PSIR: Write & Rise - 14
Q.Has the Marxist approach to international relations regained relevance in an era of rising global inequality and corporate dominance? (15 Marks)
How to Approach Show what Marxism argues, demonstrate using contemporary evidence it explains today's world better than before, add Gramsci's cultural hegemony as the analytical edge, then acknowledge limits briefly in conclusion.
Answer
After the Cold War, many dismissed Marxist IR as irrelevant communism had collapsed and liberal capitalism appeared triumphant. Yet rising global inequality, unchecked corporate power and recurring financial crises have forced a serious reassessment. The Marxist approach is not only relevant it is increasingly explanatory.
Marxist IR views the international system as fundamentally hierarchical and exploitative. Capitalism drives world politics, wars, alliances and foreign interventions reflect economic interests of dominant states and corporations rather than security concerns alone. Wallerstein's World Systems Theory captures this through core-periphery dynamics: wealthy states extract cheap resources from poor nations while selling expensive manufactured goods in return, structurally locking the Global South into dependency. Neo-colonialism simply replaced direct colonial rule with economic instruments IMF conditionalities and trade agreements enforce core dominance without troops.
The evidence for Marxism's renewed relevance is compelling. Thomas Piketty empirically demonstrated that global capitalism structurally increases inequality confirming Marx's prediction that capitalism concentrates wealth in fewer hands. Corporations like Google, Amazon and Shell now possess resources and political influence comparable to nation-states, shaping trade deals and security arrangements in their own transnational interests. Gramsci's concept of cultural hegemony adds a deeper layer: global capitalism maintains dominance not just through economic control but by making market logic appear natural and inevitable, manufacturing consent for an unequal world order. The 2008 financial crisis and COVID-19 response revealed the same pattern international institutions prioritised saving banks over protecting ordinary workers, confirming Samir Amin's argument that the system protects capital over people.
The Marxist approach has genuinely regained relevance; it explains what liberalism cannot: why prosperity coexists with deepening inequality and why crisis management consistently protects capital over people. Its limitation is determinism but as an analytical lens for understanding corporate dominance and global inequality, it remains indispensable.
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