For several decades, proponents of postcolonial theory have accused Marx and various forms of Marxism of having a „Eurocentric” or „orientalist” bias against societies of the Global South. In defense of Marxism, the sociologist Kevin Anderson argued that in his late writings, Marx developed an anti-colonialist and anti-racist strategy for a global revolution based on support for the liberation struggles of Irish, Polish, Chinese, and Black enslaved people in the United States.1 Many Irish and Polish experiences exemplified British and Russian colonial oppression at the time. Furthermore, the sociologist Vivek Chibber published an influential Marxist polemic against postcolonial theory. He accused the famous Subaltern Studies Group of failing to understand the universal character of capitalism and labor struggles. Chibber’s book provoked a heated debate with leading postcolonial theoreticians.2

The Paris-based political scientist Kolja Lindner mediates postcolonial theorists and defenders of Marx in the book „Marxism and the Question of Eurocentrism“. This collection of essays deals with various topics, such as Marx’s writing on India as a journalist in England, historical materialism, visions of radical democracy, whether or not „free” wage labor is universal under capitalism, and Chibber’s critique of postcolonial theory. Lindner starts by outlining Eurocentrism, defining it as ethnocentrism that considers Western societies superior to non-Western ones. Furthermore, it contains „false universalism”, defining the experience of capitalist Western Europe as standard for the entire human race. Eurocentric world views further neglect the impact of developments in the non-Western world on Europe (pp. 3–4).

Lindner states that in his early writings on India around 1853, Marx uncritically relied on highly problematic Eurocentric sources, such as the French doctor François Bernier (1620–1688). Marx expressed hopes that British colonialism could play a progressive role in overcoming the „stagnation” of Indian society by developing capitalist forces of production. According to Anderson, Marx departed from this position in his articles on the Indian revolt against British rule between 1857 and 1859, in which he expressed sympathy for anti-colonial resistance. However, Lindner argues that Marx still perceived the uprising through the lens of Western capitalism’s superiority. He was primarily interested in whether the Indian revolt could trigger a proletarian revolution in Europe (p. 15). However, Lindner highlights that Marx developed a more profound critique of British colonialism and economic exploitation in his writings on the Irish question. The author argues that in his articles on India and Russia from the 1870s, Marx finally overcame Eurocentrism and his deterministic views on non-European societies. Marx began to view these societies more nuancedly based on more sophisticated social science studies and new language skills. For example, he gave up the idea that the state had held a land monopoly in precolonial India. Furthermore, Marx discussed whether Russia could develop a form of socialism based on the traditional rural communal ownership of land, bypassing capitalism as a necessary historical stage of development. In these arguments, Lindner mainly follows the assumptions of Anderson.

In a more controversial essay, Kolja Lindner and his co-author Urs Lindner argue that Marx de-facto disengaged from historical materialism, which they consider an intellectual achievement. The authors define historical materialism as belief in the progressive succession of different historical modes of production, such as Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and bourgeois. Furthermore, it assumes that the superstructure of society (politics, morals, law) is altered by economic development and can be mediated by the class struggle between two privileged agents: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The authors criticize these views as a “functionalist teleology” that considers the struggle against capitalism as a historical mission. This approach is not based on ethical values and could result in crimes against humanity and nature (pp. 49–50). Marx overcame this view in his later writings by developing a “historical social science approach.” For example, his writing „The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon“ (1852) analyzed the failure of the French Revolution of 1848. Marx included concepts of cultural conditions and analyzed how various social classes acted within specific historical structures (p. 53). However, some scholars consider „The Eighteenth Brumaire“ his most masterful application of historical materialism. Therefore, it is unclear why the two authors present the text in such a positive way. Since the 1960s, the field of Peasant Studies has criticized Marx’s portrait of the French peasantry as passive and a “sack of potatoes” that cannot self-organize and needs a strong leader to represent them. This research was referenced by many peasant-based revolutions in the Global South, such as in China, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Algeria. „The Eighteenth Brumaire“ was seen as an example that Marx had underestimated the revolutionary potential of the peasantry outside industrial centers.

Kolja and Urs Lindner argue that in „Capital: A Critique of Political Economy“ (1867), Marx further broke with the “functionalist teleology” of historical materialism by adding ethical concepts to his critique of capitalism, such as fetishism, exploitation, despotism, and pauperization (p. 54). Marx stopped perceiving Western societies as superior due to their development of production. However, the authors do not explain why concepts such as fetishism should be considered an ethical critique of capitalism. In „Capital: A Critique of Political Economy“, Marx considered fetishist perceptions of commodities, wages, or money as necessary manifestations of the capitalist mode of production, not as ethical problems. Furthermore, this review claims that it is very ambitious to deconstruct historical materialism in an essay of 23 pages. In addition, the term historical materialism was never used by Marx himself.

Lindner’s book includes a discussion regarding “Marx, Universalism and the Global South“, including scholars from different fields, such as Andrea Komlosy and Matthias Middell (Global History), Elena Louisa Lange (Japanology), and Aditya Nigam (Political Science). Controversially, the discussion assumes that Marx’s assumption that “free” wage labor would become universal alongside the development of capitalism and would replace unfree forms such as slavery, serfdom, or feudal exploitation. In the field of global labor history, Marcel van der Linden and others have argued that large varieties and combinations of “free” and “unfree” forms of labor co-exist, even today.3 Particularly in the Global South, many families rely on a combination of household economy, subsistence agriculture, petty entrepreneurship, and informal wage labor. The worker, who owns only their labor power and can make a living by selling it, does not constitute the majority of the population in many Global South countries. In the debate with Lindner, Komlosy supports this argument and adds that Marx’s narrow concept of “productive labor” excludes the vital unpaid work of women. Nigam believes that in the Global South, capitalism is more of a project of state elites than of societies. Furthermore, wages are determined by local relations of power and domination. Therefore, Marx’s concept of wage labor cannot be applied because it is too abstract. Nigam warns that it would be problematic to consider capitalism beyond prosperous countries as “incomplete” or even “retarded” because it does not fit Marxist standard definitions. In contrast, Lange defends an orthodox Marxist perspective. The abstraction of the impersonal domination of monetary relations is a universal social reality of capitalism in the Global North and South. For Marx, “productive labor” has no positive meaning in this radical critique of wage labor as exploitation. Most scholars agree that a critical engagement with Marx is necessary to understand historical and contemporary global capitalism.

The case of China is strangely almost absent in the debate about the global development of labor. Since 1978, over 300 million former peasants have become wage laborers, working in industries, construction, or services. In the countryside, large-scale farming based on wage labor is heavily supported by the state and threatens the existence of the small peasant economy in many places.4 Debates about whether or not “free” wage labor becomes universal when capitalist principles are introduced should include more cases and careful consideration. If “free” wage labor is not universal in some countries, it is possible to argue that Marx was wrong or that capitalism has not fully developed in these places.

In sum, Lindner’s book is a welcome contribution to the debate about Marx’s views on the non-Western world. Some questions may interest “Marxologists” only, such as the precise dating of his anti-colonialist turn towards the British Empire. However, debates on various forms of labor are relevant for everyone interested in the history of global capitalism. Lindner praises Marx for his late writings on non-Western societies like Russia and India. However, Marx’s idea that Russia could establish a form of socialism based on traditional rural communes did not materialize such as the dream of socialist revolution by the industrial proletariat in Western Europe. Furthermore, this review argues that successfully industrialized countries enjoy more human development and national sovereignty than predominantly agrarian societies. Japan, China, and South Korea escaped a peripheral position in the capitalist world systems due to their pursuit of industrial development. Therefore, it seems that Lindner argues against the notion that some modes of production are indeed superior to others due to a pursuit of “political correctness.”

The book would have benefited from editorial cuts due to its repetition of several arguments and quotations. For example, the author presents a direct quotation from Marx about how the decisive blow against the ruling class of England can only be stuck in Ireland four separate times. Marx, Marxism and the Question of Eurocentrism does not aim to cover all relevant topics. In this context, the debate on the relationship between slavery and capitalism is also vital. A school of historians claims that capitalism developed in the sugar plantations in the Caribbean and Atlantic slave trade rather than in England’s factories.5 A new reading of Marx’s articles on the opium wars and the Taiping rebellion in China would be a valuable supplement to Lindner’s work. It remains unclear whether Marxism and postcolonial theory could complement each other to develop a better understanding and critique of global capitalism.

Notes:
1 Kevin Anderson, Marx at the Margins. On Nationalism. Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies, Chicago 2010.
2 Vivek Chibber, Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital, London 2013; Rosie Warren (Hrsg.), The Debate on Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital, London 2016.
3 See Marcel van der Linden, Workers of the World. Essays toward a Global Labour History, Leiden 2008; Marcel van der Linden / Karl Heinz Roth (eds.), Über Marx hinaus. Arbeitsgeschichte und Arbeitsbegriff in der Konfrontation mit den globalen Arbeitsverhältnissen des 21. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 2009.
4 Felix Wemheuer, Marx in Beijing. Freie Lohnarbeit und „ursprüngliche Akkumulation” außerhalb Europas, in: Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung (2019), pp. 273–290.
5 Michael Zeuske, Karl Marx, Sklaverei, Formationstheorie, ursprüngliche Akkumulation und Global South. Eine globalhistorische Skizze, in: Felix Wemheuer (eds.), Marx und der globale Süden, Köln 2016, pp. 96–144.