[PEN-L:8688] Marx and 19th century racism

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

>I think it would be hard to find any major European thinker before the
>twentieth century who did not write vile racist claptrap.  Marx may have
>been better than some, but his comment (whose cite I can't recall at the
>moment) about the "abundance" of the tropics inducing sloth and being
>responsible for the lower level of economic development of the tropics
>borders on VRC.
>
>Peter

There is an important distinction. Marx and Engels wrote racist statements
in their private correspondence. Tariq Ali made an interesting comment on
this when he was touring NYC a while back. In the 1800s there were no
telephones, so letters were the sole means of communication. If Marx called
Lafargue a nigger or made disparaging remarks about Jews, he wasn't writing
for posterity. Kant, on the other hand, was giving public lectures at a
university filled with stenographers.

There is an element of racism in Marx and Engels, but this has more to do
with the general political inheritance of 18th century social science.
Europe was considered more civilized than Asia, which was steeped in a
backward mode of production. There was nothing racial per se here, but I
agree strongly with Blaut that we are dealing with implicit racism. The
best thing about Marx and Engels is that they provided a methodology which
would allow a critique of all forms of racism to be mounted. On the other
hand, 19th century idealist philosophy was the handmaiden of imperialism
and helped to influence reactionary ideology in the 20th century. The main
inheritance of idealism is that ideas determine material reality, rather
than the other way around. This tends to bolster the status quo.

Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)