Materialism and World System Theory Comparison

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Table of Contents

Historical Materialism
World-System Theory
Comparison
Conclusion
Reference List

It is the main purpose of international relations theory is to provide a framework to analyze events in history through a narrowed lens in order to make sense of what happened, why it happened, and what may happen in the future. By analyzing the past, assumptions can be drawn and patterns can be recognized to show what may happen under similar circumstances in the future, and help policy makers better understand the situation and tailor their policies for the best outcome. In recent scholarship, two main theoretical perspectives have emerged and dominated the international relations stage: Realism and Liberalism. However, a third perspective, which predates both, that is worth exploring combines all aspects of humanity: economics, sociology, politics, and anthropology together to form a further reaching, inclusive strategy for analyzing international relations. This overarching framework is Marxism, and from it a few different theoretical perspectives have arisen. Marxism evaluates the human condition at the most fundamental level and concludes that human interaction is defined by the division of labour. Economic power struggles are at the heart of all conflict and reinforce the current world order from both the outside-in and the inside-out. Two separate, yet similar international relations approaches that operate within the Marxist framework are Historical Materialism and World-Systems Theory. This essay will first seek to provide a synopsis of how each theory operates within the international realm. Then, through the application of the 1999 Kosovo war, highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each theory in explaining historical state interaction. And finally, it will analyse the similarities and differences of the two approaches to international relations and examine their relevance to today’s international system.

Historical Materialism

Historical materialism stems directly from the political philosophy of Karl Marx, and therefore perhaps is the international relations theory that identifies closest to the Marxist ideology. By all accounts the theory is best described by a passage in the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859). In it Marx proposes that “economic phenomena are the leading factors, in the long run, in all important social changes” (Miller, 1975). It is this concept that defines how men interact in their relationship with nature:

In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness (Marx, 1904).

The key distinction from this method of thought is not just the means with which men secure resources to meet their needs, but that “the general process of social, political and intellectual life” is conditioned on the mode of production (Marx, 1904). Thus, the conceptualization of the mode of production offers two distinct aspects; first, it incorporates the relationship between the owner of the means of production with the worker class. Second, it establishes a social value that was created and is tied to the object. Historical materialism therefore creates a framework of evaluation wherein all social and cultural aspects of a community are driven by the forces of production.

The difficulty comes when trying to apply the theory advanced by Marx to the international arena. Marx himself never used the label historical materialism and, in fact did little to extend an application of his argument to the field of international relations. The study of international relations is itself a more modern subject, and no scholar focused explicitly on the area prior to 1919. (MacLean, 1988). Nevertheless, Marx did remark in a letter to Annenkov “Is the whole internal organisation of nations, are their international relations, anything but the expression of a given division of labour? And must they not change as the division of labour changes?” (1975). However, given the economic environment in which the theory first developed—that of an ascending bourgeois class faced with “a hostile regime, an omnipotent police, and press censorship” in a capitalist Germany resulting in the revolution of 1848 (Pannekoek, 1942)—an international application requires more contemporary help.

Realism and liberalism have gained popularity in the international relations field because they offer a cohesive theory for how states interact. They operate under a framework of an anarchic international system where states compete for their own interests. Marxist theory however posits that state action is only defined internally by mode of production. By definition this discounts a state’s behaviour in response to another state’s actions. As Kubálková and Cruickshank put it, Marxism only counts the vertical interaction (the mode of production) and not the horizontal interaction (the actions of other states) (1985). Thus the failure of the Marxist framework and the root of the problem is that “the domestic political system acts as the theoretical boundary for the conception of the whole” (Maclean, 1988). Ultimately, “the concepts with which Marx criticized capitalist society can be profitably utilized in a criticism of an international society consisting of separate units, whatever their ‘internal structure’” (Berki, 1971).

The answer to this apparent lapse is through the lens of property rights. The clearest means of circumventing the issue of state interaction is to dismiss the idea of borders. Teschke, in a way, does this by pulling through one of the critical arguments of the Marxist philosophy: that objects gain value in their interaction with the production system. According to Marx, commodities are “nothing but the definite social relation between men themselves which assumes here, for them, the fantastic form of a relation between things…inseparable from the production of commodities” (1904). The crux of historical materialism, which itself is not self-evident to men, is that the value of commodities stems not from the object itself, but rather the value is social and therefore is not natural. Thus, the answer lies in the “study [of] commodity fetishism as a societal condition in which men systematically treat objects as having value ‘in themselves’ rather than being aware of the socially necessary labour time embodied in the commodity” (Wilhelm, 2010).

The property rights approach stems from analysis of pre-capitalist societies, wherein a natural desire of the ruling elite was to acquire more land for their personal reproduction. It stemmed from the monarch at the top of the ruling class and “was not only domestically rapacious, it also produced a structurally aggressive, predatory and expansive foreign policy” (Teschke, 2002). Moreover, this type of behaviour gives historical materialists a means of explaining the prominence of wars in pre-capitalist societies. But the analysis can be taken further yet: “property relations explain not only variations in political regimes and geopolitical systems, they generate historically bounded and antagonistic strategies of action within and between political actors that govern international relations” (Teschke, 2002). Thus while upholding an international system that is anarchic, it does not necessitate a balance of powers approach, but instead an “equilibrium through elimination.”

Teschke’s analysis is directly in line with traditional Marxist thinking, however it still fails to account for the horizontal interaction of states, that is states experiencing external influences, even at the most fundamental level. Historical materialists maintain that at the fundamental level all motivations are economic in nature. However, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was forced to take International Monetary Fund loans due to “a decade long struggle to resolve a foreign debt crisis and restore liquidity and growth to its import-dependent economy” (Woodward, 2000). The IMF gave the loan when it was evident that the crisis was due largely to external shocks to the economy.

Thus, though the historical materialist framework can only provide a limited explanation for a major factor of instability in Yugoslavia prior to the war, poor economic performance resulted in igniting the class struggles that Marxist philosophy would have predicted as unemployment rose and consumption decreased. On the other hand both the root of the problem and the ‘solution’ came from a more sophisticated economic system than the framework could account for. Moreover, Slovenia strongly opposed the reform, owing to the fact that they were “the wealthiest and largest earner of foreign exchange.” (Woodward, 2000).

At the macro level, historical materialists can claim some solvency for their theory, nonetheless. Accepting the IMF loan required that each of the states relinquish control over monetary policy and foreign exchange to the National Bank in Belgrade. In the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Marx states

At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense super-structure. (1904)

Though perhaps unable to account for all aspects of the international economy, Marxists theory does prove accurate for the social effects of economic downturn.

The most compelling evidence for the historical materialist analysis of international relations comes from a secondary cause of the economic downturn, and perhaps the most significant one leading up to the war in Kosovo. Ethnic tensions in SFR Yugoslavia ran highest just before (and many argue after as well) (Chomsky, 2001) NATO forces intervened in Kosovo. In fact, the main, or most politicized, reason for NATO intervention was the ethnic cleansing, or genocide reportedly perpetrated by the Kosovo Albanians. Leading up to the outbreak of violence were signals of what would otherwise be described as a class struggle. With tough economic conditions in Kosovo, and unemployment high, finding work was extremely difficult. Ethnic divides grew as Albanian employers gave preference to Albanians when hiring and Serbs gave preference to other Serbs. With an 80% majority however, Serbs found it nearly impossible to get work. Considering that Kosovo was already the poorest states in Yugoslavia emigration from Kosovo by Serbs increased dramatically.

Despite being primarily an economic problem—triple-digit inflation and an out of control trade deficit—ethnic tensions were exacerbated. Again turning to the foundation of historical materialism, Marx argued

In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production (1904).

The evidence seems fairly solid for the historical materialist school on this question. As Wilhelm stated, that the value of the object is social and not natural is not apparent to men. Thus while the underlying cause of conflict is economic, the appearance put on by the capitalist mode of production is legal, political or religious.

World-System Theory

Owing the majority of the scholarship to Immanuel Wallerstein, the world-system theory of international relations follows in the paths of several other theories of power relations, including the Annales school, Marx, and dependence theory. Wallerstein, however, set out to create a “clear conceptual break with the theories of ‘modernization’ and thus provide a new theoretical paradigm to guide our investigations of the emergence and development of capitalism, industrialism, and national states” (Skocpol, 1977). In doing so the theory of world-systems has provided a theoretical framework for the evaluation of the capitalist world economy. Wallerstein defines a world-system as

a social system, one that has boundaries, structures, member groups, rules of legitimation, and coherence. Its life is made up of the conflicting forces which hold it together by tension and tear it apart as each group seeks eternally to remold it to its advantage. It has the characteristics of an organism, in that it has a life-span over which its characteristics change in some respects and remain stable in others. One can define its structures as being at different times strong or weak in terms of the internal logic of its functioning (2004).

This creates a framework for evaluation that is extremely dynamic and versatile where world systems are the unit of analysis, rather than individual nation-states.

The definition of a ‘world-system’ does not seem, in itself, a wholly remarkable discovery. Most international relations theories support, at least implicitly, the idea that there is some form of order operating on the international scene that governs how states interact. The innovation of the world-system theory however, is to develop a system perspective that “posits the existence of a much more integrated and interdetermined entity with a logic and structure it own” as opposed to a “set of relationships among relatively separate entities (hence the term international)” (Chase-Dunn, 1979).

The main structures of the world-system is “a power hierarchy between core and periphery in which powerful and wealthy ‘core’ societies dominate and exploit weak and poor peripheral societies” (Martinez-Vela, 2010). The core is composed of the most advanced and developed countries. They are able to use their status to subordinate other countries, whose resources they require for manufacturing goods. They also have a trade advantage, as they can force other peripheral societies into trade agreements that are most favorable to the core country. The peripheral countries are those that have resources, but lack the means of production to utilize them. They typically employ coercive labor practices and have ineffective or corrupt governments. As a result the core countries is able to take advantage of the peripheral, creating an unequal exchange. This system tends to lock the countries into their given positions in the world-system. The semi-peripheral countries are those that both dominate and are dominated. They represent either former core countries in decline, or former periphery states on the rise.

While the interaction of these regions constitutes a “power hierarchy,” the definition of these regions is bounded by the Marxist division of labor. The boundaries are based in the exchange of fundamental commodities: “High-wage goods are produced in the core of the system and low-wage goods are produced on its periphery” (Chase-Dunn, 1979). This basic form is then reproduced throughout the different levels of the system, in order to create a system that is highly flexible.

One of the most attractive aspects of the world-system theory is a means of combining the Marxist theory of class-struggle with the more modern realist theories of international relations. Wallerstein does this by articulating a global capitalist system framework in which there is a global class struggle between the core regions and the periphery. By enlarging the scale, the theory uses nation-states as the variables in the system, which means the theory can account for interactions on the international level. Thus, imperialism is “the domination of weak peripheral regions by strong core states. Hegemony refers to the existence of one core state temporarily outstripping the rest” (Martinez-Vela, 2010).

In order to make the world-system theory holistic, Wallerstein defines two different forms of world-systems. World empires define stages in history when a single state entity has governed the world and in which that state defines the territorial division of labor. Such was the case for the Roman and the Chinese empires. The second world-system is a world-economy. A world-economy defines the current state of international affairs and is marked by a division of labor which is politically organized into a multipolar international system where states are unequal and compete between each other. The key point for world-system theorists is that, while the capitalist world-economy resembles the international system that is theorized by international relations scholars, the world-system approach presupposes that relations themselves are the result of “capital accumulation and class formation in the context of the hierarchical core-periphery division of labor” (Chase-Dunn, 1979).

One strength of the world-systems theory is its ability to explain power relations. In defining the nation-state as the actor, the theory is able to account for interactions with international organizations. Historical materialism has a much more difficult time doing this because there are typically fewer actors involved in such interactions. Decisions made by states working with international bodies are usually made by a few top political leaders. In the instance of Kosovo, unilateral action by the United States resulting in numerous political benefits. First, it set the stage for the U.S. to be the key driver of NATO. While already the world superpower with the most advanced military in the world, strong-arming NATO troops into Kosovo would set a precedent that would make it more difficult for other allies to disregard in the future.

Second, not only were NATO members pulled into Kosovo, but they were done so for the defence of a non-NATO member. The NATO treaty was established explicitly for the purpose and cooperative protection of the allies, however the NATO intervention in Kosovo constituted the first humanitarian war. Moreover, intervention in Kosovo just served to verify what had already been established: that NATO could serve as a moderator of conflicts in western Europe. The intervention in Bosnia in 1992 set the precedent for the intervention in 1999.

Third, NATO forces entered Kosovo without the approval of the United Nations Security Counsel. Permanent members with ties to Yugoslavia, namely Russia, signalled that they would oppose any resolution that came before the Security Counsel. The U.N. security counsel is charged with ensuring and maintaining international peace and security. By entering into a ‘humanitarian’ war without their approval the U.S. was again setting a precedent for future foreign involvement regardless of U.N. approval.

The world-system theory can be viewed as a ladder, with each region or country trying to get as high on the ladder as possible. Near the top of the ladder are the core countries, the highest core country can be defined as the world hegemon. States will naturally attempt to reach this position in order to have the most favourable relations with other countries, i.e. the greatest trade advantages. The world-system theory gives the best explanation of U.S. action toward international bodies during the Kosovo war, essentially reinvesting in its dominance.

Wallerstein’s theory specifically articulates causality for this kind of behaviour given the extent to which direct economic intervention by states is a matter of normal means within the capitalist mode of production. Because the world market is anarchic and not governed by any one entity, nations use this as an arena of class struggle between the core and periphery regions. As a result core states can take on the role of “liberal caretaker states” because their significant “competitive advantage in efficient and profitable production of high-wage good” (Chase-Dunn, 1979) allows them to extend power less directly and less expensively.

Even if taken on face value, a humanitarian war can provide the U.S. with significant benefits. As a core country and the world hegemon, the U.S. will garner influence through imperialist actions. By dominating weaker periphery nations it instils its position in a couple of ways. First, a humanitarian war can earn soft power. There is a distinction between hard as soft power. Soft power is the ability to persuade or coerce another nation or entity to act according to its will. In acting to stop genocide, the United States appears morally superior on the international scene and thus gains political capital with other nations that purport to share similar values. Additionally, it gives the nation credibility when trying to influence other nations that would commit equally morally unacceptable actions. For instance, the U.S. criticising China for violations of human rights.

Soft power can also allow nations to influence public support when government or ruling officials are unwilling to compromise. When U.S. entered Kosovo they were met with Albanian civilians lining the streets waving flowers. This can be especially powerful in democratic nations where government officials are extremely susceptible to public opinion.

Second, dominating weaker periphery nations also demonstrates hard power, or military might. In order to continue to be a force to be reckoned with on the international stage the U.S. will repeatedly demonstrate its military strength to warn other nations of its willingness to use force. This resolve contributed to Slobodan Milosevic’s decision to accept the conditions offered by a Finnish-Russian negotiating team attempting to end the conflict after NATO presence intensified in Kosovo.

Finally, we must look at economic gains that the U.S. stood to grow from the invasion of Kosovo. While historical materialist have held a monopoly on the idea that men act in accordance with their economic interests in relation to the division of labour relationships, Wallerstein has taken this specific application one step further. Specifically, Wallerstein’s perspective “suggests that states most often directly promote the economic interests of the class or classes which control them, that they even sometimes act as firms engaging in commodity production for the world market” (Chase-Dunn, 1979). This is specifically applicable in the case of state-run industries and for democratic state, lobbies.

There have been speculations that the United States was uniquely interested in seeing the break up of the Yugoslav states. Many argue that several major powers in the world were interested in the collapse: Germany for Slovenia and Croatia, the two wealthiest countries in the form Yugoslav states. Allies in World War II, rekindling a relationship with the two semi-peripherals would allow Germany a greater trade advantage and improve its trade deficit.

On the other hand, the U.S. could increase relations with Bosnia, Serbia and the former Socialist Republic of Macedonia. The three, in addition to the Middle East where the U.S. had already been engaged, contained one of the only means routes from east to west and through the Balkan Mountains north to south. This means that the preferred route for the transportation of oil from the Caspian Sea would be under U.S. influence. While the theory is substantially unsupported by hard evidence, the nature of the accusation would presume that this would be the case. Additionally, this would be far from the first time that the U.S. was accused of militarily entering another nation to secure oil rights.

Comparison

Wallerstein’s world-system theory is most specifically an international relations theory. Because Marx’s theory of historical materialism was not specifically a theory of international relations until the world of contemporary scholars expanded the work to fit a more dynamic and sophisticated system of state interaction, its applications can seem more strained that a theory designed specifically for capturing those same qualities. Nonetheless, the application of Marx’s theory of division of labour to the international arena by authors like Teschke have proven that it is still an explanatory theory. Moreover, the fact that the world-system theory also relies on the division of labour indicates that the theory is still viable at the community level, and can be extended to the international level.

Aside from the difficulties that historical materialism has accounting for some of the more complex means of external systems—namely sophisticated financial regimes and relations with international organizations or bodies—it is still a very accurate predictor of the outcomes of ‘transformations,’ as evidenced by its application to the Kosovo War.

Likewise, the world-system theory does have some weaknesses as well. However, because when conceptualizing the theory Wallerstein was envisioning a theory that would explain international relations better, the world-system theory has a much easier time fitting state action into the framework it sets up. Nevertheless, while it is more comprehensive, it suffers from the hindsight problem even more than historical materialism does. That is to say, that when looking at history through the lens of the world-systems theory it is very clear how international relations get played out. However, when you turn the world-systems theory on the international scene today, it offers very few tools and mechanisms for predicting future action. It suffers from the problem that it is too generalized about the interactions between nations, but requires extremely specific information in order to make assessments at the micro level.

The explanatory power of the theory is evident from its application to the Kosovo war, and therefore will continue to be a useful framework for thinking about international relations. Moreover, with future scholarship working to refine both of the theories even more and create a more specific formulation for international actors, improvements in both of the theories should only be a matter of time.

Conclusion

Because the focus of international relations theory is to be able to analyse state actions within a specified framework in order to define how and why certain event occurred, both of the theories studied here can be said to have intrinsic value to the study of international relations. By providing a predictive framework where state action can be examined and it’s the origins of its motivation found, policymakers are better able to focus their policy to repeat mistakes made in the future.

However, as shown by the analysis in this paper, specifically in relation to Kosovo, no theory of international relation provides with 100% certainty a predictive framework of human action. And often, even if a clear map of decisions that lead to a certain point can be seen when studying the past, that same path will be lost in a tangle of other possibilities when looking forward at it. Moreover, theories of international relations only provide a framework within which a state will be said to act. While this can make it easier for policymakers to base their decisions on a perceived course of action, it can also mean the opposite: greater uncertainty.

A recently declassified report indicated the U.S. intelligence analysts predicted the fall of Yugoslavia. The report, written in 1990, stated that the Balkan country “will cease to function as a federal state within one year. It will probably dissolve in two” (Associated Press, 2006). Ethnic clashes in Yugoslavia started the next year, the U.S. intervened in Bosnia in 1992 and by the end of the decade Yugoslavia had broken into six independent states. Even with this predictive analysis, tens of thousands of people lost their lives in the conflict leading up to and during the Kosovo War.

Reference List

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Woodward, S. (2000) Costly Disinterest: Missed Opportunities for Preventive Diplomacy in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1985–1991. Ed. Bruce Jentleson. Opportunities Missed, Opportunities Seized. NewYork: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

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