José Aricó. Marx and Latin America. Translated by David Broder. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2014. 152 pp. $28.00 (paper), ISBN 978-1-60846-411-1.
Reviewed by Jake Slovis
Published on H-Socialisms (December, 2015)
Commissioned by Gary Roth
It is well documented that Karl Marx produced far
fewer works about Latin America than works focused
on the European working class. Such an “exclusion” of
Latin America has thus provided fodder for modern critics to brand Marx as largely “Eurocentric,” and therefore limited in his ability to understand the Latin American independence movements of the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries. In Marx and Latin America
(originally published in 1982), José Aricó (1931-91) challenges these critics by working to dismantle the notion
that Marx was primarily concerned with Europe. He argues that such a view of Marx stems from narrow perceptions that rely heavily on canonized texts like The Communist Manifesto (1848) and A Contribution to the Critique
of Political Economy (1859)—texts that tend to relativize
the European experience in order to lay the foundation
for Marx’s theories. Marx’s later writings, however, expand these theories to a global scale. Aricó therefore
urges readers to consider Marx’s thought through his entire oeuvre, as Marx’s later work exposes contradictions
in his canonized texts.
nineteenth-century European social democracy viewed
“Marxism” from “a strongly positivist perspective” that
was meant to “systematize Marx’s thinking along clear
‘scientific’ lines.” This perspective was “shaped long before the totality of his [Marx’s] oeuvre was known” (p.
13). In other words, the “Eurocentric” brand of Marxist thinking ossified without consideration for Marx’s
later works. The result is a view of Marx that treats his
writings on India, Ireland, and Russia as comparatively
marginal texts that are primarily “circumstantial” (p. 14).
Likewise, such a reading suggests that Marx’s ideas did
not develop over the course of his career, and ignores the
influence of imperialism and colonialism on global capitalism.
Aricó also argues that such readings of Marx tend to
conflate Marxism with Marx’s own stance. Aricó therefore asks for a “contextual” reading of Marx that separates the man from popular interpretations of his theories. This appeal helps to legitimize his investigation
of Marx’s lesser-known writings, and invites his readers
to consider how these writings might reshape his earlier
works. One of Aricó’s most convincing cases is demonstrated through the example of Russia, in which he argues that Marx’s investigation of peasant and rural societies problematizes the idea of a linear social progression
What makes Aricó’s plea successful is that he is able
to clearly describe the origins of the “Eurocentric” label by historicizing Marx’s work to show how it has
been canonized. For example, Aricó argues that late
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posited in works like The Communist Manifesto. Aricó
writes that the “ ‘Eurocentric’ residues in Marx were effectively overcome when he ceased to identify capitalist
development and the presence of an internationally homogenous working class” (p. 38). This is to say that the
possibility of revolution in peasant societies expanded
Marx’s view beyond the European model. Furthermore,
it suggests revolution is case specific, and that “the theoretical and political presuppositions from which the ‘autonomy’ of the Latin American region could have been
understood, then, did exist in Marx’s thought” (p. 38).
toward a global revolution. The result is a reading of
Marx that is not “Eurocentric,” but one that instead faults
the German thinker for his failure to apply his theories
properly to the Latin American experience.
While Aricó’s argument is well organized and translated clearly by David Broder, it is not without flaws.
Aricó leans heavily on the implicit, which can at times
be read as subjective or speculative. Furthermore, blaming Marx’s failure to evaluate Latin America based on
his personal biases seems like a convenient argument
that protects the integrity of his larger theoretical ideas.
But on the whole Aricó’s work is thorough, as he not
only accounts for why Marx’s ideas are often misrepresented but also points to how a reconsideration of these
ideas is useful when analyzing the modern Latin American state. Furthermore, it shows why it is important to
critique literary canons, which proves useful in evaluating how works like The Communist Manifesto conflict
with Marx’s full oeuvre, and how canonization tethered
Marx too closely to a European context. However, what
might be the greatest benefit of Marx and Latin America is that it explains why Marxism is not a static field
of study. According to Broder’s introduction, the work
does well to reject “the attempt to transform Marx’s analysis of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into
a historico-philosophical theory that predicts the development of all societies” (p. xlv). This is to say that Aricó
steers Marxism away from a theory of “linear progress,”
toward a conversation that grants “autonomy” to the development of non-Western societies. The result is a book
that enfranchises scholars to broaden the scope of Marxist discourse with respect to the non-Western world.
Of course, Aricó is not blind to the fact that few
of Marx’s writings deal with the Latin American experience. However, he is able to effectively account
for Marx’s “exclusion” of Latin America by examining
how Marx’s hostility toward Venezuelan military leader
Simón Bolívar (1783-1830) prevented him from successfully historicizing Latin American liberation movements.
According to Aricó, Marx viewed Bolívar’s military role
in Latin American independence movements as a quest
to expand authoritarianism. Aricó writes that Marx “repudiated” Bolívar so strongly that he saw him as “an
imitation of Napoleon III, or, more precisely, some sort
of Bonapartist dictator” (p. 54). Although some might
equate the rejection of Bolívar’s role in Latin American independence movements with a demeaning view
of Latin American nationalism, Aricó argues that such
hostilities were not vested in the condescension of Latin
America, but rather rooted in the view that Bonapartism
(and Bolívar’s leadership) was counterrevolutionary. In
this way, Aricó suggests that Marx’s exclusion of Latin
America might be symptomatic of false hostilities that
deprioritized Latin America because it lacked relevancy
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Citation: Jake Slovis. Review of Aricó, José, Marx and Latin America. H-Socialisms, H-Net Reviews. December, 2015.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=44737
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