World View: Is Marxism Eurocentric? (1996)

From the June 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Racism remains one of the main features of Western capitalist society. It is institutionalised in the systematic discrimination which black people experience in jobs, housing and the education system, and the harassment they suffer at the hands of police and immigration authorities.

A striking development in European politics since the East European events of 1989 has been the resurgence of racism, expressing itself in the rise of the fascist and racist parties which have been able to make significant electoral gains, especially in France, Italy and Germany. This development has not surprised us.

Black Nationalists argue that “black liberation can be achieved only by black people organising themselves separately from white anti-racists and Socialists". Socialists, by contrast, regard racism as a product of capitalism which serves to reproduce this social system by dividing the working class. It can be abolished, therefore, only through a socialist revolution achieved by a united working class in which blacks and whites join together against their common enemy.

A major difference between socialists and black separatists is that black nationalist intellectuals tend to see Marxism as a Eurocentric political tradition, as a body of thought so deeply rooted in European culture that it is simply incapable of identifying with the plight—and expressing the aspirations of—the oppressed black masses, both in the Third World and in the advanced capitalist countries.

Black Separatists wrong

The resulting conflict between Marxism and Black Nationalism is systematically explored by Cedric Robinson, an American scholar associated with the Institute of Race Relations in London, in his book Black Marxism. Robinson’s basic thesis is that Marxism is, in the very way in which its concepts are ordered, a Eurocentric ideology.

Marxism, Robinson claims, isn’t only European in its origins, but in its “analytical presumptions, its historical perspectives, its points of view”. It consequently has failed to confront a recurring idea in western civilisation, namely racism, and in particular, the way in which racialism inevitably permeates the social structure emergent from capitalism. Socialists reject these arguments and are well aware of the links between racism—all over the world—and capitalism.

It is often claimed that racism is as old as human nature, the implication being that we can’t get rid of it. On the contrary, racism as we know it today first developed in the 17th and 18th centuries in order to justify the systematic use of African slave labour in the great plantations of the new world which were central to the original emergence of capitalism as a world system. Racism, that is, was formed as part of the process through which capitalism became the dominant social and economic system.

Thus racism today arises from the divisions that are fostered among different groups of workers whose competition on the job market is intensified by the fact they often come from different parts of the world and are drawn together within the borders of the same state by capitalism's insatiable appetite for cheaper labour power.

Racism serves to set workers against each other, and to prevent them from effectively fighting against the bosses who exploit them all, irrespective of their colour or national origin. It operates against the interest of all workers, white and black alike. A divided working class harms even those workers who are not the direct victims of racism. White workers should identify their interest with those of black people who suffer racial oppression and black separatists are wrong when they dismiss all the white working class as an irredeemable racist rabble. Racism has grown up with capitalism and helps to sustain it; its abolition therefore depends on socialist revolution and the abolition of capitalism and that will break up the material structures with which it is bound up.

Fighting Racism

Fighting racism depends on understanding its causes. This is essential if the hold of racism on white workers is to be broken. Racism appeals to white workers because it offers an imaginary solution to the real problems—poverty, unemployment, exploitation and so on.

Socialists are anti-racists not only because we despise racism for the obscenity that it is, but because a  class movement which does not confront racism will not be able to change capitalism to socialism. Breaking down the social barriers which this process helps erect between different groups of workers is a necessary condition of any successful socialist revolution.

The charge that Marxism is “Eurocentric" made by Black Nationalists such as Cedric Robinson is mistaken. Marxism indeed emerged in Western Europe in response to the appearance of industrial capitalism, the capitalist mode of production in its developed form. At the centre of Marx's theory was his analysis of this unprecedented phenomenon. In the Communist Manifesto and the Grundrisse in particular he stressed capitalism's universalising role, the way in which it dragged humankind willy-nilly into the first genuinely global social system in history. But he also recognised how private property society engenders competition and exploitation at the same time. Marx was equally clear-sighted about the terrible suffering this entailed, especially for the peoples of what is called now the Third World—"the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the indigenous population of [America] . . . the beginning of the conquest and plunder of India, and the conversion of Africa into a preserve for the commercial hunting of black skins are all things which characterise the dawn of the era of capitalist production” (Capital, Vol. I).

Marx crucially maintained that only a society of common ownership could provide the framework for the eradication of racial prejudice in its entirety. Capitalism and racism go hand-in-hand—only socialism can abolish both.

Michael Ghebre

Letter: Does Everywhere Have To Pass Through Capitalism? (1994)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Peter Newell’s informative account of the history surrounding recent events in Chiapas, Mexico (Socialist Standard, February) started me thinking about the different political responses to this indigenous uprising. In Vancouver where I live, these ranged from the predictable bandwagon-jumping escapades of various Leninist sects to a more interesting - but equally flawed - attempt to create an alliance of "leftist" inspired groups with the aim of supporting the Zapatista-led rebellion primarily by drawing links with "democratic struggles" here in Canada. The latter response, while moving beyond the insulting vanguardism of many groups on the left, was nevertheless typical of the kind of political strategy endorsed by many self-styled "post-Marxist" intellectuals currently resident in University departments. While the democratic decision-making processes of such alliances are, in my view, to be applauded, this post-Marxist political strategy remains mired in the rhetoric of failed projects of social democracy. Instead of challenging the profit-system in its entirety, the talk here is largely of smoothing the rough edges of capitalism by supporting social and environmental, justice and human rights incentives as ends in themselves.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that Peter Newell’s conclusions to his otherwise excellent article takes us a great deal further. According to him the uprisings were based on "backward-looking" ideas which "can achieve nothing of value, neither in the short nor the long run". This euro-centric view ignores the fact that for generations of First Nations’ peoples "violent rebelling" has been pretty much the only course of action available to them in the face of Euro-sponsored slavery and genocide. To sit back and regard their conversion into good little proletarians as somehow inevitable is to be complicit in their extinction. It also forgets that what is at stake for indigenous peoples is not simply higher wages or better working conditions but whole civilizations and ways of life. Do we really want one day to inherit a border-less world with a homogenous global culture where indigenous cultures have been reduced to quaint museum relics or trendy clothing styles for white people?

Part of the problem, I would argue, lies in the apparent unwillingness of many contemporary socialists to move beyond the sterile orthodox Marxist analysis of the effects of global capitalism on First Nations’ peoples. While there is nothing inherently euro-centric about socialism — there are countless historical examples of people the world over who have rejected wage labour and capital in favour of a cooperative, needs-based economy — there is clearly the need for contemporary socialists to be aware of the ways in which commitment to the goals of "scientific socialism", "reason", and the "positive aspects of capitalist development", contributes to the silencing and continued suffering of non-Western peoples. Even Marx himself acknowledged the extent to which capitalism was built on the oppression, slavery, and genocide of people of colour. It would seem to make sense, then, to see the abolition of capitalism as tied up with the overturning of euro-centrism, the elimination of white privilege and continuing opposition to newly emerging forms of colonialism and slavery.

For those socialists who would dismiss this as reformist and nationalist nonsense, I would ask you to consider what the Zapatistas of Chiapas, the Mohawks of Kahnesatake, or the East Timorese are fighting for. For the most part these autonomous struggles are anti-Statist, grass-roots and non-hierarchical movements calling for the return of communal land holdings. They have involved degrees of active participation by women on a scale that puts socialist parties to shame. Furthermore, are there not parallels to be drawn between the struggles of First Nations’ peoples for self-determination, and the economic and political struggles of wage-workers in the West?

Showing critical support for the Zapatista rebels does not imply a step-backwards for socialists; it merely acknowledges the extent to which the abolition of wage-slavery and the emergence of a world community of different cultures is inextricably linked to the self-determination of indigenous people worldwide.

Julian Prior, 

Vancouver, 

Canada 

Reply:
Julian Prior makes a number of interesting points, many of which I do not dispute. Nevertheless, I did not say that the uprisings in Chiapas, at the beginning of this year, were based upon "backwardlooking" ideas, which "can achieve nothing of value, neither in the short nor long run"; although, earlier in the article, I did suggest that, if he was anything, Emiliano Zapata, some 80 years’ ago, "was a rather backward-looking utopian communist".

What I did say was that such a movement will fail against the power of a modern state which, I should think, is obvious (I encountered units of the Mexican army when they were mopping-up the remnants of the "party of the poor" in the state of Guerrero); and that violent rebelling against such a state can achieve nothing of value (to the oppressed Indians) neither in the short nor the long run, although I did comment that it is not surprising that some of the Indians rebelled. Indeed, it is true that, over the last 90 years, almost all struggles and land occupations in Mexico, and elsewhere in Latin America, began peacefully and only became violent following state intervention and repression. Recent reports from Chiapas appear to confirm my view that the Indian masses of Chiapas will have achieved no more, and probably less, than if they had used various forms of non-violent strikes, and non-cooperation, against the large cattle ranchers and the pro-government village bosses.

Julian Prior seems to imply that socialists "sit back", and regard the conversion of the Indians "into good little proletarians as somehow inevitable". We do not, of course, sit back, but actively encourage people — all people — in London, Vancouver and Chiapas, to strive for a socialist world, not of conformity and uniformity, but of diversity. Sadly, or otherwise, it is more than true that capitalism is rapidly destroying pre-capitalist culture, some of which, at least in part, may well have been worth preserving — although we should not idealise some of their practices and mores.

Lastly, I agree with Julian Prior that both the original, and the recent Zapatista, movements have involved degrees of "active participation by women that puts socialist parties to shame". Hopefully, however, this is beginning to change.

Peter E. Newell