wealthy a country is. For instance, during the Cold War the United States thought they were politically superior than other countries for having a democracy, which is the reason why they thought it was justifiable that they became involved in countries who were “under threat” of communism. In reality, because capitalism functions on exploitation which goes against communism, communism was a threat to how capitalism functioned, which was a threat to the US position of power.

Marx and Engel explains that capitalism has “drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervours”, meaning that monetary values have triumphed religious values[22]. In terms of international relations, capitalism influences countries to interact for economic reasons, and not religious values. To illustrate, we can draw upon Max Weber’s theory about the Protestant ethic being intertwined by the spirit of capitalism[23]. In Europe, you can see that the Catholic countries are heavily in debt: Italy, Spain and Portugal. In contrast, the Protestant countries such as Germany and Scandinavia are financially good. Nowadays, these countries are known for their financial status and not religion.

Capitalism has brought Free Trade into the world. Marx and Engel write that capitalism has “resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom – Free Trade”[24]. To Marxist, Free Trade is “naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation” that is “veiled by religious and political illusions”[25]. Capitalism has influenced international relations by justifying exploitation, slapping a “that’s just the reality of the world” on it to make it acceptable.

Another way capitalism has influenced international relations, is that it has centralized powers to cities. As the manifesto explains, the bourgeoisie has “subjected the country to the rule of the towns”, which is why “enormous cities” have been created, and has “greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural”[26]. The writers consider this a positive, as shifting the growth to urban settings has “rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life”[27]. The result is that it’s made countries dependent on their towns, and “made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on civilised ones”[28]. As a result, capitalism has shifted the political and socialist structure of countries by increasing the power of urban settings. This has influenced international relations by converting cities to the local-global, meaning they are communicators to international affairs. Touching on Barney Wharf’s idea of “space-time compression”[29] where the time and distance in the world is reducing due to technology, putting more emphasis on cities have compressed the world on a global scale. Now it is easier to travel from major city to city, and communicate between cities[30]. Here, Marxist believes that capitalism has made countries more civilized by taking them from rural settings and putting them in urban settings.

Capitalism has impacted international relations by centralizing power on cities. “The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralised the means of production, and has concentrated property in few hands”[31]. By having a few monopolize the economy, meaning monopolising power, this has centralized more people together who are dependent on that power. A consequence of capitalism is political centralisation, as “loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, one government”, because the nation is reliant on the means of production to survive.

Lastly, Marxist believe that capitalism is destructing the world because the economic system is self-destructive by causing overproduction. “The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further development of the conditions of the conditions of bourgeois property”[32], which means overproduction causes disorder in the bourgeois society. This is why the bourgeois is forced to find new markets and exploit the older markets even more. This continues to pave an “more extensive and more destructive crisis”[33].

With a Marxist view on international relation theory: Capitalism has reduced countries to monetary values, and is the drive behind the decisions that countries make. Capitalism has introduced neoliberalism into the world, which has forced countries to specialize in industries which leads them to being dependent on each other. This dependency has resulted to globalization, compressing the time and distance in the world. Having money be power has created an international hierarchal system, which allows the superior countries to exploit the inferior countries, who can never catch up economically to those ahead of them. Within nations, capitalism has centralized and monopolized power and civilized those in existing in the rural.

The Communist Manifesto changed how I viewed the world, because it made me begin to see how there was an international structure created by capitalism that was making countries into hegemonies and continuing to marginalize countries. It felt like capitalism was an uncontrollable tornado that was forcefully drawing all countries in, similarly to how countries are forced to partake in the international market to survive, and keeping them in until they were destroyed: until their people were exploited till suffering and their lands were stripped bare from natural resources. Which is why it is important to see international theory from a Marxist lens, as it will effectively explain why countries behave the way they do and find efficient solutions before countries suffer extreme consequences of capitalism.

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Arnot, Chris. “Protest v. Catholic: which countries are more successful?”. The Guardian, 2011

 

Bosch, Anita. “Women’s Pay: Equal Pay for Equal Value”. ResearchGate, 2015

 

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[1] Ali, Fro. “What Impact Did Colonialism Have on Development on the Developing World”. Academic

[2] Sharma, Amibika, Gupta, Tanu. “The Making of the Third World: Impact of Colonization”. Research Gate, 2015.

[3] Sharma, Amibika, Gupta, Tanu. “The Making of the Third World: Impact of Colonization”. Research Gate, 2015.

[4] Eagleton-Pierce, Matthew. “Neoliberal: The Key Concepts”. Routeledge, 2016

 

[5] Eagleton-Pierce, Matthew. “Neoliberal: The Key Concepts”. Routeledge, 2016

[6] Eagleton-Pierce, Matthew. “Neoliberal: The Key Concepts”. Routeledge, 2016

[7] Massey, Doreen. “Spatial Division of Labour: Social Structures and the Geography of Production”. Macmillian, 1984

[8] Massey, Doreen. “Spatial Division of Labour: Social Structures and the Geography of Production”. Macmillian, 1984

[9] Massey, Doreen. “Spatial Division of Labour: Social Structures and the Geography of Production”. Macmillian, 1984

[10] Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich. “The Communist Manifesto”. Harmondsworth, 1985

[11] Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich. “The Communist Manifesto”. Harmondsworth, 1985

[13] Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich. “The Communist Manifesto”. Harmondsworth, 1985

[14] Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich. “The Communist Manifesto”. Harmondsworth, 1985

[15] Eagleton-Pierce, Matthew. “Neoliberal: The Key Concepts”. Routeledge, 2016

[16] Rogan, Frances, Budgeon, Shelley. “The Personal is Political: Assessing Feminist Fundamentals in the Digital Age”. University of Birmingham, 2018

[17] Massey, Doreen. “Spatial Division of Labour: Social Structures and the Geography of Production”. Macmillian, 1984

[18] Bosch, Anita. “Women’s Pay: Equal Pay for Equal Value”. ResearchGate, 2015

[19] Conner, Dana Harrington. “Financial Freedom: Women, Money, Domestic Abuse”. William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law, 2014

[20] Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich. “The Communist Manifesto”. Harmondsworth, 1985

[21] Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich. “The Communist Manifesto”. Harmondsworth, 1985

[22] Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich. “The Communist Manifesto”. Harmondsworth, 1985

[23] Arnot, Chris. “Protest v. Catholic: which countries are more successful?”. The Guardian, 2011

[24] Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich. “The Communist Manifesto”. Harmondsworth, 1985

[25] Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich. “The Communist Manifesto”. Harmondsworth, 1985

[26] Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich. “The Communist Manifesto”. Harmondsworth, 1985

[27] Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich. “The Communist Manifesto”. Harmondsworth, 1985

[28] Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich. “The Communist Manifesto”. Harmondsworth, 1985

[29] Warf, Barney. “Time-Space Compression”. Taylor & Francis Group, 2008

[30] Warf, Barney. “Time-Space Compression”. Taylor & Francis Group, 2008

[31] Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich. “The Communist Manifesto”. Harmondsworth, 1985

[32] Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich. “The Communist Manifesto”. Harmondsworth, 1985

[33] Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich. “The Communist Manifesto”. Harmondsworth, 1985