Classical political economists and Marx on colonialism and “backward’ nations

World Development, Vol. 19, No. 2/3, pp. 225-243, 1991. Printed in Great Britain.

0~)5-750X/91 $3.00 + 0.00 Pergamon Press pie

Classical Political Economists and Marx on Colonialism and "Backward" Nations JORGE LARRAIN*

Universityof Birmingham Summary. - - The article provides a comparative and analytical discussion of the conceptions about colonialism and "backward" countries elaborated by classical political economists, and Marx and Engels. It shows that, contrary to the consistently optimistic view of classical political economy, Marx and Engels changed their position from a positive assessment of colonialism toward a more pessimistic view after 1860. Their analyses of Latin American nations, however, follow a different pattern throughout. The reason for that is sought in the influence of the Hegelian notion of "'peoples without history" and in the presence of a form of "Eurocentrism" in their thought. The article concludes that, in spite of important differences, Marx and Engels share some basic premises with the 19th century's mentality present in Hegel and classical political economy.

1. I N T R O D U C T I O N This article is both an attempt critically to ascertain the views of classical political economy and Marx on the questions of colonialism and "backward" nations, and an exploration of their relationship. This entails an elucidation of their ideas to establish the differences and similarities which stem from their respective theoretical views. Although Marx developed his analysis of the capitalist mode of production as a critique of classical political economy, he started from many premises first elaborated within that tradition (e.g., the labor theory of value). But the relationship between Marx and the classical economists is more complex than it first appears because after 1858 it was mediated by Marx's rereading of Hegel's Logic. n In effect, Marx's critique of political economy used, and was very much influenced by, Hegelian categories and distinctions (e.g., the distinction between phenomenal forms and inner relations which Marx transposed into the spheres of the market and of production respectively). I argue that in the more specific analyses of colonialism and "backward nations," there are similar complexities, continuities and discontinuities between the two traditions, which are necessary to elucidate. This is a much less explored, and yet highly relevant area of the relationships between Marx and the political economists. It will be shown that here, too,

Hegel plays an important, if often unacknowledged, role. The discussion focuses first on classical political economy and Marx's theoretical views on colonialism in order to show that, contrary to the consistently optimistic view of the former which emphasizes the civilizing mission of capitalist expansion and colonialism throughout the world, Marx and Engels changed their position after 1860. They moved from a positive assessment of colonialism (for instance, in the case of India) toward a more pessimistic and critical view (for instance, their views on Ireland). This crucial change of perspective, however, is further discussed in the context of Marx and Engels's references to Latin American nations which seem to follow a different pattern. Marx and Engels did not extend to Latin America the new thoughts they developed on Ireland and Asia after 1860, and abstained from any class analysis of its social and political processes. The reason for this is discovered not so much in the inspiration coming from classical political economy as in the influence of the Hegelian notion of "peoples without history." There are, however, alternative analyses of this influence which *I wish to thank the reviewers of the first version of this article for their detailed and helpful comments. They have certainly contributed to making this final version an altogether better piece, although ! suspect they may still disagree with its conclusions. 225

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entail different versions of what is vaguely denominated "Eurocentrism.'" This term is discussed to emphasize a dimension of it which some of these alternatives neglect and which, I contend, affects the thought of Marx and Engels. Furthermore, I try to show that this dimension of Eurocentrism is also present in classical political economy and Hegel. This means that through different intellectual routes, classical political economists, and Marx and Engels share some difficulties in understanding the specificity of Latin America and other "'backward" societies. The central issues of this discussion are clearly relevant today from a double point of view. First, there is an important question about the conditions of applicability of theories developed in the main industrial centers to the situation of Third World countries. Can the historical and sociological specificity of Third World countries be understood by theories whose basic categories and analytical tools were constructed in the study of the European reality? Of course, colonialism has now practically disappeared and the labeling of an underdeveloped country as "backward" is clearly no longer acceptable or in use. The conceptualization of colonialism and backwardness, however, clearly emerged from a conception of capitalism primarily developed from the European case. Hence it is not surprising that the question one can raise in that context remains apposite in more modern discussions. Second, the arguments made in the 19thcentury discussion about colonialism and backwardness are in themselves pregnant with meaning for the understanding of today's processes of underdevelopment and dependence. Implicit in that discussion was a confrontation between a unilinear interpretation of history which saw the future of "'backward" societies already anticipated in the European processes of capitalist industrialization, and a multilinear interpretation which clearly favored only some countries and left others aside. While classical political economy participated of the first version, Marx and Engels seemed to evolve from the first to the second. Both positions have important problems and are represented today by the discussion between those who believe that industrial development is inevitable for all countries in the transition to modernity and those who believe that underdeveloped countries are structurally condemned to lag behind. 2. CLASSICAL POLITICAL E C O N O M Y AND B A C K W A R D NATIONS Although the situation of less developed, non-

European nations is not the main focus of attention of classical political economy, one can find plenty of references to them in the writings of its main representativesfl They are usually called "backward countries" or "unimproving nations." Classical political economists were far from carrying out a systematic analysis of, let alone constructing a fully-fledged theory about, the nations they considered to be backward and unimproving. They certainly sought, however, to explain the causes of their backwardness, and were especially interested in evaluating the impact of the European colonial expansion on these countries. For most political economists, the fact that backward nations were put under the tutelage of Europe through colonialism was a natural and indispensable precondition for those countries to be able to break away from their old patterns of stagnation and to be initiated into the road to progress. A few political economists, however, also saw and denounced some of the problems created by the way in which European countries organized the economic and political control of their colonies. Adam Smith was the most important of them. In effect, Smith not only denounced the mercantilist policies followed by the European nations which only valued the exportation of gold and silver to the metropoles, but he also consistently and forcefully criticized the trade monopoly established by European nations in the commerce with their colonies. His concern stemmed mainly from his resolute opposition to all obstacles to free trade. Referring to the discovery of America, he maintained that "the savage injustice of the Europeans rendered an event, which ought to have been beneficial to all, ruinous and destructive to several of those unfortunate countries. ''3 Monopolistic colonial trade pushed up the prices of imports and brought down the prices of exports in the colonies, thus discouraging consumption and industrial development. According to Smith, the colonial monopoly of trade was not necessarily beneficial to the colonial powers. It promoted an unnaturally high price system and determined an artificially high rate of profit for the monopolistic sector. This structure of trade led to a distorted and inefficient allocation of national resources. Monopolies prevented the more rational and advantageous utilization of capital and therefore, they were bound to negatively affect the rate of growth of the whole economy. As Smith put it, the monopoly of colonial trade "depresses the industry of all other countries, but chiefly that of the colonies, without in the least increasing, but on the contrary diminishing, that of the country in whose favour it is established. ''4

MARX ON "BACKWARD" NATIONS Still, Smith did not oppose colonialism in general. He distinguished between its economic and the political aspects. For instance, in opposing the monopolistic control of trade by the East India Company, he nevertheless accepted that the company should continue to govern India for the British crown to guarantee free trade. For Smith, colonial trade could be most advantageous for both the colonies and the colonial powers so long as there was no monopolistic control of it. His assumption was that provided free trade was assured, the colonies would have no problem in developing normally. Smith did not question British rule in America and India, he only challenged its monopolistic economic policies and the specific way in which they were enforced. The advantages of trade nonetheless outweighed the disadvantages of monopoly. We must carefully distinguish between the effects of the colony trade and those of the monopoly of that trade. The former are always and necessarily beneficial; the latter always and necessarily hurtful. But the former are so beneficial, that the colony trade, though subject to a monopoly, and notwithstanding the hurtful effects of that monopoly, is still upon the whole beneficial, and greatly beneficial; though a good deal less so than it otherwise would be. 5 Adam Smith did not blame colonialism or colonial trade for the backwardness of nonEuropean countries. Even if the colonial monopoly of trade hurt the colonies more than Europe, it was still true that colonial countries were backward and stationary before they were colonized just as China was backward without having been colonized. Backwardness for Smith had to do with internal factors which favored agriculture over industry and internal trade over foreign trade: As the political economy of the nations of modern Europe has been more favourable to manufactures and foreign trade, the industry of the towns, than to agriculture, the industry of the country, so that of other nations has followed a different plan, and has been more favourable to agriculture than to manufactures and foreign trade. ~' The consequence of this was spelled out clearly: "When a landed n a t i o n . . , oppresses, either by high duties or by prohibitions, the trade of foreign nations, it necessarily hurts its own i n t e r e s t . . . " Perfect freedom of trade, the lack of barriers against foreign industry was for backward nations "the most effectual expedient for supplying them in due time with all the artificers, manufacturers, and merchants whom they wanted at home. ''7 As Platteau has pointed out, Smith was excep-

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tional among other classical political economists in that he did not propound as a justification for colonialism the paternalist conception that European countries had a civilizing mission to accomplish in the rest of the world. ~ Smith conceived of the British Empire as a vast commercial enterprise to which both Great Britain and the colonies should contribute and which should benefit both on equal terms. On the other hand, there was among many classical political economists a clear perception about some of the excesses committed by colonial powers and about some fundamental differences in the prosperity of various colonies which were related to the way in which they were administered. Smith, for instance, tried to explain the relatively successful development of the British North American colonies in comparison with the sluggishness of the British colonies in Asia and the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in South America. He compared the more liberal policies pursued in the British North American colonies which facilitated greater autonomy and trade with the more restrictive and monopolistic commercial practices imposed on the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of South America and British colonial Asia. Malthus used similar arguments. Yet they never questioned colonialism in itself and there was a tendency to overemphasize the critique of the Spanish and Portuguese forms of colonization in contrast with the supposedly more enlightened British approach. The contrast between the British and other colonizers was very noticeable in the work of Malthus, who concentrated on the differences between North and South American colonies. In the latter, he accused Spain and Portugal of cruelty, violence, maladministration and other vices which made the colonizers worse than the colonized: "Whatever may be the character of the Spanish inhabitants of Mexico and Peru at the present moment, we cannot read the accounts of these countries without feeling strongly that the race destroyed was, in moral worth as well as numbers, superior to the race of their destroyers. "'9 The British North American colonies, on the contrary, "'far outstripped all the others in the progress of their population" and added to vast and rich territories "a greater degree of liberty and equality. ''l° That Malthus's point was not so much to praise the moral value of the South American natives as to attack the character of the Spanish colonizers (in contrast with the talents and tact of the British colonizers) was shown by his multiple remarks about the indolence, ignorance and improvidence of the American Indians. These bad habits were fostered by the natural richness and fertility of the

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soil in those countries. The easier it was to make a living, the greater the tendency to leisure.l~ In order to break this propensity to leisure, new needs should be stimulated, especially through international trade. As Malthus put it, The greatest of all difficulties in converting uncivilized and thinly peopled countries into civilized and populous ones, is to inspire them with the wants best calculated to excite their exertions in the production of wealth. One of the greatest benefits which foreign commerce confers, and the reason why it has always appeared an almost necessary ingredient in the progress of wealth, is, its tendency to inspire new wants, to form new tastes, and to furnish fresh motives for industry,t-" At the opposite extreme of Smith, Say distinguished between "enlightened nations" possessing a "superior civilization" and "savage nations" possessing an "'inferior civilization." The individuals of the latter were rather passive and resigned, had a marked preference for leisure and were incapable of any rational reflection and scientific activity. As all nations must go through the same stages of progress, the enlightened European countries had the duty and the right to help the savage nations to become civilized: It is "'in the interest of the human species" that the advanced European nations must keep and even increase their influence in A s i a . . . it is evident that "with its despots and superstitions, Asia has no good institutions to lose'" but "she could receive many good ones from the Europeans. "~3 Unlike Smith, Say believed that colonies were a burden rather than a positive factor to the development and prosperity of the metropolitan countries• For Say, however, in principle all peoples had the natural right to govern themselves. So he thought that ideally, in the interest of both parties, colonized countries should become independent. Yet colonialism was justified as a temporary measure for as long as backward countries remained immature and were being educated in the European values and customs. Similarly, James Mill took the view that India was uncivilized by comparison with Britain and, in arguing against the fictional accounts of the first travelers which described a fabulous ancient Indian civilization, he averred that "every thing • . . bears clear, concurring, and undeniable testimony to the ignorance of the Hindus, and the low state of civilization in which they remain. ''t4 The same applied to China and other Asiatic societies. In describing the moral character of Indians and Chinese. he maintained that "both nations are to nearly an equal degree tainted with the vices of insincerity; dissembling,

treacherous, mendacious, to an excess which surpasses even the usual measure of uncultivated society. ''ls Ricardo, impressed by Mill's account, wrote to him exclaiming: "What a frightful obstruction to improvement does the immoral character of the people of India present! ''t6 For Mill, the main cause of this situation was political, especially bad laws and the despotic character of government which destroyed the population's morality and their motivation to work. Mill shared with Say the view that the only possibility of changing this picture was the benign and enlightened tutelage of Europeans, even if they had to resort to some forms of authoritarianism. Again, Mill did not believe that the colonial powers would derive any economic benefit from their civilizing task. Colonies were a burden rather than a means for European nations to become rich. The concern with the motivation of the inhabitants of backward countries was also shown by J. S. Mill. According to him, backward societies had a very weak "effective desire" to accumulate, to work harder and to save. Like Malthus, he attributed this lack of motivation to the favorable natural conditions in backward countries which generated the development of only limited needs in the population. But he also followed his father's belief that oppressive political institutions were partly responsible for discouraging the right attitudes. This was, in J. S. Mill's view, the main problem in India before the British conquest. Unlike James Mill and Say, J. S. Mill saw colonization as advantageous for European nations, because it allowed the possibility of investing capital abroad and of getting cheap foodstuffs, thus helping to counteract the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. Yet he resolutely rejected the idea that British existence and prosperity simply depended on getting new markets abroad or that colonial countries suffered economic damage under European rule. Colonialism for J• S. Mill was not only n o t antagonistic to the interests of non-European nations but also benefited the colonies more than the metropolitan countries. Although he criticized the most blatant errors committed by the British in Ireland and India, he saw colonial rule as necessary, especially for immature nonEuropean countries. As he put it, Independence and nationality, so essential to the due growth and development of a people further advanced in improvement, are generally impediments to theirs. The sacred duties which civilized nations owe to the independence and nationality of each other, are not binding towards those to whom nationality and independence are either a certain evil, or at best a questionable good . . .t7

MARX ON "BACKWARD" NATIONS Most classical political economists, even those who were critical of some colonial practices, justified colonialism on the grounds of its civilizing role and as the only way of stimulating the needs and material aspirations of the backward peoples. Backward nations had to be put under the benign and enlightened tutelage of Europe in order to initiate their road to progress. On their own, the economies of backward nations were stagnant and could not develop their productive forces. This was mainly due to the wrong attitudes most of the people in these nations had: their preference for leisure, and their lack of interest in working harder and saving for the future. Ricardo once said that if for any reason the wages of Irish workers were raised, they would work less because with less effort they would satisfy their meager needs. This applied in general to all backward nations. The lack of motivation was not innate but the result of a variety of reasons such as hot climates, natural fertility of the land and, above all, oppressive despotisms which did not reward effort and discouraged trade and industry. All this could only be changed, insofar as it was changeable, with the diffusion of values, international trade and in general, the civilizing mission which colonialism secured. This conception of colonialism must be understood in the context of the more general views which classical political economy held about the process of capitalist development in Europe. Adam Smith, for instance, saw in the productive and accumulative character of capitalism a solution to the profound historical crisis of feudalism which originated in the fact that the surplus created by the feudal society was squandered by unproductive workers and the aristocracy, thus condemning society to be stationary. ~8Smith was particularly concerned with struggling against all narrowing of competition or encroachment on free trade. For him, development meant the extension of the division of labor and the application of machinery to the productive process so that an increase in the productivity of labor could be achieved. Insofar as the objective of economic development is concerned, Adam Smith proposed that "the great object of the political economy of every country is to increase the riches and power of that country, ''~9 and those riches are a function of the national product. Smith defined economic activity in material terms, the physical production of material goods. So, in his view, one of the factors which promotes development is an increasing proportion of the work force dedicated to productive work, which is precisely the reverse to the situation in feudal-

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ism. But in addition, there must be an increase in productivity by the division of labor which is achieved through the expansion of the market and international trade. 2° Ricardo, in his turn, understood development as a process of selfsustained accumulation of capital and growth which could only be arrested by the limitations of available land. This is why he conceded a central place to the free import of corn as the essential counterbalancing force to diminishing agricultural returns. As Ricardo put it, referring to food and raw materials, "let these be supplied from abroad in exchange for manufactured goods, and it is difficult to say where the limit is at which you would cease to accumulate wealth and to derive profit from its employment. ''2t The fact that both Adam Smith and David Ricardo conceived of, and wanted to fight against, a possible "stationary state" of society, clearly corresponds to the situation of the early European bourgeoisie which was still struggling to impose its rule and which was unsure of the eventual results of its struggles. Their perception of other, more backward societies and their stationary character was certainly influenced by their own struggles against the remnants of feudalism in Europe. For the reasons already stated, however, they assumed that those nations could not carry out their own transition to capitalism without European colonial tutelage. Such idea was clearly strengthened by the perception that international trade and expansion abroad were also a necessity for the development of capitalism at home. Hence colonialism could even be justified as a way of establishing, enforcing and maintaining free trade in other parts of the world, thus securing development for both advanced and backward nations.

3. MARX A N D ENGELS ON COLONIALISM

It is rather surprising to find that Marx's systematic critique of many aspects of classical political economy did not include a specific critique of the political economists' views about backward societies. On the contrary, it is possible to argue that Marx and Engels shared with the political economists the belief in the world mission of European capitalism, and that, in the course of their historical analyses, they occasionally showed similar prejudices as well. The general perspective of Marx and Engels, however, was very different in that they did not accept that the process of development could be exhausted within the capitalist mode of production. Capitalism was an historically necessary

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stage but it had to be surpassed. All their analyses, including those of backward societies, were carried out with a view to ascertain the possibilities of socialism in the world. Marx clearly saw the crucial importance of the formation of a world market, through colonialism and foreign trade, for the development of capitalism in Europe. On the one hand, the colonial expansion of European nations contributed to the process of "primitive accumulation" which preceded capitalist production proper. The discovery and conquest of America led to the massive importation of precious metals into Europe which facilitated the accumulation of capital necessary for the formation of manufacturing industry. 22 This far from enlightened process is forcefully described by Marx at the end of the first volume of Capital: The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation, 23 On the other hand, after "'real" capitalist relations were established in England, the continued expansion of colonization became crucial for getting cheap raw materials, 24 finding new markets for industrial commodities and counteracting the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. It is important to ascertain Marx's evaluation of the results and potentialities of this colonial expansion, not only for European capitalism but also for the process of development in the colonized countries. Most commentators focus on some key texts about British colonialism written before the 1860s in which Marx, while denouncing the greedy motives and cruel excesses of colonialism, justified its historical necessity as the only means of liberating backward societies from their ancient patterns of stagnation and initiating them on the path of capitalist industrialization and development. The most frequently referred to texts are concerned with the British rule in India and state that England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindustan was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia?zs England has to fulfil a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating - - the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying of the material foundations of Western society in Asia. 2~

I know that the English millocracy intends to endow India with railways with the exclusive view of extracting at diminishing expenses the cotton and

other raw materials for their manufacturers, But when you have once introduced machinery into the locomotion of a country which possesses iron and coals, you are unable to withhold it from its fabrication . . . The railway system will therefore become, in India, truly the forerunner of modern industry.27 On the one hand Marx criticized the misery and destruction, the arbitrariness and sufferings imposed on India by the East India Company. But on the other hand, he refused to idealize Indian village life before the British arrived and reminded us that these supposedly "idyllic" village communities suffered from degrading poverty and stagnation, were burdened with caste distinctions and slavery, and constituted the solid foundation of the barbarism and unspeakable cruelties of oriental despotism. Sickening as it was to witness the destruction of a patriarchal mode of life and greedy as the British motives were in bringing that destruction about, the process was still a necessary precondition of the capitalist regeneration which would inevitably lead to India's industrialization. Even though Marx acknowledged that the Indians "will not reap the fruits of the new elements of society scattered among them by the British" until there was a proletarian revolution in Britain or the Hindus became independent, he was still confident that "at all events, we may safely expect to see, at a more or less remote period, the regeneration of that great and interesting country."2~ 1 have argued elsewhere 2u that there are in Marx's writings some tensions which allow different interpretations of historical materialism. One of them has to do with the conception of history. On the one hand, in certain statements Marx describes historical evolution as a necessary and natural process, regulated by universal laws, which imposes itself on human beings and which inexorably leads to a known end. ~ On the other hand, there are a number of passages which deal with history in a context which underlines above all human practice and its capacity for modifying circumstances. The emphasis is Rut on the fact that human beings make history. i I have argued that it is necessary to reconstruct historical materialism in the latter sense and abandon a deterministic conception. There is little doubt, however, that behind Marx's approach to India and China at this stage, Marx shows his belief in a superior historical logic which imposes itself, in spite of terrible sufferings and whatever the motivations of the human actors involved.

MARX ON "BACKWARD" NATIONS Although one must not forget the existence of other texts which redress the balance, one must accept that these texts on India and China emphasize only one side of the tension. Marx appears to argue that the British bourgeoisie "cannot fail . . . to lay down the material premises ''32 for the emancipation of the Indian people and "bourgeois industry and commerce create these material conditions of a new world in the same way as geological revolutions have created the surface of the earth.' 33 If one follows that logic, it is possible to argue that when in Capital Marx says that "the country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future "34 this could be interpreted to mean that colonial domination is the best way in which the country which is more developed can directly show to the less developed the image of its own future. It is within the logic of this historical perspective that one can understand why Marx at this stage dislikes protectionism: free-trade contributes to the destruction and disarticulation of the old modes of production which keep backward countries stagnant. Thus, in a letter to Engels, Marx argues that Carey . . . . our ultra-free-trader finally recommends protective tariffs. In order to escape the effects of

bourgeois industry, for which he makes England responsible, he resorts like a true Yankee to hastening this development in America itself by artificial means... The Tribune is of course hard at it trumpeting Carey's book . . . Your article on Switzerland was of course an indirect smack at the leading articles in the Tribune . . . . and its Carey. I have continued this hidden warfare in my first article on India in which the destruction of the native industry by England is described as revolutionary. ~

In the same direction, one can also mention those texts where Marx and Engels condone the forcible subjection of backward nations for the sake of progress. Thus for Engels, the conquest of Algeria by the French is "an important and fortunate fact for the progress of civilization" and in the case of the American conquest of Mexican land he comments that In America we have witnessed the conquest of Mexico, which has pleased us. It constitutes progress too that a country until the present day exclusively occupied with itself, torn apart by perpetual civil wars and prevented from all developm e n t . . , that such a country be thrown by means of violence into the historical movement. It is in the interest of its own development that Mexico will be in the future under the tutelage of the United States. ~

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In general, Marx and Engels at this time did not believe in the right of self-determination of backward nations and thought that the national struggles for liberation and independence had to be subordinated to the needs of the stronger and more progressive nations. Small states were an obstacle to progress and could be absorbed by large ones. Thus Marx at this time thought that Ireland's independence from England was impossible37 and expected "to overthrow the Irish regime by English working-class ascendancy. ''3s In a speech commemorating the 1830 Polish revolution which had been crushed by the Russians, he warned the Chartists that they "should not express pious wishes for the liberation of nations" and that it was really the victory of the proletariat in England that was of "decisive importance for the victory of all oppressed peoples over their oppressors. Poland, therefore, must be freed, not in Poland, but in England. ''39 Most of the development specialists who maintain that these early views on India and colonialism truly represent Marx and Engels's definitive thought are also critical of them, especially because they assume that capitalism cannot but industrialize the whole world after conquering backward nations and destroying their traditional modes of production. Sutcliffe, for instance, argues that the British destruction of the Indian indigenous textile industry allowed the expansion of the British modern textile industry, but that by this very fact, it made less possible the future industrialization of India. By destroying capital stock, it weakened accumulation and also deprived a future Indian national industry of its market. 4° Amin too criticizes Marx's erroneous optimism about the future industrialization of India for similar reasons. He argues that Marx, however, could not have known that the new monopolistic phase of capitalism would emerge in which "monopolies would prevent any local capitalism that might arise from competing with them."41 Similarly, Barrat Brown contends that although Marx was right in believing that capitalism would expand worldwide, he was mistaken in assuming that industrialization would ensue everywhere apart from a few European countries. 42 Equally, from a more general perspective, Hinkelammert argues that Marx did not conceive of a qualitative difference between development and underdeveiopment, and consequently tended to identify the latter with backwardness. This presupposes a homogeneous world capitalist system where there can only exist quantitative differences which are due to nations being at different stages of the same necessary process. 43

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An important exception to this critical trend is Warren's book, provocatively entitled Imperialism, Pioneer of Capitalism, which extensively quotes from Marx's articles on India and strongly argues in favor of going back to the original Marxian idea that capitalism is an inherently industrializing force and that imperialism is the vehicle through which it can achieve its developing and civilizing mission in the backward regions. 44 Whether critical or not, however, all of these authors have one thing in common: by exclusively focusing on writings before 1860, they believe that the true position of Marx and Engels is to maintain that colonialism necessarily leads to the industrialization of backward countries. They do not seem to see any major shift in Marx and Engels's position vis-i~-vis colonialism throughout their intellectual evolution. This kind of interpretation of Marx and Engels's position fails to recognize significant changes in their approach to the colonial question in their writings after 1860. In this, I side with authors like Davis, Mori and Scaron who distinguish some evolutionary stages in Marx and Engels's thought which are indicative of a progressive change of attitude. Scaron draws the most sophisticated outline by distinguishing four stages. From 1847 to 1856, Marx and Engels adopt a dual approach which both criticizes the excesses of colonialism and theoretically justifies its historical mission. Developed nations have a civilizing role to play and therefore, have the right to establish their hegemony over backward areas, sometimes called nations or peoples "'without history." From 1856 to 1864, there is a transitional period where denunciation is stepped up without any change in the basic theory. From 1864 to 1883, the Irish question comes to the fore and the evaluation of colonialism seems to be radically altered. Colonialism is now presented as a hindrance to the industrialization of the colonies, even in the case of India. Still the existence of peoples or nations "without history" continues to be upheld. Finally, from Marx's death in 1883 to Engels's death in 1895 there is a period characterized by the marked Eurocentrism of Engels's final years. 45 Davis and Mori propose simpler dichotomous outlines which locate a turning point somewhere around the 1860s under the influence of the Irish and Polish questions. 46 According to Mori, the thesis of the "double mission," of colonialism is altered after 1860 when Marx realizes that the destructive and regenerating aspects of colonialism are not necessarily two inseparable aspects of the same process: the destruction of old societies by colonialism may not give rise to the material conditions for regeneration. Details apart, Davis,

Mori and Scaron agree on the substantive thesis that there is a significant shift both in Marx's attitude in relation to national struggles and in Marx's assessment of the impact of colonialism in the so-called backward countries. A brief review of Marx's writings shows that their interpretation is basically correct although insufficient. Insofar as national struggles are concerned, we have already seen how Marx thought in his early years that because the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat was most developed in England, the national struggles of other countries had to be subordinated to, and could succeed only through, the English class struggle. Thus he declared that Poland had to be liberated in England and regretted the idea of Ireland's independence by arguing that Ireland was to be liberated by English working class ascendancy. In 1869, however, he argued that "the English working class will never accomplish anything until it has got rid of Ireland. The lever must be applied in Ireland. ''47 As regards to Poland, he also changed his position in 1875: it is no longer the English class struggle that can liberate Poland, On the contrary; only after Poland has won its independence again, only after it is able to govern itself again as a free people, only then can its inner development begin again and can it cooperate as an independent force in the social transformation of Europe. 4X Insofar as the impact of colonialism is concerned, a good number of crucial changes are also noticeable. While in 1853 Marx enthusiastically argued that the railway system would ineluctably lead to the industrialization of India, by 1879 his evaluation of the impact of railways on backward countries was more cautious: the railway system . . . allowed, and even forced, states where capitalism was confined to a few summits of society, to suddenly create and enlarge their capitalistic superstructure in dimensions altogether disproportionate to the bulk of the social body, carrying on the great work of production in the traditional modes . . . the railways gave of course an immense impulse to the development of Foreign Commerce, but the commerce in countries which export principally raw produce increased the misery of the masses... All the changes were very useful indeed for the great landed proprietor, the usurer, the merchant, the railways, the bankers and so forth, but very dismal for the real producer! 4~ In 1853, Marx had argued that the zemindari and the ryotwari systems, imposed by the British in India as a substitute for communal land rights, were progressive in spite of their cruel features because they were forms of private property,

MARX ON "BACKWARD" NATIONS "the great desideratum of Asiatic Society. ' ' ~ In 1881, on the contrary, in the process of drafting a reply to a letter from Vera Zazulich, Marx affirmed that the abolition of the communal land ownership in India "was only an act of English vandalism which pushed the indigenous people not forward but backward. "51 While in 1853 Marx had been absolutely opposed to protectionism and had criticized Carey for recommending protective tariffs to the United States, in 1867 he seems to advocate the opposite in the case of Ireland: What the Irish need is 1) Self-government... 2) An agrarian revolution . . . 3) Protective tariffs against England. Between 1783 and 1801 all branches of Irish industry flourished. The Union, by abolishing the protective tariffs established by the Irish Parliament, destroyed all industrial life in Ireland . . . Once the Irish are independent, necessity will turn them into protectionists, as it did Canada, Australia, etc. -~" Marx's early optimistic vision that colonial capitalism, even against his avowed intentions, could not but "create the material basis of the new world, ''53 gives way to a more cautious approach which is aware of the possibility that imperialist countries may succeed in keeping colonies in their rural backwardness. As early as 1856, Engels maintained that "how often have the Irish started out to achieve something, and every time they have been crushed, politically and industrially. By consistent oppression they have been artificially converted into an utterly impoverished nation. ''54 Marx was to reiterate this point in 1867: "every time Ireland was about to develop industrially, she was crushed and reconverted into a purely agricultural land. "'55 The same idea was extended to other European states which "also forcibly rooted out, in their dependent countries, all industry, as e.g., England did with the Irish woollen manufacture. "'56 When Marx in Capital deals with the relationships between industrial and backward countries within the world market at a more general level, be does not even mention the "regenerating" mission he had spoken about before. On the contrary, his description can be said to anticipate the idea of a division between center and periphery: By ruining handicraft production in other countries, machinery forcibly converts them into fields for the supply of its raw material. In this way East India was compelled to produce cotton, wool, hemp, jute, and indigo for Great Britain... foreign lands.., are thereby converted into settlements for growing the raw material of the mother country; just as Australia, for example was converted into a colony for growing wool. A new and international

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division of labour, a division suited to the requirements of the chief centres of modern industry springs up, and converts one part of the globe into a chiefly agricultural field of production, for supplying the other part which remains a chiefly industrial field.57 By coupling the results of this new international division of labor to the operation of the law of value Marx is able to postulate the possibility of unequal exchange among nations and, more specifically, the exploitation of agricultural nations. In principle, because profit and surplus value are not necessarily identical, it follows that individual capitalists as well as nations may trade with each other, even on an expanding scale, without necessarily gaining in equal degrees. This means that "one of the nations may continually appropriate for itself a part of the surplus labour of the other, ''58 When this is the result of international differences in the technological base and the productivity of labor, Marx goes so far as to treat this process of unequal exchange as a form of exploitation: The relationship between labour days of different countries may be similar to that existing between skilled, complex labour and unskilled, simple labour within a country, in this case the richer country exploits the poorer one, even where the latter gains by the exchange . . .59 Agricultural countries tend to be exploited in this way because in international exchange they are forced "to sell their product below its value." Whereas with respect to industrial goods, the developed nation produces greater value than the backward nation, despite the fact that individual commodities are cheaper, the contrary happens with agricultural products. "The product of the more backward nation is cheaper than that of the capitalistically developed n a t i o n . . , and yet the product of the developed nation appears to be produced by much less (annual) labour than that of the backward one. ''e~ Insofar as the modern theories of unequal exchange share the view that unequal exchange entails a transfer of value from underdeveloped countries which sell their products below their value to developed countries which sell their products above their value - - and I believe that in spite of their many differences and use of different theoretical paradigms the Economic Commission for Latin America and Marxist authors like Emmanuel and Amin agree on that - - they are indebted to Marx's work. An important difference between all of them and Marx, however, is that his analysis did not necessarily entail the permanent underdevelopment of the backward nations. Both Scaron and Mori suggest that Marx's

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analysis does amount to a de facto discovery of, and approximation to the notion of "underdevelopment" or "'development of underdevelopment. "'6~ I do not think that such a conclusion is defensible. First, in the 19th century these concepts did not and could not arise. The reality alluded by them did not yet exist. It is important to remember that the concept of underdevelopment was coined after WWII to refer to countries which, within the capitalist mode of production, are dependent upon, and lag systematically behind, the main industrial centers of the world. Marx, on the contrary, referred mainly to backward countries whose predominant modes of production were not capitalist. Second, Marx never accepted that capitalist countries could become permanently underdeveloped, which is the sense of Andre Gunder Frank's expression "development of underdevelopment.'" Third, Marx's post-1860 thought entails only a different assessment of colonialism in certain, and by no means all, cases. In his later years. Marx seemed to accept the fact that colonialism, instead of always being conducive to the successful spread of capitalist industrialization, could delay it and thereby interrupt the process of capitalist development in the periphery. But he seemed to have little doubt that once the colonized countries became independent, a combination of self-government, protective tariffs and agrarian reform could successfully put things right again. He did not explain, however, why this program, which Canada and Australia were "forced by necessity" to follow and which Ireland would eventually be forced to adopt, was not being pursued by the already independent Latin American nationstates. Nor did he provide any class analysis which might have explained the policies followed by the ruling classes of the new republics which, by espousing the British idea of free trade, delayed industrialization and were oriented to the export of raw materials. This requires an explanation.

4. MARX AND ENGELS ON

LATIN A M E R I C A A review of Marx and Engels's writings on Latin America immediately shows the striking absence of any consideration of its possible industrial future and of any class analysis which goes beyond some isolated remarks. The newly independent Latin American nations are not treated as specific entities, worth investigating in themselves. The bulk of the writings on Latin

America are scattered references in letters and articles. The few more substantial pieces tend to be journalistic or biographical accounts of Latin American political events and personalities for European or North American consumption. The context is frequently rather negative in that it tends to portray the character of Latin Americans as inherently flawed and their political processes as lacking all rationality and historical direction. Engels was pleased with the North American invasion of Mexico because a country perpetually ravaged by civil war and unable to develop was "'thrown by violence into the historical movement." It is as if Mexico was outside history and its only chance to be incorporated into it was through the agency of the "energetic" North Americans, an historical people with a mission to accomplish in the rest of America. For Engels, it was rather fortunate that magnificent California was snatched from the lazy Mexicans, who did not know what to do with i t . . . The "independence" of a few Spanish Californians and Texans may suffer by this, "justice" and other moral principles may be infringed here and there; but what does that matter against such worldhistorical events?"-" True, years later Marx and Engels strongly opposed the joint intervention of England, France and Spain in Mexico as "one of the most monstrous enterprises ever rej~istered in the annals of international history,' .... but their main concern was to condemn the policies of Painterston because they suspected that such an adventure. while the US civil war was taking place, was only a pretext to attack the United States. The fate of Mexico itself seemed to be a secondary consideration, although they did say that it could slip back into anarchy. Marx's biography of Bolivar, the Venezuelan hero of Latin American independence, written for The New American Cyclopaedia in 1858, depicts him as cowardly, brutal and miserable. 64 This kind of abuse, which is excessive although it has more basis than Latin Americans historians normally recognize, is not in itself so regrettable as the fact that the Latin American independence process is reduced, by default, to a story of personal betrayal, envy and cowardice without any mention or analysis of the social forces behind the process. In 1891, years after Marx's death, Engels seems to develop second thoughts and in a letter to Schliiter maintains that "the articles in the Cyclopaedia are a purely professional work, nothing more, they can continue to rest in peace. ''65 Yet at the time Marx, in a letter to Engels, emphatically defended his biography of

MARX ON ~BACKWARD'" NATIONS Bolivar y Ponte against the accusation of partiality leveled against him by Charles Dana, coeditor of the Cyclopaedia: Dana objects to a longer articlc on Bolivar because it would be written in a partisan style, and demands my authorities. These I can provide, naturally, although the demand is strange. As for the partisan style, i have certainly gone somehow beyond the encyclopaedic tone. It would have been too much to want to present a most miserable, brutal and cowardly ,scoundrel as Napoleon 1. Bolivar is the true Soulouque. ~ To this treatment of Bolivar one should add the more disturbing references to the Latin American character. Thus the Mexicans are said to be "lazy.'" and to share "'the vices, arrogance, thuggery and quixotism'" of the Spaniards. Even after 1860, when Marx and Engels strongly opposed the French invasion of Mexico and celebrated the Mexican victory over General Lorencez in May 1862, they still could not refrain from referring to the victorious Mexicans as "les derniers des hommes."67 It is true that this type of abusive remark was also used by Marx and Engels to refer to other "backward" nationalities and countries: the Montenegrins were labeled as "cattle robbers," the Bedouins were branded as a "'nation of robbers," and there was a reference to the "'hereditary stupidity" of the Chinese. 68 But, of course, the fact that the Latin Americans were not singled out for attack does not justify the use of this kind of language.

5. THE I N F L U E N C E O F C L A S S I C A L POLITICAL ECONOMY AND HEGEL Given the importance which Marx and Engels conceded to the work of classical political economists, it is obviously very interesting to compare the way in which these political economists dealt with "backward" nations. Let us first consider the similarities. At different points in time there are similarities between Marx and Engels and the classical political economists in their belief that capitalism is a necessary stage for all countries, their dislike of protectionism, and their positive evaluation of the civilizing mission of colonialism. There are also many disquieting points of contact between Marx and Engels's abusive remarks and the prejudices of the classical political economists: Ricardo's comments on the lazy Irish are matched by Engels's remark about the lazy Mexicans, whom Marx, in his turn, labels as "the last of men." James Mill's description of the moral character of Indians and Chinese as tainted with the vices of falsity and

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slyness can be compared with Marx's remarks about the stupidity of the Chinese, and about the vices of Spaniards and Mexicans. The question arises as to whether Marx and Engels were simply following in the tracks of classical economists of whether the relationship was more complex. I do not think that the unfortunate use of abusive expressions, regrettable as it is, constitutes the central issue. Nor do I think that a superficial similarity between some remarks of these authors suffices to conclude that they all thought the same with respect to nonEuropean countries. Marx and Engels's objective, unlike classical political economy's, was always the overcoming of capitalism and the socialist liberation of backward societies. It should also be quite clear that whereas classical political economists never ceased to justify colonialism and were adamant that, for a number of reasons (including a deficiency of character), backward nations could not develop without European tutelage, Marx and Engels changed their position after 1860, realized that colonialism hindered development in many areas, became protectionist, and started to doubt the necessity of the capitalist stage everywhere. A sign of the evolution of their thoughts is their restrained language - - a remarkable diminution of their abusive expressions with respect to backward nations, including the Latin American ones, after 1860. While the classical economists' approach to backward societies emphasized almost exclusively either the flaws in the character of non-European peoples or climatic factors, Marx and Engels's analyses went far beyond some passing abusive remarks and considered the role of these countries in the process of expansion of socialism. The issue which remains controversial is not then a supposedly common universal contempt for non-European peoples, but the fact that even after Marx and Engels changed their approach with respect to nonindustrial societies in the 1860s, Latin America continued to be neglected and its basic social processes regarded as arbitrary and irrational occurrences. How can this be explained? An answer may be found by focusing on the Hegelian influence on Marx, which was particularly strong after 1858. There are two aspects of Hegel's thought which seem relevant to this particular analysis. On the one hand, one can find in Hegel a series of remarks about South America which can also be considered as contemptuous and abusive. According to Hegel, South America was "physically and spiritually impotent," a place where "even the animals show the same inferiority as the human beings," who, in their turn, are

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considered to be "obviously unintelligent individuals with little capacity for education." "Their inferiority in all respects, even in stature, can be seen in every particular," so that, for instance, in Paraguay "a clergyman used to ring a bell at midnight to remind them to perform their matrimonial duties, for it would otherwise never have occurred to them to do so." The natives are compared to "unenlightened children, living from one day to the next, and untouched by higher thoughts or aspirations"; they inhabit a world where events "are but an echo of the Old World and the expression of an alien life. ''69 The Latin American Creoles descended from the Spanish conquerors did not fare any better in Hegel's description. Their character was linked to that of the Spanish: Living far away from the mother country on which they depended, they had more scope to indulge their arbitrary inclinations . . . The noble and magnanimous aspects of the Spanish character did not accompany them to America. The Creoles, who are descended from the Spanish immigrants, lived on in the presumptuous ways they had inherited, and behaved in an arrogant manner towards the natives.7o Marx seemed to have closely followed these Hegelian views when comparing the Mexicans with the Spaniards: the Spaniards are completely degenerated. But in the presence of a Mexican. a degenerated Spaniard constitutes an ideal. They have all the vices, arrogance, thuggery and quixotism of the Spaniards to the third degree, but by no means all the solid things that they possess.7~ Just as in the case of classical political economy, however, these abusive remarks do not seem to be the central issue, and in any case, as 1 said above, Marx and Engels adopted more cautious language after 1860. Still, the issues involved in Hegel's description of South America are much more complex than the appearances suggest. What for classical political economists was a mere pragmatic argument about the flaws of character and the necessary dependence of nonEuropean nations, in Hegel became an important distinction which underpinned his philosophy of history. This is the other aspect of his thought which is relevant in our discussion. In his Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, Hegel distinguished between worldhistorical peoples, which were culturally developed, capable of building a strong state and thus of contributing to the progress of world history, and peoples without history, which were spiritually weak, unable to build a strong state, and thus having no civilizing mission to carry out in

history. The latter had to submit to the former. Thus, for instance, China represented for Hegel a stationary nation which did not contribute to the progress of world history. His description of South America clearly shows that for him it had no autonomous role to play in the development of the human spirit either, and that, on the contrary, it constituted a world where events were a mere echo of Europe.

6. PEOPLES W I T H O U T HISTORY AND THE QUESTION OF E U R O C E N T R I S M The question arises as to whether the influence of this Hegelian approach explains why Marx and Engels did not care to analyze the situation of Latin American countries in the same way as they tried to understand Ireland. I shall focus on three related answers to this question which, while accepting the explanatory importance of the Hegelian influence, entail different positions regarding what has been loosely called Eurocentrism. First, the work of Aric6, 72 which probably constitutes the most important contribution in the field, must be considered. For Aric6, the Hegelian influence, - - and especially the distinction between historical peoples and peoples without history - - plays a crucial explanatory role. Aric6's thesis is that the notion of Eurocentrism must be rejected as an explanation of Marx and Engels's neglect of Latin America. Aric6 conceives of "Eurocentrism" as expressing two related ideas. First, it implies that Marx and Engels were ignorant of, or at least disinterested in non-European realities; the noncapitalist world would have remained outside the main focus of their concern and study. Second, to the extent that they marginally referred to the noncapitalist world, Eurocentrism implies that they would have tried to understand it upon the basis of a theoretical framework and categories which were developed for the analysis of European reality. Consequently, Marx and Engels would have understood the noncapitalist world as a mere mirror image of Europe, incapable of any autonomy. Aric6 argues that this notion of Eurocentrism cannot be sustained. First, although it is true that in the context of the totality of Marx and Engels's writings, Latin America occupies a marginal place, one cannot say that they did not know enough about or were not interested in Latin America. In fact, they had an encyclopedic knowledge of the world, they had easy access to all the documentation they wanted in the British Museum, and read and wrote a great deal about

MARX ON "BACKWARD" NATIONS Latin America. Second, the Eurocentrism thesis ignores Marx and Engels's change of position in the 1860s when they reassessed the impact of worldwide capitalist expansion on backward and colonized nations. From that time, Aric6 argues, Marx and Engels "displaced the centre of revolution from Western European countries to .73 colonial and dependent countries and accepted the possibility of backward societies becoming socialist without going through a capitalist stage. Having rejected an explanation based on the notion of Eurocentrism, Aric6 argues that the Hegelian conception of peoples without history, which Marx and Engels would have appropriated without analysis or elaboration as an "unsurpassed cultural substratum, "'74 was responsible for their neglect of Latin America. Aric6 does not think that Marx and Engels doubted the ability of Latin American peoples to become historical nations as a matter of principle, as if those peoples were inherently inferior. In their historical analyses, however, they did not detect that ability in practice. If Marx's account of the events in which Bolivar participated truly represents his view of Latin America, then it is clear that he regarded most processes and struggles in Latin America not as the necessary subject of class analysis but as somewhat arbitrary and irrational occurrences, at best forms of Bonapartism supported by the absence of a clear class project. Aric6 suggests that for Marx, Latin America seems to have been a puzzling collection of extremely weak states, governed by restricted oligarchies lacking in national spirit, or by caudillos, usually from the military, unable to prevent territorial fragmentation and secure the presence of a national power except by means of ferocious dictatorships, almost always ephemeral; weak countries subject to economic domination by and political subordination to capitalist imperialism. National formations seemed to him mere state constructions erected upon an institutional vacuum and the absence of a popular will, unable to constitute themselves because of the jelly-like quality of their social fabric. 75 A second, slightly different answer to the problem is provided by Franco in a thoughtful preface to Aric6's book. He accepts with modifications Arico's arguments about the importance of Hegel's influence and agrees with him that Marx and Engeis's change of mind in the 1860s calls into question the concept of Eurocentrism. However, Franco argues that the charge of Eurocentrism against Marx and Engels can only be lifted with respect to dominated European nations and colonial Asiatic societies. It was only in the cases of Russia, Turkey, India, Ireland and

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Poland that Marx carried out class analysis and considered the possibility of a revolutionary movement. The new categories and theoretical instruments that Marx and Engels developed to understand the specific situations of these countries could be applied to Latin America only if its reality was similar. But it was not, because the Latin American countries were no longer colonies. The historical specificity of Latin America at that time consisted of the processes of construction of the nation and the state, and Marx did not develop a theory of these processes. Whenever he referred to them, it was in the context of either precapitalist formations or European reality. Hence, in analyzing Latin America, Marx was tempted to believe that the construction of the state would follow the European model. For Franco. this is a different version of Eurocentrism, and not a problem which could be imputed to the Hegelian influence. This does not mean, however, that Franco eliminates Hegel's importance. Franco argues that the very influence of the Hegelian distinction between historical nations and peoples without history on Marx confirms his thesis of a different kind of Eurocentrism, because, "'after all, the 'historicity' or 'vitality' must be proven in the capacity of a nation to become a 'state'. ''76 In the case of the Asiatic or Eastern European nations, Marx anticipated the formation of national states such as those in Western Europe. but he was unable to do the same with Latin America because there the process seemed to be inverted: they were not solid civil societies culminating in stable states. They were weak, Bonapartist states trying to construct civil societies. Latin American reality was different from the European pattern, and Marx and Engels only had the European categories to understand it. Hence the inability of Marx and Engels's theoretical approach to apprehend the specificity of the Latin American reality would stem from their Eurocentric vision. The third answer is my own attempt to deal with the problem. I claim no originality, but I stress a different aspect. On the one hand, I accept Aric6's emphasis on the impact of the Hegelian cultural legacy. There is no doubt that even before 1860, Marx understood Asia through Hegelian spectacles, and that what in Hegel was a stationary phenomenon outside history, in Marx became the Asiatic mode of production that had to be broken by the penetration of capitalism from the outside. It is also clear that Marx and Engels used the Hegelian distinction and in particular the notion of "peoples without history" or "counterrevolutionary nations" to

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refer to certain small nations of central Europe which stood in the way of progress and which could be rightly swept aside for the sake of the proletariat of historical nations. Thus, for instance, Engels referred to the Slavs which lack the primary historical, geographical, political and industrial condition for a viable independence. Peoples which have never had a history of their own, which come under foreign domination the moment they have achieved the first, crudest level of civilization, or are forced onto the first level of civilization by the yoke of the foreigner, have no capacity for survival and will never be able to attain any kind of independence. 77 When Marx and Engels referred to Latin America, they most probably had a similar idea in mind. That this is more than an implicit conclusion inferred from the general drift of their writings is shown by the fact that Engels specifically applied such criteria in his analysis of the conquest of Mexico and California. He maintained that it was in the interest of all America, and of the development of Mexico itself, that the United States should gain predominance over the Pacific Ocean and that in the face of such worldhistorical events it did not matter whether "justice" and "'moral principles" were infringed. Moreover, Marx and Engels explicitly identified the situation of the Spanish criollos in the territory occupied by the United States with the situation of Slavic peoples: Thus were finished, for now and very probably for ever. the tentatives by the German Slavs to recover an independent national existence. Disperse relics of many nations whose nationality and political vitality were exhausted long ago, which because of that had been forced, for almost a millennium, to follow in the tracks of a more powerful nation that had conquered them - - just as the Welsh in England, the Basque in Spain. the low-Bretons in France and, more recently, the Spanish and French creoles in parts of the United States occupied by the Anglo-American race.TM I share Franco's idea, however, that Aric6's arguments about the Hegelian influence do not dispose of the charge of Eurocentrism. But I do not want to restrict the definition and discussion of Eurocentrism to Franco's analysis either. There is still another possible sense of this concept which, on the one hand, moves the discussion about backward societies beyond the Latin American context and, on the other, leads to a discussion of a common element among Marx, classical political economy and Hegel, notwithstanding their many differences. In general terms, I refer to the belief that the progress brought about by the new humanistic and scientific rationality in capitalist Western

Europe is inherently superior and must finally prevail in the world against opposing forces. This means that Eurocentrism is not just ignorance about non-European nations, or the attempt to explain their reality by means of conceptual categories developed in a European context, but also the affirmation of the superior relevance, the more advanced stage and historical priority of the social processes occurring in Europe. If we focus on Marx and Engels, we can see that they did not conceive of a rigid classification of nations and of their prospects for independence as given once and for all. Their concern with the fate of certain nations was always political and related to the advance of socialism. This is why they could change their views about a nation depending on new circumstances and political conjunctures. Their analysis of the rights of peoples and nations was always carried out according to whether they were in the interests of social progress. More often than not, social progress was defined in terms of the most advanced European capitalist nations and their politically mature proletariats. Aric6's belief that after 1860 Marx and Engels displaced the center of revolution from Western European countries to colonial and dependent countries is not accurate. In 1870, Marx still thought that the independence of Ireland was a precondition for the emancipation of the British proletariat. Aric6 mistakes Marx and Engels's new interest in the impact which social and political upheavals in backward societies had on the possibilities of revolution in England and Europe for a displacement of the center of revolution out of Europe. As Haupt and Weill have argued, for Marx and Engels "the national state is not an objective in itself, nor is it a supreme value, just as the right that nations have to manage themselves is not an absolute principle. They are all variables subordinated to a constant: the interest of the working class and of the socialist revolution. ''79 This is compounded by what Rosdolsky has called "an error of rhythm," that is to say, Marx and Engels's belief that the collapse of capitalism was imminent and that, therefore, the socialist revolution had to be considered as the immediate practical task of their time. ~ All other considerations had to be subordinated to the requirements of this task. Thus more developed nations would have to prevail over backward nations if that would promote the advance of socialism in the world. If in the case of Ireland Marx and Engels took the opposite view, it was not so much because they saw important differences between the Irish and the Latin American nations p e r se (for instance, in Franco's terms, the idea that the Irish

MARX ON "BACKWARD" NATIONS could develop a state whereas the Latin Americans could not), as because they saw these countries playing different roles in relation to the prospects of revolution in the most developed countries. Whereas they saw the defeat of Mexico as crucial for strengthening of North American capitalism and hence for the development of the proletariat in that area, they saw Irish independence as crucial for the development of the English proletariat: England. the metropolis of capital, the power which has up to now ruled the world market, is at pre~nt the most important country for the workers' revolution, and moreover it is the only country in which the material conditions for this revolution have reached a certain degree of maturity. It is consequently the most important object of the International Working Men's Association to hasten the social revolution in England. The sole means of hastening it is to make Ireland independent.., the national emancipation of Ireland is not a question of abstract justice or humanitarian sentiment but the .first condition of their own social emancipation, st In either case, it is the emancipation of the proletariat of the more developed nation that matters. Marx's change of heart about colonialism must therefore be qualified in that it does not necessarily mean that all former colonies have the chance to constitute themselves as viable and developing nations. Marx recognized that colonialism might become an obstacle to development and industrialization, but he also continued to accept the possibility that, even after independence, some small countries might not be able to sustain a national project that makes industrialization feasible. For that reason, these small countries might be rightly subordinated to the needs and wishes of historical nations. Marx did not blame other, more subtle forms of imperialism (neocolonialism or dependency) for this situation, but rather identified the lack of popular will and a strong civil society as the factors which put these nations outside history. Moreover, Marx did not see self-government and independence as absolute principles, the inalienable rights of all peoples, but rather as objectives that must be subordinated to the needs of the struggle for socialism.

7. CONCLUSION Is there a common thread between the positions of classical political economy, Marx and Hegel? I certainly do not want to collapse the thought of these authors into a single view on progress, colonialism and backward societies. I have already marked some important differences

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and there are many others which I have no space to discuss. But any elementary sociology of knowledge approach would surely make something of the fact that they all lived in the 19th century, at the time when the capitalist system was becoming well established in Britain, shared similar rationalistic influences and were affected by similar social and political forms. 82 True, Marx critiqued classical political economy and Hegel, and developed a new, distinct conception of history. He was nonetheless deeply influenced by their vision and shared with them a typical 19th-century problematique, namely the question of the emancipation of humankind. Not surprisingly, the three approaches proposed different actors which could accomplish that emancipating mission. For Hegel, the actor was historical but still abstract: the idea or universal spirit which through successive alienations would finally find its identity. For classical political economy, the actor was the bourgeoisie as the new agent of the progress represented by the capitalist system. Such a system was supposedly natural and absolute, but had been hindered by the artificial institutions of traditional societies which the bourgeoisie had to dismantle everywhere. Marx, after criticizing the abstraction of Hegel's universal spirit and the historical limitations of the bourgeoisie and the capitalist system, gave the proletariat the mission of emancipating humankind by abolishing the class system. What is common in all these perspectives is the desire for emancipation and the search for an agent which could accomplish the mission. But crucially, it is possible to detect another common element: these agents are all historically and geographically located in 19th-century Western Europe. For Hegel, it is the spirit as it manifests itself through the primacy of historical nations, among which the Prussian state has pride of place; for classical political economy, it is the British bourgeoisie as the representative of the first European capitalist nation; for Marx and Engels, it is the proletariat of the most advanced European capitalist nations. The emancipating agents may be different, but they all represent the highest stage of historical reason given in Western Europe, and it is from there that they should carry out their mission. This is the particular aspect I identify with a kind of Eurocentrism: the belief that the progress brought about by these historical actors in capitalist Western Europe is inherently superior and has a historical mission which must finally prevail in the world. This common missionary conception is at the root of some of the problems these theories have in understanding "backward"

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT

societies. The historical process could be synthesized to an antagonism between historical reason and "backwardness." Backward countries or nations have, of course, the prospect of development and progress, but only through the agency of, following the path of, and insofar as they do not interfere with, the main E u r o p e a n historical agents and their needs. True, none of the political economists or Hegel showed the degree of awareness of colonialism, nor c o n d e m n e d its cruelty and arbitrariness as forcefully as did Marx and Engels, nor did they have any inkling of the possibility that colonialism might hinder the development of colonies, an idea which Marx and Engels developed after 1860. But on the whole, even when Marx and Engels advocated the independence and selfg o v e r n m e n t of some colonies, their point of

reference and their main objectives were the liberation of the British proletariat and the advance of socialism in the most d e v e l o p e d countries of the world as a precondition for the liberation of the rest of humankind. This strand of Eurocentrism does not totally impair Marx and Engels's thought. Eurocentrism certainly hindered their ability to capture the specificity of "backward" societies. In my view, however, the basic categories for understanding society, the ideas about the structure of the world capitalist system and the sometimes perceptive remarks about non-European peoples provided by Marx and Engels, as long as they are reconstructed and reworked, still constitute an important basis for understanding the specific circumstances of underdeveloped societies.

NOTES 1. The importance of the Hegelian influence was acknowledged by Marx himself in a letter to Engels: "For instance, I have overthrown the whole doctrine of profit as it has existed up to now. The fact that by mere accident I again glanced through Hegel's Logic... has been a great service to me as regards the method of dealing with the material." (Marx, 1975g). The influence of Hegel during the period of Marx's intellectual development starting in 1858 has been well established by Schmidt (1971), Lefevbre (1974) and Echeverria (1978). 2. See Platteau (1978). Although I disagree with his general conclusion that there is a theory of underdevelopment in classical political economy, his detailed analysis and compilation of references to backward societies by classical economists is immensely useful and constitutes a definitive work. 3.

Smith (1863), Book IV, chapter 1, p. 196.

4. Smith (1863), Book IV. chapter VII, part Ill, p. 275. 5. Smith (1863), Book IV, chapter VII, part III, p. 273.

12. Malthus (1936), Book II, Section IX, p. 403. 13. Say (1968), Part 4, chapter XXVI, p. 311. Quoted in Platteau (1978), Vol. I, p. 192. 14.

Mill (1820), Vol. II, Book II, chapter IX, p. 88.

15.

Mill (1820), Vol. If, Book II, chapter X, p. 195.

16.

Ricardo (1951), Vol. VII. p. 243.

17.

Mill (1875), Vol. III, pp. 167-168.

18.

Napoleoni (1975), p. 46.

19. Smith (1976), p. 472. 20. Smith (1976), p. 121: "'As it is the power of exchanging that gives occasion to the division of labour, so the extent of this division must always be limited by the extent of that power, or, in other words, by the extent of the market." 21.

Ricardo (1951), Vol. IV, p. 179.

22.

Marx (1976), p. 126. Marx (1974a), Vol. I, p. 703.

6.

Smith (1863), Book IV, chapter IX, p. 307.

23.

7.

Smith (1863), Book IV, chapter IX, p. 303.

8.

See Platteau (1978), Vol. 1, p. 103.

24. This marks another difference with the classical economists. Ricardo had proclaimed the benefits of foreign trade mainly because cheaper food would lower the value of labor. Marx points out that: "Ricardo misunderstands entirely the influence of foreign trade, when it does not directly lower the price of the labourers" food. He does not see how enormously important it is for England, for example, to secure cheaper raw materials for industry." Marx (1969), Vol. 1I, p. 437.

9. Malthus (1952), Vol. 2, Book III, chapter IV, p. 30. 10. Malthus (1952), Vol. 1, Book II, chapter XIII, p. 305. 11. Malthus (1936), Book If. Section IV, pp. 337341.

25.

Marx (1973b), pp. 306-7.

MARX ON "BACKWARD" NATIONS

241

26.

Marx (1973c), p. 320.

57.

Marx (1974a), pp. 424--425.

27.

Marx (1973c), p. 322.

58.

Marx (1973a), p. 872.

28.

Marx (1973c), p. 323.

59.

Marx (1969), Vol. III, pp. 105-106.

29.

Larrain (1986).

60.

Marx (1969), Vol. II, pp. 474--475.

61.

See Mori (1978), p. 46 and Scaron (1980), p. 8.

30. See, for instance, Marx (1974a), Vol. I, pp. 19, 21 and 715.

62.

Engels (1973), p. 230.

31. See, for instance, Marx and Engels (1976) p. 50; Marx and Engels (1975), p. 110; Marx (1970), p. 96.

63.

Marx (1980b), p. 256.

32,

Marx (1973c), p. 323.

64.

Marx (1980c), pp. 76-93.

33.

Marx (1973c), pp. 324-325.

65.

Engels (1980b), p. 99.

34.

Marx (1974a). Vol. I, p. 19.

66.

Marx (1980d), p. 94.

35.

Marx (1975a), pp. 78-79.

67.

Marx (1980a), p. 286.

36.

Engels (1980), p. 183.

68. For a good and balanced account of this kind of abuse see Davis (1967), especially chapter III.

37.

Marx (1975b), p. 182.

38.

Marx (1975c), p. 218.

39.

Marx (1973d), p. 100.

40.

Sutcliffe (1972), p. 181.

41.

Amin (1974), p. 148.

42.

Barrat Brown (1972), p. 47.

43.

Hinkelammert (1972), pp. i l and 76-77.

44.

Warren (1980).

45.

See Scaron (1980), pp. 5-19.

46.

See Mori (1978) and Davis (1967).

47.

Marx (1975c), p. 218.

48.

Marx (1974b), p. 391.

49.

Marx (1975d), pp. 298-299.

50.

Marx (1973c), p. 320.

51.

Marx (1978), p. 50.

52.

Marx (1975e), pp. 184-185.

53.

Marx (1973c), pp. 324.

54.

Engels (1975), p. 87.

55.

Marx (1978b), p. 142.

56.

Marx (1974a), Vol. I, p. 708.

69.

Hegel (1986), pp. 162-171.

70.

Hegel (1986), p. 167.

71.

Marx (1980e), pp. 203-204.

72.

See on this the excellent book by Aric6 (1980).

73.

Aric6 (1980), p. 69.

74.

Aric6 (1980), p. 107.

75.

Aric6 (1980), p. 105.

76.

Franco (1980), p. 29.

77.

Engels (1973), p. 231.

78.

Marx and Engels (1980), p. 199.

79.

Haupt and Weill (1982), p. 152.

80.

Rosdolsky (1981), p. 160.

81.

Marx (1975f), p. 223.

82. One possible formulation of this idea has been given by Mannheim in the case of the same generation: "the fact of belonging to the same class, and that of belonging to the same generation or age group, have this in common, that both endow the individuals sharing in them with a common location in the social and historical process, and thereby limit them to a specific range of potential experience, predisposing them to a certain characteristic mode of thought and experience." Mannheim (1968), p. 291. Of course, one can only apply this to our ease mutatis mutandi.

242

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