Abstract
Review of "Social Movements in Global Politics," by David West
Highlights
REVIEW SYMPOSIUM ON VIVEK CRIBBER'S POSTCOLONIAL THEORY AND THESPECTER OF CAPITALHo-fung Hung Department of Sociology Johns Hopkins University hofung @jhu.eduWithout any doubt, Vivek Chibber's Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital is a bomb
Chibber shows how Marx's model of capitalism's universalization can be combined with recognition of the autonomy of many realms of social life from that relentless process
The articulation of Marxism as a regional theory of capitalism with autonomous theories of cultural, political, social, and psychic processes is a promising path for the historical social sciences
Summary
What PTSC argues, in the end, is that Subaltern Studies fails in the case that it makes against the universalizing categories of the Enlightenment, which includes liberal and Marxist theory. Selwyn constructs a handy typology on the developmental impact of class struggle from Marx's writings: workers in colonial frontier zones escaping the reach of states and capitalists (the Australian hinterlands); communal peasant organizations resisting the penetration of capitalism (the Russian mir); emergent workers' structural and associational bargaining power forcing the improvement of livelihoods under capitalism (English trade unionism); and the creation of political-economic institutions which undermine capitalism (the 1871 Paris Commune) This is the kernel of a "labor-centered perspective," which Selwyn argues should replace our current development theories. By noting how labor struggle is a constitutive element of historical capitalism, Selwyn is pushing in the right direction His theoretical cutlery is far sharper than the current wave of left-leaning handwringing which sees a blob-like neoliberalism behind every form of social change. By taking these essays into consideration, perhaps our grandchildren will not, to paraphrase Keynes, become enslaved by some defunct economists
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