3. The Reality and Fallacy of Marx’s ‘Eurocentrism’

Abstract

This chapter discusses two claims that serve as the basis for the commonplace belief that Marx's 'Eurocentrism' is a logical and sufficient explanation of his indifference towards Latin America. The first claim begins from the recognition that in Europe there is a generalised ignorance of the Latin- American reality. But can we take this claim as a given? However, such a claim merely feeds the belief in a strong 'historical' conditioning of Marx's thought, a belief that clearly does not help us at all in the complicated task of clearing the field of the simplistic arguments that only confuse matters. Such arguments represent either undeniable statements of fact, valid for all countries and thus proper to no country in particular, or else cover for the uncritical assumption that Marx's 'Eurocentrism' imposed an insuperable limitation. Keywords: Latin-American reality; Marx's Eurocentrism