Is Globalization the New Form of Marxist Internationalism?

Someone posted the following commentary on a Facebook group:

Globalization is the new form of the internationalism that Karl Marx preached. Nations are becoming more connected to one another, to the extent that national borders are being defied, and if possible, be abolished. One can have a foreign best friend, foreign teacher, even foreign boss, and even a foreign spouse, and mixed children. Foreign ideas are being spread supposedly for the benefit of man, wherever he may be.

But there are those who want to remove the phenomenon of globalization. Apparently, those people are smoking opium, for their reasons involved that doomed concept of NATIONALISM: Globalization destroys one’s patriotic duty to his country, as people who embrace it buy goods from distant lands, even if it is not their own(that is, they buy foreign goods), work in other countries instead of their homes. The worst excuse that they usually throw to globalizationists(and even old-school internationalists like the Communists) is that we have colonial mentality; that we do not care for our country because foreign influences, coming usually from former colonizers they said, poisoned our brains, etc.

Those opium smokers called NATIONALISTS do not know that the concept of a nation is dying. It is doomed to die. They also never knew that their beloved concept called NATIONALISM, just like racism, actually divides the people and thus, people cannot cooperate together. Nationalism results into war with other nations, since there is not just one nation, but many nations, which can create chaos once nationalism is inflamed in the hearts of people.

There is a song that has a line that says, “Come young citizens of the world!!”. There is no,”Come young citizens of the nation!!”. The former unites all peoples while the latter unites only a subset just because it is part of a nation while disowning the rest. Nationalism has replaced religion as the opium of the people, while remaining the opium of the State.
UNITE ALL PEOPLES OF THE WORLD!! DOWN WITH NATIONALISM!! LONG LIVE INTERNATIONALISM AND GLOBALIZATION!!

I focused my comment on the assertion that “globalization is the new form of the internationalism that Karl Marx preached.”

I posted the following commentary:

That’s totally out of context. Globalization is just a term that has no definite, objective meaning. What I mean to say is that it has no single, definitive definition. It has no political and ideological evaluation. To some people it could mean “free trade”. To others it is a politically charged word. When one tries to use this term in a political context, one has to define how he uses it. For instance, I seldom use the word globalization because it is a very broad term. It does not pertain to economic freedom and economic openness. It’s just the result of certain nations’ willingness to trade after getting into bilateral or multilateral agreements. Take note that nations cannot start trade relations without forging bilateral or multilateral agreements. When a nation decides to join the WTO, it must be ready to be bound by certain trade/economic agreements like protection of IP rights and waiving certain protectionist policies.

Here’s my personal evaluation.

If globalization is a “new form of internationalism” that Karl Marx preached, then automatically it does not require the protection or enforcement of property and IP rights.  What is Karl Marx “internationalism” in the first place? Besides, Marxist internationalism is just a political term that contains specific context and meaning. Also, Karl Marx did not invent socialism. There were forms of socialism many, many years before him. In fact, Marxism is just one form of socialism.

And, before the term globalization was popularized by 20th century textbook authors and scholars, there was the term merchantilism, which pertains to how the statist empires in Europe conducted trade.

Globalization is the result of two corollaries:

1. Nation’s willingness to get into global trade through bilateral/multilateral agreements.
2.  Scientific and technological developments.

If you don’t open your economy to global trade, you’d perish. That’s what’s happening in North Korea today. A poor nation needs to open its borders to global trade to attract FDI and technology transfer. If you’re a closed economy, never expect your people to produce, invent, manufacture all things and technologies that your domestic economy and people require/need. Technology transfer or transfer of technical know-how or knowledge is actually the best advantage of global trade. Nations do not just transfer monetary wealth, but knowledge and technical know-how as well.

Scientific/technological development has been the strongest impetus for global trade in the past few decades. The internet technology encouraged nations to open their borders and protect intellectual property rights. The innovative and inventive nations like USA, Japan, EU, Great Britain and others had the duty/responsibility to protect the IP rights of its inventors, developers, creators, and manufacturers. The most important contribution of the internet technology to global trade– that nations that seek to join the global trade MUST ENFORCE AND PROTECT IP RIGHTS. For example, China had to commit itself to the protection of IP rights and to adopt economic reforms when it joined the WTO in 2001.  China was forced to compromise its socialist principles for the sake of economic self-preservation. Deng Xiao Ping looked at the West and realized certain economic reforms must be done in China. He was a traitor to Marxist classical concept/tradition of internationalism. What he did led to anti-Marxist decisions, such as its embrace of property and IP rights, which Karl Marx bitterly called THEFT.

What is Marxist internationalism? It is a regulated relationship between socialist countries. Does it in anyway pertain to TRADE? Hell no! Does it enforce property and IP rights? Hell no! In practice, internationalism was once achieved through INVASION, OCCUPATION, and PLUNDER OF NATIONS. Soviet Russia internationally expanded through invasion or intervention of Ukraine, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, among others.

One form of Marxist internationalism was the Latin America socialist alliance. The objects of so-called trade here were the socialist countries themselves, not individuals and companies. Reality has it that this Latin America internationalism failed to survive the test of time and reality.