Abstract
In Contribution to the critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right written in 1843, Marx considers the revolutionary potential of the European working class. He claims that past “revolutions” only represented partial progress, because they were scattered around Europe and controlled by the interests of dominant social groups rather than combining and thus contributing to the emancipation of humanity as such. The French political revolution, the British industrial revolution and the German intellectual revolution needed to merge and co-develop for the proletariat to emancipate humanity from its capitalist shackles and bourgeois life world. Of course, this strategic and geopolitical reading of the European space would evolve in Marx’ later works. Just weeks after Marx and Engels combatively wrote about the communist “spectre” that was “haunting Europe” in the Manifesto, the vast uprisings of 1848 would soon experience a heavy counter-revolutionary backlash with significant impact on Marx’ life and thought.
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Notes
- 1.
There have of course been critical Marxist perspectives on the European construction in the past, particularly regarding the ideological “vagueness” that marked its genesis. The question of whether the European Union has been influenced by Marxian thought has also been addressed. See in particular: Peter Cocks, “Towards a Marxist Theory of European Integration” (1980); John Laughland, “European Union. A Marxist Utopia?” (2009).
- 2.
A cultural perspective on political economy is nothing new – Max Weber is one of its founders, with his cultural critique of capitalism. Such a perspective has been renewed or reinvented by post-colonial and subaltern studies. See in particular Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988). The editors of this book have initiated a complementary perspective, by revisiting the cultural background of some of the “founding fathers” of political economy. See Anders Fjeld and Matthieu de Nanteuil Le monde selon Adam Smith. Essai sur l’imaginaire en économie (2022).
- 3.
In Europe, Marx was also a “passerby”, in the sense that Achille Mbembe gives to this term (Mbembe 2019).
- 4.
Indian sociologists have played a major role in the “relativization of Europe” and the promotion of subaltern studies. See in particular Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography (1985); Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (2007).
- 5.
In this book we will distinguish between the terms “Marxist” and “Marxian”. The former refers to a doctrine, a theory or an identity that emphasizes the historical trajectory of Marxism and the way it has concretely taken shape, be it the practice of power, a field of research or political identities. The second refers to a work, or even a doctrine, subject to a series of contradictory interpretations, whose social-historical consequences remain open.
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Fjeld, A., de Nanteuil, M. (2024). Introduction. In: de Nanteuil, M., Fjeld, A. (eds) Marx and Europe. Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations, vol 30. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53736-3_1
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