The Eurocentrist Heritage of Marx? On the Evolution of Marxian Political Models: Euro-Mimetic, Counter-Imperialist and Anti-Capitalist

Anders Fjeld examines a fundamental ambivalence in Marxist emancipatory politics, related to the question of eurocentrism in Marx’s writings: on the one hand, this politics is universal, addressed to humanity as such, and inherently internationalist in scope; on the other hand, this politics is conditioned by the West-European modernization and industrialization that lies at the heart of bourgeois capitalism and of revolutionary class struggle. Fjeld returns to Marx’s texts on British colonialism in India, written during the 1850s, to identify – in accordance with postcolonial criticism – a “eurocentrist period” in Marx, but also suggests, along with newer scholarly study of Marx’s later writings, that eurocentrism became more and more problematic for Marx himself, especially in relation to Ireland and Russia. Fjeld outlines the challenges that this poses for Marxist thought in relation to emancipatory politics and capitalist analysis.