Marxism

1. Marxism By: Merdan Atdayev

2. Defining Marxism • Transformation of ‘common sense’ into ‘good sense’ • Marxism analyzes how capitalism operates at social, economic and political levels and thereby affects and is affected by the role of the state, international relations, spatial relations and culture • Based on foundationalist ontology; epistemology of Marxism seeks to discover the essence of capital as opposed to its appearance • Epistemologically Marxism seeks the empirical excavation of reality based through close attention to history and materialism, to discover between social, economic and political life

3. ‘The history of all hitherto existing society has been the history of class struggle’ (Marx and Engels) Capitalism arises within a system of production that already exists, namely feudalism; capitalism becomes the new system of class exploitation Capitalism as a necessary stepping stone to better future?! Definition of ‘class struggle?!’ From Communist Manifesto to No Logo

4. The Inevitable Revolution?! • Capitalism heightened exploitation • Capitalism- possibility for consciousness of the working class, thus revolution

5. Persisting problems in Marxism • The idea that capitalism is criticized to over production and crises introduced a sense of automaticity to this model • The nation state as ‘the Executive Committee managing the affairs of the bourgeoisie’ • The Communist Manifesto and No Logo encourage workers to cooperate internationally rather than compete with each other nationally

6. Contemporary Marxist Perspectives • Political Economy • Nationalism • State formation • Nation state • Neo-Gramscian approach • World System Theory • Space • Political culture

7. Marxism and International Relations • Marxism has not been able to provide a ‘useful’ explanation of the North-South divide in international relations while leaving other problems untouched (Halliday, 1994). • World System Theory of Immanuel Wallerstein • Core • Periphery • Semi-Periphery

8. Contemporary Marxist Analysis • Marxist analysis of the war in Iraq, 2003 - The war was fought by monopoly capital, using national (and private) armies to ensure vital oil supplies while reordering the hierarchy of finance among nations

9. Contemporary Marxist Analysis • The financial crisis, 2008-2009 -proneness of capitalism to shocks and crises Mini-revival of Keynesianism through nationalization and state subsidies

10. Marxism Approaches to comparing nations, states, spaces and cultures • Nations and States: The formation of nation states has been analyzed as a result of internal class struggle with different outcomes nationally Moore: ‘Who says bourgeoisie says democracy’ Direct confrontation to Marx’s prediction that only the most industrialized nations with a strong proletariat would achieve revolution

11. Spatial politics • According to Marxist theory, state sovereignty represents a claim to all activities within territorial space. • Contest between state sovereignty and capitalism as well as cooperation • The importance of cities from economic, political, social perspective

12. Political Culture • - practices and reflections developed through the forms of music, art, film, literature • - analyzing the practices and reflections of ordinary people with the mentioned forms of culture. In addition, examination of how people converse, dress, eat and reflect on their lives Marxist definition: • Culture as a product for global and national markets • ‘Mechanical reproduction’ of culture

13. Sources • Marsh, David, and Gerry Stoker. Theory and Methods in Political Science. 3rd ed. 2010. pg 136-155