Lecture by Vivek Chibber at the 12. Marx-Herbstschule Berlin, 26.10.2019 Moderation: Bafta Sarbo, Social Scientist with focus on Marxism and antiracism, Berlin
I am a third world professor, it is a very good thing to hear this kind of critic that goes against the main stream, the hegemony of american universities in Latin America. Gayatri Spivak et. al. produce a harmless version of marxism and there is the pretension of a valid thinking for all poor countries universities. New colonialism and cooption. He is right.
Thanks for pointing this out! I always remember the word "integument " in ths powerful passage from Capital: "Centralisation of the means of production and socialisation of labour at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated." www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm
what does it mean for capitalism to be spread across the world? It is not just "bosses" and a certain "class" that is at stake. It is the problem that our human social interrelationships have transformed into cost benefit analyses. This is what destroys solidarity.
Capitalism is a global network of absentee landlords and the bodies of laws that makes that possible. The "capitalist" goal is for everything to be imported everywhere from somewhere else. "Capitalists" are people running the endless maze of real or figurative toll bridges and tax collectors in between. Don't get confused by "ism." Capitalists are people. Capitalists are colonizers abroad, middle men in the middle and imperialist bankers at home. Their soldiers are just mercenaries. Learn to admire the the Vietcong and Taliban who shot and defeated French colonials and their soldiers. See? Not an "ism." Taliban victory making more sense now? Bodies. Not an "ism." Hope that help explains more.
@@scottmcloughlin4371 Except that's not how classical capitalism works at all. It works via the exploitation of labor-power in production, not rent-seeking on circulation processes. You're describing a critique of rentier-driven globalization, not capitalism.
Good luck with that. If you do go looking them I guarantee they’ll all be “Chibber doesn’t understand our ideas”, “Chibber has misrepresented our ideas”. It’s not just Chibber, anyone criticising post colonial theory seems to get this treatment.
He makes a very good point. However, post-colonial theory did not provincial Europe, Europe provincialized itself by setting the metrics of humanity only to that which it deemed human and banished everywhere else, and people 'to brutes' out of the cannon of humanity. The colonial project in the third world, in Africa especially could not have transpired at the scale it did without the dehumanization and provincialization of those people and their experiences. Hegel for one comes to mind. This is not to say post-colonial theory hasn't become problematic as Vivek points out. The theory itself was a response to a particular experience that was imposed on a particular people, which it has however refused to outgrow in the face of this current development in human history.
@@daffyduck4674You know, I don't know. But he does seem to have a pretty facile sort of grasp on these ideas. He's not addressing post-colonial theory here at all, just his straw men. And he is welcome to do what he wants with those. But it's not very helpful. It's not like post-colonial theorists don't have critiques of the things he purports to have a problem with ("inhuman work conditions, 16-hour working days, incredibly fast paces of work") except unlike him, they have spent significant years, often decades, on the ground in the contexts he describes, as activists, as Marxists, before realising that it is inadequate and occasionally complicit with the imperialism that we're trying to oppose. I would like to see him put his money where his mouth--teach in a post-colonial university at post-colonial wages, try and work as a labour activist with workers in post-colonial factories or mines--and then I will be first in line to listen to him lecture us poor brown people about how we're supposed to properly organise, and how our experiences are entirely wrong.
@@daffyduck4674 I mean just listen to him "Postcolonial theory gives radical garb to racist ideas". No, man! The 'theory' is just a small part of what these authors/thinkers have been doing. The true stakes here are that there are different epistemologies outside of the 'modern', and unless you (as in Chibber) put in the time and the respect that these traditions demand, you are not going to be able to see beyond these trite binaries. And I honestly don't think that he's engaged with any of these other traditions seriously enough. I'm saying this as an anthropologist, just returning after years in the field. And the BASIC position I have to adopt is to take what people are saying seriously. Rather than looking at everyone who disagrees with me and screaming "False consciousness!"
how come its ok to explain foreign policy of postcolonial societies using realist theory, and their economies using liberal theory...but it is not okay to explain the relations of production in these places using pure marxist theory?
Old Europe was not a cohesive society as it is today, was not compelled to meet big scientific standards. So much so modernist elite views and opinions did not define ordinary European mind even post Renaissance/post-industrial revolution. Today all of Europe/white society is far more centralised and coordinated. A rational elite exerts positive influence, enforces standards 24×7. By ascribing this refinement to all in his space and community, colonial/post colonial ideologues, hope to humanize their lot and dehumanize others. Institutions built by white capitalistic societies have global impact (white imperial legacy ensures a far stretched inclusiveness), this global world view and outreach they argue is unique to one race and not the natural evolution of human institution building. Global world as defined by white races is different from a Chinese initiative or a Turkish initiative, by appropriating the role of global platform facilitator he hopes there will be not many who could come up with anything substantial or extravagant. Somewhere this dismissal of a significant non-white world is wishful and emnates from past arrogance. He would argue no other race could ever design such extravagant material world, this sophisticate material paradise is race derived not common or aspired by clients and dependents, true to some parts not to many others (pyramids become subject of ridicule judged by today's standards or on occasion mis appropriated, convenietly if it is not white it has to be ignored/disregarded). European refinement/white exceptionalsm has been dismissed by many white leftist thinkers, they could not find conclusive evidence to support unusual intelligence/cultural sophistication among white races.
I don't think what threatens the left is postcolonialism as much as such a dogmatic view of socialism. It is ridiculous to think that postcolonial thinkers are not aware of the basics you are presenting about concepts such as the universal category and its specificities. What postcolonial thinkers are trying to explain is the way with which these universal categories have been used/overused/abused to exclude certain specificities, to deny their existence, to establish a certain hierarchy between specificities. Postcolonial theorists are not making the same orientalist/racist argument that people/cultures are different with some superior to others, they are simply saying we are different but we are still equals, which is at the heart of being socialist.
Different but how so? Do we contain the same human nature, have to exist within similar functions, react to material conditions, etc? Post-colonial theory is making the racist argument that non-Western people are not people like we are, and function in a totally separate world than Westerners do. This turns non-Western people into foreign objects, unable to be understood by those in the West, who cannot think rationally, and so on. What Chibber does with the universal and the specific is understand that there can be a universal construction that’s affect is analizable on the whole and specific, that itself is not totally individualized. We don’t need to obsess over other nations cultures as unexaminable and impossible to grasp before we can examine basic economic and social relations.
@@daffyduck4674 Who, daffy, are these post-colonial theorists you speak of? (genuine question, because the people he names are certainly not saying anything as trivial as the words he puts in their mouths)
Dipesh Chakrabarty and Partha Chatterjee have better love for Marx and Marxian concepts; that is why they work with ideas like "classical Marxist concepts are difficult to apply in so and so regions..." Vivek Chibber, by trying to sound like he knows Marx better than anyone else, sounds like the young rebel in the family who starts defending the grandpa at the family reunion at a time the grandpa himself had started repenting for all his selfishness. Above all, while being overconfident in his dismissal of post colonial theory, Chibber ignores the very concern that inaugurates the post colonial critical project in the first place: the role of colonialism in all this. After all, colonialism was both a material-economic project to exploit colonies, accompanied by an elaborate knowledge project to found the colonial races' ideas about their own superiority. Many Marxian concepts were mobilised in such a colonial project by scholars who appeared to be humanists and progressives. What post colonial theory achieved is a systematic understanding of how Marxist concepts -- which were originally meant to be part of a theory for working class emancipation-- became instrumental for furthering the interests of colonial powers. It was a difficult task, come on! At least, give post colonial theory the credit it deserves. Being bitchy is not being Marxist!
Sorry but what are you talking about? What marxian concepts were « used in colonial projects by scholars »? Explain how marxist ideas are « instrumental to colonialism »? I think Chibber makes a better account of how marxism is fundamentally a way to dismantle colonialism as it is today - which pursues through corporate activities (capitalism). He also explains how postcolonial theory actually allows for this to happen with its wrong ideas, which are the claims which he presents in the video. Please watch the video again, I don’t think you’ve probably understood the point and your critique is unfounded.
“Accompanied” - no, the project to found and create ideas of racial superiority is *derivative* of the material-economic project to exploit colonies. You have your order all mixed up
@@mathieucharbonneau2710 The works by Ranjit Guha and Partha Chatterjee, for example, are systematic expositions of the epistemic violence that white liberal historians did to colonies, who often applied Marxist frameworks in very reductive ways to explain 'why regions like India do not enter history', to paraphrase. That is why that literature is gold, despite whatever limitations they might have. For God's sake, please read those original works if you care--about Marxism or about the history of these colonies and the role of the white intellectual in furthering colonial projects. Instead, if you are going to rely on Chibber's account of those works in his book, you are being misled. I understand the support that those trying to revive Marxism in the West are extending to Chibber. But the story that Chibber is telling you about Subaltern Studies is far from the truth. Listen to Partha Chatterjee's incisive response to Chibber here (this will also give you a sense about how much these historians respect and actually understand Marx and Marxism): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xbM8HJrxSJ4.html Please don't ask me to watch Chibber soap opera again to understand him better.
Chibber's written efforts on postcolonial theory have been pretty dismal. He is heavy on verbal abuse and thin on scholarship. His book is ostensibly one of the most serious criticisms of he subject to date, yet only takes a few authors as examples, and only uses older works from them. I have no patience for scholars who complain about another field being hard to understand. That's just a reflection of the laziness of the scholar in not wanting to do the work. Chibber is the Richard Carrier of Marxism: a self-righteous blowhard who thinks he is an unrecognized genius.
He gave a perfectly clear and reasonable explanation as to why he restricted himself to Subaltern studies in his response to Spivak. What you’d need to show is that this somehow misrepresents the position or that subaltern studies can’t been seen as representative. Again he specifically address these points in his response to Spivak. As to the idea that his critiques are ad hominem I’d love to see examples. Once again he shows it’s actually the post colonialist that regularly make appeals to authority or personal attacks instead of engaging the arguments. The irony is you accuse him of something with no evidence when he’s already in detail addressed the very critiques you make. When there’s any actual substantive responses to his critiques please let me know…
If your comment is a "critique" of this talk it exemplifies the "laziness" you claim to describe. In no way does Chibber claim post-colonialism is hard to understand. What is hard to understand is why so many post colonialist authors have failed to develop an understanding of capitalism, markets and the legal structures of financialisation and labour exploitation that now dominate globalisation. Without this, post-colonialism is spinning its wheels.
@@daffyduck4674Mr. Duck, Daffy, if I may, I think you might enjoy listening to Partha Chatterjee (still much more of a Marxist than Chhibber) debating this book with him here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xbM8HJrxSJ4.html. Chhibber makes much the same arguments as he does in this video, but it's useful to see the person he's quoting actually respond and demonstrate precisely why he's so utterly off the mark with what he says.
Imagine listening to an anti-postmodern talk, thinking it's postmodernism because you either weren't paying attention or don't know what postmodernism is and then you get Alan Sokal's name wrong
