Border-Marxisms and Historical Materialism: Untimely Encounters

Description

This book engages with the diverse traditions within non-Western Marxisms, as they emerge across the Global South, positioning itself against calls for a “pure” Marxism. The author views Marxism as a conceptual “field,” similar to electromagnetic or gravitational fields, where bodies and objects impact other bodies and objects without necessarily coming in contact with them. So too, in the “field” of Marxism, people behave in specific ways and deploy languages and concepts with their own specific inflections and accents. While rejecting the view of Marxism as an inherently European and fully-formed doctrine that is corrupted by contact with alien contexts, Nigam simultaneously acknowledges the residual force of certain elements of the theory and the gravitational pull that the authoritative figures continue to have on the evolution of the field in non-Western contexts. He argues that since a large part of Marxism’s earthly journey was undertaken in the Global South, it is that experience that needs to be rendered legible, by setting aside the conceptual lens of Western Marxism that repeatedly misreads such experience. Ultimately, the book invites a fruitful and challenging re-examination of a variety of phenomena arising from the contemporaneous co-existence of pre-capitalist and capitalist social relations that have been an inextricable part of the majority of the world―what the author terms “untimely encounters.” Titles Published Titles Forthcoming Preface and Acknowledgments Contents 1 Introduction: Decentering “Marxist” Political Theory After State Socialism Border-Marxisms and the “Field” Anti-capitalism and Historical Materialism’s Linear Time An Autonomous Problematic of Power: Mao Zedong After the Collapse of State Socialism The “Democratic” State—Empty Place of Power Critique of the Party-Form The Conundrum References 2 Capital’s Expressways and Life Beneath: Underground Economies, Illegal Populations Introduction The “Rise” of the “Underground” Performing “Capitalism” Labor Consumption Accumulation Democracy as the “Outside” References 3 Peasantry and the Marxist “Unconscious” Farewell to the Working Class Enter the Peasants and Indigenous Peoples Indian Farmers’ Struggle, 2020 The Marxist Unconscious Lenin and the Russian Revolution Towards Reformulation References 4 Climate Crisis, Productivism and Waste Relocating Pollution and waste—The Global Story Waste and Power Expanded Reproduction of Waste Marxist Productivism Ecology and the So-Called ‘Logic of Capital’ The “New Copernican Revolution” Ecological Debt Bibliography 5 Exiting the Time of Historical Materialism Introduction Pathways of Exit: MN Roy Pathways of Exit: Cedric Robinson Pathways of Exit: Subaltern Studies Pathways of Exit: Samir Amin Towards Alternative Conceptions References 6 Looking Ahead: Socialism is not the “After” of Capitalism Socialism and the Global South Socialism—From Scientific to Utopian Socialism, Commoning and Solidary Economy References Bibliography Index