Marxist Theory:Nationalism, Legitimacy, Imperialism

Around the beginning of the 19th century, Europe experienced major social upheaval. The French Revolution--with its Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen--greatly influenced both political and intellectual life. Out of this context, ideas of utopian socialism began to emerge. Such concepts eventually influenced Marx's idealistic postulates on societal development: the transition from capitalism, through imperialism, to a proletarian revolution and state "withering." Following this lead, Weber subsequently elaborated on legitimacy and its implications for the state. Of course, Lenin is responsible for the application of these various concepts. Unfortunately though, despite the Marxist doctrine idealism, history has proven that the socialist experiment is flawed. The collapse of the Soviet Union, has given rise to several new nation-states. Within these smaller independent countries nationalism may be replacing communist ideology. Such tendencies could have negative geopolitical consequences for world development.

Karl Marx believed that the history of all existing society could be correlated with the struggle between its classes. Moreover, he believed that class itself was, in certain respects, a fabrication. According to Marx, class divisions are not found in all forms of society. He believed that the primitive societies are essentially classless (Giddens & Held 3). This, Marx assumed, re

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ancing forces them to fuse with bank capital. Such associations eventually grow to such proportions that single national markets become inadequate. Eventually, monopolies must set up branches in other countries. This not only involves the export of capital, but the plunder local natural resources and the exploitation of labor as well. Lenin believed that the ultimate result of these processes would be a territorial division of the world by the super-monopolies of an international monopolist association (Volkov et al. 125). Moreover, Lenin viewed monopoly capitalism as being wrought with hypocrisy. He perceived contradictions "between social production and private appropriation, between the capitalists and the proletariat, between monopolies, between imperialist states, and between imperialist states and the peoples of other countries (Volkov et al. 130-131)." The origin of this contradiction was perceived to be the "private ownership of the means of production." Furthermore, such hypocrisy was considered to be inherently destabilizing. Lenin considered imperialism to be the "eve of the social revolution of the proletariat." Despite this dogma though, Lenin did not want the working class to actually control the pr
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Approximate Word count = 1884
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)