The Manifesto and Globalization

Abstract

The Communist Manifesto anticipated the present process of globalization, and the subsequent theory of imperialism provides a more direct theoretical foundation for understanding it than the theories associated with Keynesianism, which approach economic problems in purely national terms. This article' emphasizes the relationship between the incipient globalization of the productive process and the laws of capitalist development, questioning the apologetic neoliberal view of globalization. It links the transformation of the division of the labor process, new forms of investment, mergers, and technological changes to an increase in the internationalization of production and underscores how this process contributes to increasing exploitation, unemployment, and poverty. It points to the difficulty of analyzing globalization from a purely commercial or financial perspective. In addition, it examines the problems associated not only with a dogmatic denial of the new phenomenon but also with characterizing it exclusively in political terms. It concludes by emphasizing the continuing relevance of the Manifesto for the construction of a socialist project based on the politics of working-class internationalism. The paragraphs of the Communist Manifesto devoted to the worldwide expansion of capitalism continue to impress commentators on the text. Marx and Engels's (1967) 1848 descriptions of the creation of a world market, economic cosmopolitanism, the universal extension of commercial rules, and the destruction of tariff barriers have a surprisingly contemporary ring to them. The Manifesto anticipated the international character of accumulation with the same insight as Capital presaged the cyclical crises of capitalism. On many levels, these two texts have a deeper correspondence with our present economic reality than with that of the nineteenth century.