Re: [Marxism] two questions on Marx

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

George S. wrote:
>  I know that Marx wrote articles on the U.S. Civil War, but did he have 
> anything to say about the Haitian Revolution or Sam Sharpe's Rebellion in 
> Jamaica?

No, he did not. One of the reasons, in my opinion, that the Brenner thesis 
has had so much traction on the academic left is that Karl Marx spent very 
little time examining Latin American social relations. If you read V. 1 of 
Capital as some kind of "definition" of the way that capitalism operates, 
rather than as a specific analysis of the classic case of Great Britain, 
then you might conclude that instances involving what Brenner calls 
"extra-economic" coercion fall outside the rubric of capitalism. It is not 
worth looking for Marx's rather cursory observations on slavery in the 
Grundrisse and elsewhere since they are not part of an in-depth historical 
materialist analysis. You are much better off reading CLR James on the 
Haitian revolt or Eric Williams's "Capitalism and Slavery". 


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