Final- PoliSci 102 part 2- Exporting Marx

Some professors were sticklers for format, some not so much. Unfortunately for me, the one with the big writing assignments was VERY big on citations. She maintained a large library of related reading materials online for each of her courses, and heavily hinted that they should be read, but she didn’t actually require it. But citing those other works was heavily recommended if you wanted to land a solid grade; she lived for citations.

In writing though, they completely kill my vibe. While writing essays, I ignore citations and write out the response I want to write. Then I’ll go back to any specific points I’ve written that would ordinarily require citation, and find suitable sources for each. If I can find a quote to drop in, so much the better. So they don’t interfere with the writing process too much. But these aren’t really research papers, 90% of the citations are from the course text. So your paper is loaded with essentially identical citations, which just looks silly.

Part two of the Pols102 final…

1. Explain what Marx meant by “false consciousness” and superstructure. Discuss how he thinks these two are linked.

It was Karl Marx’s belief that the working classes of the world – the Proletariat – would eventually rise up on their own volition, in revolution against the ruling Bourgeoisie (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2018, p. 388). This would happen, he theorized, once they came to see through what he called the “false consciousness” that had been imposed upon them by the bourgeoisie. This false consciousness was what prevented the workers of the world from seeing the reality of their economic situation clearly, and what encouraged them to work against their own best interests.

Instrumental in the propagation of this false consciousness was what Marx described as the “superstructure”. In his estimation, society was composed of two frameworks; the “base” was the collective means of production- the workers, factories, resources, and relationships that enabled industry, and the superstructure was everything else. Art, religion, law, politics, media, even science and family were elements of the superstructure that shaped the consciousness of the base. The superstructure is complementary to the economically-paramount base, and the base is maintained by the consciousness imposed by the superstructure. By this math, changes to a society’s music or religious mores could produce an economic shift, while changes in production needs could demand changes to traditional family roles. In terms of Marx’s communist ideology, the ideal was for an objectively true consciousness to support an enlightened base. In contemporary practice, North Korea’s Kim regime has leaned instead towards the maintenance of regime-favoring (vs state-favoring) consciousness with a superstructure that firmly controls public access to external media (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2018, p. 151). As expressed, Marx’s ideas remain untested. 

2. Explain and discuss what O’Neil et al. (2018) mean when they state that “exporting the state” is one of the important institutions of imperialism.

As a civil organizational system, the state is a structure that offers greater protections, opportunities, and efficiencies towards the management of land and people than previous tribal, communal, or even empirical systems. The institutions and characteristics of a state make entirely new levels of economic development possible, normalize connections between completely unrelated cultures, and bestow a new concept of political agency upon the people involved. While imperialism has in this manner unified the world, it has created arbitrary divisions along the way that fuel racial, ethnic, and religious conflict in the present.

Speaking broadly of a state as an entity with fixed borders, defined governance, and (ideally) shared identity, the state can function more effectively than the fiefdoms or kingdoms that came before. According to O’Neil, Fields, & Share (2018, p. 35-37), the benefits of statehood are many. Sovereign and legitimate institutions of governance acting with the people’s consent have the capacity to move resources and events more so than do societies of royalty and peasantry. An infrastructure of transportation and communication is facilitated through investment made by the state on the people’s behalf. The industry that fuels economies is regulated (and sometimes determined) by the state, and contracts between people and/or business are maintained by the legal mechanisms devised to support the state. The military services applied by the state in its defense establish a balance of power between nations that can interrupt conflict long enough for development and innovation to occur.

These modern states arose in 1600’s Europe (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2018, p. 35), and the imperial urge to expand and colonize would see to the creation of states around the world. Colonies like the United States, Brazil, Nigeria, and India in the Americas, Africa, and Asia would transition from subject territories to sovereign states as they gained independence. East Asian states like Japan or China – with functioning societies that predated Europe’s – would develop into statehood as a response to developments around them. The partitioning of the globe by Europe would serve to create a common playing field for many actors. This common ground makes possible everything from international copper wire phone lines to the modern global economy in which workers can traverse entire oceans in moments as a matter of course.

Depending on the nature of the institutions devised to operate the state, the people involved would see their rights and freedoms transformed. The rights of a peasant or a serf are subject to change per the will of royalty or nobility; they are tied to the land they were born to tend, and they generally have zero influence over issues of governance or transitions in leadership. In some modern states, little has changed over the last 500 years and people remain instruments of authoritative will. Elsewhere, democracies have flourished and entire people have chosen their own leadership for hundreds of years. There is a trade of freedoms involved, as peasants are not prisoners. In Europe’s Dark Ages, the law was what whoever in charge said it was. Anything beyond the interests of the local prince was fair game for the people. In contrast, the legal systems of many modern states can sharply curtail a wide range of freedoms on behalf of regular people whose names you may never know. Where these legal codes are elements of democratic nations, it is the people who have chosen to curtail their freedoms in favor of the opportunities to thrive that are made possible by a consistent legal framework. At the other end of the spectrum are people in nations like Libya, where the failure to maintain a state has made life a daily struggle against poverty and violence (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2018, p. 4).

While states as institutions speak common languages of economy and self-determination, they were not created equally. Where they are creations of imperialism, their nature is heavily dependent on the needs of the colonizer, and their success is dependent on their ability to recognize and serve their own needs. The United States was born as a source for raw materials and cash crops, it rose to international prominence on the basis of industrial, social, and military dominance. South Africa began as a series of trading posts that depended on external economies, their development today has been stalled by economic stagnation and corruption (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2018, p. 658-660). The cultures imported by imperial masters have shaped identities and relationships in the present. Again looking to the United States as a barometer, early racial subjugation and segregation have fueled centuries of racial tension and violence. The Portuguese mores carried into Brazil however, encouraged an integration that produced a large and integrated mulatto population and contemporary delineations that are more economic than racial in nature (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2018, p. 620-622). In terms of questionable decisions, the imperial comingling of dissimilar and sometimes incompatible peoples has created the most lasting difficulties amongst the states left behind. Borders drawn by the Ottomans and the British between Iran and Iraq have produced international warfare between those two nations and their Shia or Sunni inhabitants (White, 2003), those drawn around Nigeria have contributed to internal terrorism as partnered Muslim and Christian societies determinedly attempt to coexist (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2018, p. 665).

The world today is almost covered in sovereign states, all in some way creations of imperial Europe. The virtues of statehood have multiplied wealth, offered new levels of self-determination to millions, and placed men on the moon. The limits have created conflict between industrially-armed people, and contributed to the devastation of war and the deaths of millions. Unfortunately for those millions, the state remains the most effective method of organizing societies we’ve yet stumbled upon and the most influential legacy of imperialism.