Marxist Perspective and Marx
Karl Marx was certainly one of the most important thinkers in human history and the political world. His ideas transcended mountains, plains, cities, and influenced and continue to influence the lives of many people. Reading Marx and Marxism today for the sake of understanding international relations can produce better results than in the past because Marx is a thinker who always remains up to date.
Marx was not a theorist of international relations, he was a philosopher, but nevertheless, Marxism has made many advances in the development of the discipline of International Relations, how people and groups organize each other through the way they interact and produce, as well as through institutions to direct and challenge production.
All of the Marxist concepts are linked with the aim of contributing to what humanity and its environment perceive as good. To understand Marxism, we need to understand the basic elements of Marx’s innovations regarding the history of capitalism and how it works. While explaining social change and development, Marxism, which attaches special importance and weight to the economy among all existing factors, consists above all from an analysis and explanation of the existing and past societies, especially a critique of capitalist society. This past-present analysis is aimed at societies. The dynamics of social change in theories influenced by Marxism is at the center of the analysis. Especially Marx’s concepts of alienation and emancipation have been effective along with the structuralist and criticism theories of international relations.
Marx thought that the main problem in the international system would be capitalist globalization, more specifically the problem between the two classes: the national bourgeoisie and the cosmopolitan proletariat. For Marx, who has an important resource in a better understanding of international processes such as historical materialism, human history has been a struggle to meet material needs and to stand against class domination and exploitation. By emphasizing injustice and inequality, I think Marx played an important role in providing orientation to these two major problems of human society. We are faced with the fact that it is impossible for societies to establish healthy relations with each other in an environment of injustice and inequality. Although Marx’s thoughts are taken from an economic perspective, I think he has many approaches, criticisms and thoughts that will define and develop international relations.
Marxism, which processes the interaction of people and societies internally, is one of the pioneers in the development of the international discipline. Since it is a concept that can be considered critically, the theory, which has achieved a serious success such as always being up-to-date, also stands out as an ideological path with many supporters even today with its theses and defenses.
