Capitalism: the source of anarchy and competition

Questions on International Politics

Is the global capitalist economy a source of anarchy and competition for power between nation states?

 

To understand and criticize the question, whether capitalism does or does not create a place for anarchic competition for power between the nation states, it is important to clarify what capitalist economy, anarchy and competition of power are, in order to be able to put them together. Therefore, I would like to answer the following questions in order to be able to give a yes or no answer: where does capitalist economy come from? What was it like before it? What could be done if we do not want this system?

First of all then, capitalism and its economic system is the outcome of globalisation which was caused by industrialisation and colonisation. These caused the manufacturing, the point now is to produce more with less costs (so poorer material) and the steps of production are shared, but not only between people but between countries, states, continents. For example, raw materials are from the periphery, but cannot be done there, there cannot be factories in the periphery, it has to go to the core’s factories where it gives jobs, then it can be sold everywhere around the World.

Although, officially this colonialism-order has ended after the first World War, if we look around in the World, we can see this order has not ended, the only difference is that in the time of colonialism it was about political control, colonies were owned by the core, now it is about economic control, the wealthy core buys the workers of the poor periphery and they still work for the core almost for free.

But how does it all creates the anarchy and competition between the nation states? I would say we cannot even talk about all the nation states, as the nations of the periphery cannot attend this competition, they are only used in the competition by the core nation states.

Capitalist economy as such, creates competition by its existence: while socialism removes all the competition from society and by this it ought to create complete equality, capitalism creates competition in order to make the system work itself without control, as it removes the weak and strengthen the strong producers. This is the anarchy of production, who produces the cheaper and the better will be the winner. Those in the periphery can never enjoy this competition as they – at least for now – could not make up for that level of industrialisation with technology, factories, etc. So, they cannot produce more on a cheaper price than those in the core, they can only protect their own products by protective tariffs which does not let in import of those products they can produce for themselves, but this is only domestic result, not a step for the international competition. But at least they can avoid that their own producers lose their job due to the cheaper import.

This competition between the nation states also stops the core – due to economic interests – from helping the periphery in faster development. Although, there was a time, when the US put loads of money into the periphery, we can see, Africa, Latin-America and the Middle-East are still not about to be equal with the developed world, even if they show high results (like Brazil or South Africa) these results are compared for their own previous results, which is still nowhere compared to developed states.

Nowadays we can see the competition between USA and China competing for economic hegemony, especially focusing on technology. Technology which covered our everyday life within 10-15 years. When I was a kid, I basically did not use any technology and now I cannot imagine my days without a phone, a laptop and WiFi, I think most of us can agree on that. This can be because of this competition, as the US and China are competition for more and more sales on. Lower and lower prices, to sell more, even if the phone lasts for short time but it was not too expensive, as people will soon buy a new one as it does not last long, but it was cheap. We are somehow forced to use their products as many official cases are happening online now (for example Student Finance, government gateway, university emails, etc.), and these two powers get more powerful out of this. It is almost like the Cold War between the US and the USSR, a technological rush.

In a conclusion then, I state that yes, the global capitalist economy is a source of anarchy and competition for power between nation states, and I base this on what I discussed previously: political colonialism turned into economic “colonialism”, the nation states of the core (especially China and the USA nowadays) are competing for economic hegemony, as the time of competition by war is over in the civilized World, now it turned into the economy. It is an anarchy, because we do not really have an international order and rules, therefore there is only anarchy in the international system, there is nothing above nation states which controls and “overviews” the order above sovereign states. It is a competition of power because nowadays, when civilized societies do not use weapons in order to compete, they use economy to defeat the others, their has always been some kind of competition between states all the way in history, it does not stop just because World Wars stopped, it only turns into another path.

Marx and Engels build up their theory based on this statement, that capitalism creates anarchy, competition, and only benefits the wealthy. Even if we can clearly see its truth, we cannot remove the capitalist competing economy unless the whole World removes it, which is just a Marxist utophy, it could never be done as we have never seen that king of global agreement which would result this. Competition is the core of the individuals, the society, the nation state. Competition is always there in us, even if it does not benefit all the World, it will not be removed unless it is removed from the human being itself.