Marx wrote that history was the continuous transformation of
human nature (Marx 1977d: 105). Put differently, human beings do not
only modify nature by working on it; they also change themselves and
develop new hopes and needs. The history of the development of the
human species could be understood only by tracing the development of
the dominant modes of production which, in the West, included primitive
communism, slave societies, feudalism and capitalism which would soon
be replaced by socialism on an international scale. The fact that Marx
thought socialism would be a global rather than a European phenomenon
deserves further comment. Whereas war, imperialism and commerce had
simply destroyed the isolation of earlier human societies, capitalism
directed all sections of the human race into a single historical stream.
Few mainstream students of International Relations recognized the
importance of this preoccupation with the economic and technological
unification of the human species, with the widening of the boundaries of
social cooperation and with the forces that blocked advances in human
solidarity (Gill 1993a). Few traditional scholars commented on his
fascination with the relationship between internationalization and internationalism, but these are crucial themes in his writings which contain
much that should interest the student of contemporary international
affairs (Halliday 1988a).