Orientalism, the Problematic of Marx, Subaltern Studies

Chung, Paul S.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-17172-8_6

Paul S. Chung²

524 Accesses

Abstract

With this new model of political theology in mind, this chapter discusses Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism with respect to its significance and limitations. He classifies Karl Marx as a Eurocentric thinker and attacks Marx’s mode of representation in justifying the British rule in India. Spivak follows in the footsteps of Said. This postcolonial portrayal of Marx causes a debate and becomes a domain of ‘problematic’ standing in need of further clarification. To the degree that postcolonial thinkers under French poststructuralist theory argue against the shibboleth of humanism; they still present a new form of humanism for the subaltern in reference to Antonio Gramsci. I enlarge the place of Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis in a postcolonial setting in critical review of Said and Spivak. In difference from these two thinkers, it is significant to explicate the significance and limitation of Gramsci’s theory of ideology (a la Machiavelli) and his historical materialism in view of Karl Marx’s own thought. This study facilitates political theology in its critical engagement with the postcolonial theory, providing a broader framework for the political theology to take into account subaltern studies and Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 69.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 89.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
Ashcroft, et al. The Empire Writes Back, 2.
2.
Said, Culture and Imperialism, 278.
3.
Baudrillard: A Critical Reader, ed. Kellner, 8–9.
4.
Gilloch, Walter Benjamin, 11.
5.
Said, Orientalism, 21.
6.
Ibid., 21.
7.
Ibid.
8.
Ibid., 23.
9.
Wallerstein, “Eurocentrism and its Avatars,” 99. http://www.iwallerstein.com/wp-content/uploads/docs/NLREURAV.PDF.
10.
Ibid., 100.
11.
Said, Orientalism, 24–5.
12.
Ibid., 26–7.
13.
Ibid., 29.
14.
Ibid., 33.
15.
Ibid., 29.
16.
Ibid., 20.
17.
Ibid., 32.
18.
Ibid., 34.
19.
Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks, 481–94. (SPN).
20.
Said, Orientalism, 21.
21.
Ibid.
22.
Ibid.
23.
“The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” in Karl Marx Selected Writings, 300.
24.
Ibid., 318.
25.
Ibid.
26.
Ibid.
27.
Ibid., 317.
28.
Ibid., 317–8.
29.
Ibid., 318.
30.
Cited in Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, 70.
31.
“The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” in Karl Marx Selected Writings, 317. In Spivak, ibid., 70–1.
32.
Ibid., 318.
33.
Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory, 73.
34.
Duchrow and Hinkelammert, Transcending Greedy Money, 169, 172.
35.
Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory, 73.
36.
Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach” (Theses VI) in Karl Marx Selected Writings, 157.
37.
Karl Marx Frederick Engels Collected Works Vol. 16, XXI–XXII.
38.
The expression ‘industrial revolution’ was popularized by Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975) in his lectures on “The Industrial Revolution in England” describing Britain’s economic development from 1760 to 1840.
39.
Marx “The British Rule in India (June 10, 1853),” Karl Marx in the New-York Herald Tribune (June 25, 1853).
40.
Marx, “The Future Results of British Rule in India (July 22, 1853),” in the New-York Daily Tribune, (August 8, 1853).
41.
Ibid.
42.
For detailed study of AMP see Chung, Church and Ethical Responsibility in the Midst of World Economy, 95–9.
43.
Marx, Grundrisse, 473.
44.
Ibid., 471.
45.
Ibid., 497. 474.
46.
Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 348.
47.
Cited in Frank, ReOrient, 323.
48.
Ibid., 323.
49.
Mandel, The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx, trans. Brian Pearce, 137.
50.
Ibid., 123–4.
51.
Marx, “Letter to Vera Sassoulitch,” in Karl Marx Selected Writings, 576.
52.
Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution 2, 386. 390.
53.
Frank, ReOrient, 13.
54.
Derrida, “White Mythology,” New Literary History, vol. 6, no. 1, 7–74.
55.
Spivak, The Postcolonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues, 7.
56.
Taylor, Hegel, 5.
57.
The Spivak Reader, eds. D. Laundry. D and G. Maclean, 3.
58.
Ashcroft, et al. Key Concept in Postcolonial Studies, 217.
59.
SPN 20.
60.
Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory, 67–111.
61.
Said, The World, the Text, the Critic, 243,
62.
Spivak “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” 78.
63.
Ibid.
64.
Ibid.
65.
Ibid., 87.
66.
Ibid., 89.
67.
Ibid.
68.
Coronil, “Listening to the Subaltern: Postcolonial studies and the Poetics on Neocolonial States,” in Postcolonial Theory and Criticism, ed. Laura Christman and Benita Parry, 44.
69.
Said, Representations of the Intellectuals, 11.
70.
Heywood, Political Ideas and Concepts, 85.
71.
Loomba, Colonialism, Postcolonialism, 234.
72.
SPN 641. Footnote 15.
73.
SPN 437.
74.
SPN 646. Footnote 25.
75.
SPN 659.
76.
SPN 781.
77.
SPN 781. Footnote 74.
78.
SPN 705.
79.
SPN 752–3.
80.
Gramsci, “The Revolution against Capital (1917).”
81.
“The Civil War in France,” in Karl Marx Selected Writings, 539.
82.
Marx, Capital I, 165. See Lukács, History and Class Consciousness, 86.
83.
“Preface to A Critique of Political Economy,” in Karl Marx Selected Writings, 389.
84.
Marx, Capital I, 932.
85.
“Preface to A Critique of Political Economy,” in Karl Marx Selected Writings, 390.
86.
Lukács, History and Class Consciousness, 102.
87.
Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism I, 231.
88.
“Preface to A Critique of Political Economy,” in Karl Marx Selected Writings, 390.
89.
“Classes” from Capital volume 3. Ibid., 506.
90.
Marx, Capital I, 929.
91.
“The Communist Manifesto,” in Karl Marx Selected Writings, 226.
92.
Ibid.
93.
Marx, Capital I, 929.
94.
Ibid., 932.
95.
Ibid., 936.
96.
Ibid., 939.
97.
Arrighi, The Long 20th Centuries.
98.
SPN 691.
99.
Marx, Capital III, Chapter 48.
100.
Marx, Grundrisse, 101.
101.
Marx, Capital III, 958–9.
102.
Ibid., 959.
103.
Gollwitzer, Kapitalistische Revolution, 18.
104.
Machiavelli, Introduction, The Prince, 12.
105.
SPN 332.
106.
SPN 335.
107.
SPN 325.
108.
SPN 316.
109.
SPN 323.
110.
SPN 313.
111.
SPN 314.
112.
Book III, ch. vi, in Rousseau, On The Social Contract.
113.
Ibid., 88.
114.
“Governmentality,” in The Essential Foucault, 230.
115.
Ibid., 232.
116.
Despite Lenin’s slogan of ‘worker-peasant unity,’ Lenin, in the aftermath of revolution, denounced the middle peasant as an exploiter of the worker in the post-revolutionary context. In Lenin’s address: “the majority of the peasants feel only too bitterly the cold and hunger and intolerable imposts.” Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution 2, 173.
117.
SPN 386.
118.
Arrighi, The Long 20th Century, 28–9.
119.
SPN 562–3.
120.
Baran and Sweezy, Monopoly Capital, 8.
121.
SPN 559.
122.
SPN 562. Gramsci defines “Gandhism and Tolstoyism” as “naïve theorizations of the “passive revolution” with religious overtones.” SPN 290.
123.
Wolfgang Haug, “From Marx To Gramsci – From Gramsci To Marx. Historical Materialism and the Philosophy of Praxis,” Rethinking Marxism, vol. 13, no. 1, 2001, 11.
124.
SPN 132.
125.
Spivak “Can the Subaltern Speak?” 78.
126.
Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” in The Essential Foucault, 129.
127.
SPN 202–3.
128.
Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” in The Essential Foucault, 140–1.

Bibliography

Arrighi, Giovani. The Long Twentieth Centuries: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times. London: Verso, 1994.
Google Scholar
Ashcroft, Bill, et al. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. London: Routledge, 1989.
Book Google Scholar
———. et al. Key Concept in Postcolonial Studies. London: Routledge, 1998.
Google Scholar
Baran, Paul and Paul Sweezy. Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic Social Order. New York and London: Monthly Review, 1966.
Google Scholar
Carr, E. H. The Bolshevik Revolution 2: 1917–1923. New York: Penguin, 1986.
Google Scholar
Christman, Laura and Benita Parry, eds. Postcolonial Theory and Criticism. New York: D.S. Brewer, Cambridge, 2000.
Google Scholar
Chung, Paul S. Church and Ethical Responsibility in the Midst of World Economy: Greed, Dominion, and Justice. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2013.
Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacque. “White Mythology: Metaphor in The Text of Philosophy,” New Literary History, vol. 6, no.1, 7–74.
Article Google Scholar
Duchrow, Ulrich and Franz J. Hinkelammert, Transcending Greedy Money: Interreligious Solidarity for Just Relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Book Google Scholar
Foucault, M. The Essential Foucault: Selections from the Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984, eds. Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose. London and New York: The New Press, 1994.
Google Scholar
Frank, Andre G. ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1998.
Google Scholar
Gilloch, Graeme. Walter Benjamin: Critical Constellations. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002.
Google Scholar
Gollwitzer, H. Kapitalistische Revolution. Tübingen: TVT Medienverlag, 1998.
Google Scholar
Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. London: ElecBook, 1999.
Google Scholar
———. “The Revolution Against Capital (1917).” https://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/1917/12/revolution-against-capital.htm
Haug, Wolfgang Fritz, “From Marx To Gramsci – From Gramsci To Marx. Historical Materialism and the Philosophy of Praxis,” Rethinking Marxism, vol. 13, no. 1, 2001, 69–82.
Article Google Scholar
Heywood, Andrew. Political Ideas and Concepts: An Introduction. London: Macmillan, 1994.
Google Scholar
Kellner, Douglas, ed. Baudrillard: A Critical Reader. Oxford, UK and Cambridge, USA: Blackwell, 1995.
Google Scholar
Kolakowski, Leszek. Main Currents of Marxism: Its Origins, Growth and Dissolution, trans. P. S. Falla. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Google Scholar
Loomba, Ania. Colonialism, Postcolonialism. London: Routledge, 1998.
Google Scholar
Lukács, G. History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics, trans. Rodney Livingstone. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1971.
Google Scholar
Machiavelli, Niccolò, The Prince, 12. http://www.planetebook.com/free-ebooks/the-prince.pdf
Mandel, Ernest. The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx, 1843 to Capital, trans. Brian Pearce. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1971.
Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. Capital I: A Critique of Political Economy, trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990.
Google Scholar
———. Capital III: A Critique of Political Economy, trans. David Fernbach. London: Penguin, 1991.
Google Scholar
———. Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy, trans. Martin Nicholaus. London: Penguin, 1993.
Google Scholar
———. Karl Marx Selected Writings, ed. David McLellan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Google Scholar
———. et al. Karl Marx Frederick Engels Collected Works Vol. 16. Marx and Engels 1858–1860. London, England: Lawrence & Wishart, 1980.
Google Scholar
———. “The British Rule in India (June 10, 1853),” Karl Marx in the New-York Herald Tribune (June 25, 1853). https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/06/25.htm
———. “The Future Results of British Rule in India (July 22, 1853),” in the New-York Daily Tribune (August 8, 1853). http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/marx/works/1853/07/22.htm
Rousseau, J. J. On the Social Contract with Geneva Manuscript and Political Economy, ed. Roger D. Masters and trans. Judith R. Masters. New York: St. Martin’s, 1978.
Google Scholar
Said, E. Representations of the Intellectuals. New York: Vintage Books, 1996.
Google Scholar
———. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage, 1993.
Google Scholar
———. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979.
Google Scholar
———. The World, the Text, the Critic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983.
Google Scholar
Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations. New York: Random House, 1937 [1976].
Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. Ed. Patrick Williams. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. 67–111.
Google Scholar
———. The Spivak Reader, eds. D. Laundry. D and G. Maclean. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Google Scholar
———. The Postcolonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues, ed. Sarah Harasym. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. Hegel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
Book Google Scholar
Wallerstein, Immanuel, “Eurocentrism and its Avatars: The Dilemmas of Social Science,” http://www.iwallerstein.com/wp-content/uploads/docs/NLREURAV.PDF

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Paul S. Chung

Authors

Paul S. Chung
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Chung, P.S. (2019). Orientalism, the Problematic of Marx, Subaltern Studies. In: Critical Theory and Political Theology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17172-8_6

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17172-8_6
Published: 03 May 2019
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-17171-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-17172-8
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics