International relations, agrarian question and colonial slavery: the clash between economic systems in the US Civil War from the perspective of Marx and Engels

Abstract

The XIX century stretched the moment of consolidation of capitalism worldwide. Many transformations have taken place. In the former American colonies, the contradiction and conflicts were even more evident. Above all, in the United States, in full spatial expansion and in dispute over the new lands for the current economic systems. The incompatibility of coexistence between them led to civil war, which was responsible for paradigmatic revolutionary changes, reverberating impacts across the globe from that moment on. The progressivism of these social struggles caught the attention of Marx and Engels, who focused on the subject based on analyzes that apply the historical and dialectical materialist method, in a development of theoretical concepts that will flow into the book Capital. Based on these ideas, the text will point out the centrality of the agrarian question and colonial slavery in the midst of the dynamics of international relations that fosters the authors' discussions.