Thursday, September 18, 2008

A Marxist Solution?

According to Marx, ideologies are “the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property.” He argues that social and class identities such as ones family, ethnicity, and religion are ideological identities created by the exploiting bourgeois class in order to sustain the current system of exploitation, while the real defining element of society is the social rank. In considering solutions to the problem of ethnic diversity and rebellion within Collier’s essay, I find that a Marxist solution, although it seems to divert some of the causes for war, would not only fail to eliminate rebellion and ethnic civil war, but that it would practically increase the likelihood of dominant and minority relationships within a state.

Collier explains that ethnic civil war occurs when there is one dominant ethnic group and one minority ethnic group, and that finance is often a motivating factor for war instead of merely an enabling factor. To dissolve the possibility of ethnic conflict, Marx would simply eliminate the financial aspect of war by socializing the means of production within a communist society. Such a solution would stop rebel leaders whose underlying motivations are “the capture of primary commodity rents,” since they could no longer reap the benefits of their exploitation. Furthermore, by eliminating class, a Marxist system would theoretically create one identity, letting the ideological ethnic loyalties vanish with the bourgeois. Thus, Marx has eliminated the dominant-minority relationship that increases the risk of civil war and ethnic conflict. In practice however, I don’t believe this would succeed.

The competing force within the elimination of class and other social structure is the loss of a strong and personal sense of identity. Collier states, “People identify more strongly with their kin group, ethnic group, or religious group, than with the nation”(83). This is because national identities must be largely imagined, where as kin identities are experienced. The loss of kin and ethnic identity could actually facilitate the creation of a minority ethnic-like identity within the state, which would create the dominant-minority relationship present in Collier’s evidence for civil war. Whereas the pre-communist state may have been fractionalized ethnically (low risk of conflict according to Collier), communism would unsuccessfully attempt to create one universal identity. Naturally, a rebel group would develop creating the dominant-minority relationship that is so detrimental to peace.

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