Into the World Market. Karl Marx and the Theoretical Foundation of Internationalism

In this chapter, I examine the theoretical imagination that allowed Marx to grasp the global dimension of capitalism and to respond to such dimen- sion with the theory and practice of proletarian internationalism. Readers will not find yet another detailed discussion of Marx’s engagement in the First International, of his leading role in the General Council, or of his feud with Bakunin. Although I will address the First International at the end of the chapter, I will focus here on the notion of the world market. I will follow Marx’s elaboration of that notion from the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) through early writings like The German Ideology (1845–1846) and The Poverty of Philosophy (1848) and then delve into the critique of political economy, from Grundrisse (1857–1858) to Capital (1867). The final section on the First International will selectively analyze a couple of topics, such as for instance the Irish question, not to demonstrate a coincidence of Marx’s political positions with the theoretical framework of the world market (which is not at all the case) but to explore some resonances of the latter in the former.