The Africana paradigm in Capital

The debts of Karl Marx to people of African descent

Dados Bibliográficos

ID7440258
AutoresBiko Agozino (0000-0003-4988-5340, Virginia Tech, autor correspondente)
Ano2014
Volume41
Fascículo140
Páginas172-184
Data de publicação2014-04-03
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoReview of African Political Economy (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0305-6244 • E-ISSN: 1740-1720
EditoraTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03056244.2013.872613
OpenAlexW2052316916
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas10
Referências citadas21

This article will attempt an original interpretation of Capital (Marx, K. 1867. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1. Marx/Engels Internet Archive, 1995, 1999. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx) and other major works of Karl Marx to demonstrate that people of African descent are central to the discourse of Marx, contrary to widespread misconceptions by critics who attribute a Eurocentric orientation to Marx because of the accident of his birth in Europe and by allies because of his scholarly activism in European working-class politics. The paper argues that the earlier work of Marx and Engels ([1847] 1969. The Manifesto of the Communist Party in Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, pp. 98–137. Moscow: Progress Publishers), especially the Manifesto of the Communist Party, may have misled critics into believing that the history of all hitherto existing society alluded to by Marx and Engels was exclusively European history. On the contrary, there are hundreds of references to the ‘Negro’ in Capital, not as part of a peripheral or superficial concern relating to the issue of class exploitation in Europe, but as a foundational model for explaining and predicting the ending of the exploitation of the working class globally. The paper concludes that this reading adds credence to Africana Studies paradigms that privilege critical, Africa-centred scholar-activism as an important contribution to original theoretical, methodological and policy innovations

Capital (architecture · Class conflict · Communism · Manifesto · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Proletariat · Sociology · African cultural and philosophical studies · African history and culture studies · History · Law · Political Economy and Marxism