Marxism as critical theory

1. The collapse of the Soviet Union – dead of Marxism as political theory and practice
2. Marxism as a critique of realism
3. How did capitalism become the dominant system of production worldwide – is
capitalism leading to its own destruction
4. Focus on class instead of nationalism

Main ideas:

1. Human emancipation – end of alienation, exploitation and estrangement

2. Secularization of society
3. Mode of production
4. Principle form of conflict is class struggle, thus the political revolution and
technological innovation creates development and social change
5. Relations between states are secondary compared to systems of production
6. The modern international system and globalization could be understood within the
practices hegemony and inequality

These two things contributed to the development of the theory of world system analysis of
Wallerstein.

World system theory, founded and developed by Immanuel Wallerstein, continues Marx's
original vision of modern economy as a zero-sum game based on exploitation. Ignoring
convincing criticism of Marx's economics, Wallerstein broadens spatial confines of the
applicability of Marxist economics to include the whole world. Imaginatively combining
Marxist and postmodernist frames of reference, Wallerstein constructs a future economic and
social system reminiscent of a classical Marxist utopia. This endeavor, which Wallerstein
calls "utopistics," provides a logical conclusion to world system theory, as it finalizes a
practice of defending Marxian analysis of the past and the present in terms of an imagined
future.

Four main issues contributed to development of world system analysis 1945-1970.

1. The concept of the core-periphery developed by ECLA – it is developed by the

scholars who studied about the 3rd world in 1950s – International trade is not trade
between equals – unequal exchange. This core-periphery debates leads to Dependency
theory – a lot of cooperation, states and inter-states organizations that helped the
development of the periphery actually make the states dependent by the core
2. Marx concept on the “Asiatic mode of production” – it was in the Soviet Union and
the communists party around the world – Asiatic mode of production describes large
bureaucratic and autocratic empires, that had grown up historically (China and India).
Is the Soviet Union in that mode of production or not – that was the debate.
3. Historical debate about the transition from feudalism to capitalism – it was inspired by
the Cold War, the root of the debate was what caused the transition from feudalism to
capitalism. Dobb claimed that factors that caused capitalism were internal to the states
(England). The other side of the debate says that the external factors were much more
important, like trade flows and class relations.
4. Debate about the total history – the triumph of Annales school – the Annales school
believed that the history should be total and this means it should present an integrated
picture of the historical development in all social areas

1. The world economy has always been capitalist

- World economy includes the whole world within which there is a division of labour,
exchange of goods and flows of capital and labour. A defining feature is that world
economy is never bounded by unitary political structure; it doesn’t depend on culture,
language, religion etc. However, it creates common cultural patterns and may lead to
certain homogeneity. McDonalds!
- The thing that is unique in the modern capitalism, according to Wallerstein, is the
endless accumulation of capital – people and companies accumulate capital in order to
accumulate more capital
2. World economy and capitalist system always go together: because there is no united
political structure or culture, the only thing that keeps world economy together is
capitalism. Capitalism cannot exist in other frame, except the world economy. The
first reason of this is because the capitalists always need new and new markets. The
second is: they need multiplicity of states, so they can gain all advantages.

1. Unequal exchange in the market: the distribution of companies horizontally and

vertically divides production into core products and periphery products. The core
products are the profitable ones and they are related to the degree of monopolization.
The periphery products serve competitive function. The competitive products are in
weaker position than the core production, thus there is a constant flow of surplus value
from the peripheral to the core products (Unequal exchange).
2. The degree of monopoly depends on the patronage of strong states. Thus, core
production is located in the strong states and since they are not many strong states all
core processes are located in this several states. On the other hand, peripheral
processes are usually spread among a large number of countries. This is what we call
core and peripheral states but it is a relationship between production processes.
Countries that have even number of core and periphery processes are semi-peripheral.
3. Core processes will become peripheral processes and vice versa. This shift has no
effect on the structure of the system. There always new core processes to replace those
ones which become more competitive.
4. The role of each state in the international level depends on the production processes of
core and periphery within it. The strong states are much more influential than the weak
ones. The strong ones protect their monopolies and the weak ones are usually unable
to change the structure, so they accept whatever. The semi-peripheral states are in the
most difficult position. They should avoid going back to periphery and try to get in the
core. They receive pressure from the core and at the same time put pressure on the
periphery. They often have aggressive or protectionist policies.