An evaluation of Marxism can scarcely avoid the conclusion that its
exponents were too preoccupied with production and class conflict to grasp the peculiarities of the modern age or to develop an adequate
critical theory of the modern world. But it might nevertheless be found
that Marxist analyses of capitalist globalization and fragmentation
invite reconsideration of Waltz and Wight’s argument that Marxism
may not be regarded as a serious contribution to the study of international politics or is clearly inferior to conventional approaches in the
field. It might also be argued that its project of developing a critical
theory of world society is one respect in which Marxism supersedes the
dominant approaches in the Anglo-American study of international
politics. If so, the question is how to build on its foundations, how to
preserve its strengths and how to move beyond its errors and weaknesses.
This was the task that the early members of the Frankfurt School set
themselves. Frankfurt School thinkers such as Horkheimer maintained
in the 1930s that the challenge was to preserve the ‘spirit’ while departing
from the ‘letter’ of classical Marxism (Friedman 1981: 35–6). Working
within the same tradition, Habermas argued in the 1970s that the key
task was to bring about the ‘reconstruction of historical materialism’
(Linklater 1990b; see also Chapter 6 in this volume).