Marxism and Neo-Marxism

After reading this chapter you will be able to:

Gain clarity on the insights of Marxism which have informed neo-Marxist contributions to the inter-paradigm debate

Provide an analysis of what neo-Marxism has to say about IR and what its weaknesses are

Use neo-Marxism as a critique of both Realism and Liberalism

See how neo-Marxism provided a catalyst to a huge variety of subsequent critical interventions in IR theory

Introductory box: Marxism today

Karl Marx was influenced at first at a human level and then in terms of his writing by the conditions of the working class in the nineteenth century. He experienced this first in Paris and then in Victorian England. The experience of the working class was of poverty, to a lesser or greater extent. It was about poorly paid, back-breaking and insecure labour often in appalling and unsafe conditions. Unemployment was an ever-present threat as were disease, disablement and death. The working classes lived in poor and overcrowded housing. Although Marxism has never dominated British politics, always being at best an influential critique, much action has been taken over the years to address these conditions. Legislation has led to social security, free health services, employment legislation and aspirations of all governments that all its citizens should enjoy a reasonable standard of living. As students of international relations what might be most significant is how many of the descriptions of life in Victorian England could now be said to apply to life in present day Sierra Leone or Bangladesh or Haiti or parts of the former Soviet Union — and many other countries or regions within them. This is one reason why we should start with the idea that, even after the end of the Cold War (the struggle between capitalism and communism, between the USA and the USSR, that occurred between roughly 1950 and 1990), Marxism still has relevance to students of international relations today.