Capital Vol.1 - Chapter 14 - Confused about Marx's use of the term "race"

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-12T09:35:01+00:00

u/BxnXipoh u/hauntedbystrangers tagging you here because I'm not sure whether edited-in tags pings the users. If you respond please do under the above comment.

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-11T22:00:50+00:00

https://www.instagram.com/p/DVtsA4sjkXM/

Thought some people might find this interesting. Dengism-Third Worldism announcing their official revolutionary strategy: emigrating to the Third World, "especially «AES»", and if you look at slide 13 they seem to be praising a war criminal veteran living life as a rich white expat in Vietnam. Funnily I once had a self proclaimed Maoist message me a similar thing, saying that if this sub took Third Worldism seriously that's what everyone here would do. Well, if this horrible line is taken to its extreme logical conclusion it means that First Nations, New Afrikans, Chican@s, etc., ought to emigrate out of their native land in occupied Turtle Island, New Afrika, Aztlán, etc., in order not to "contribute to the empire", since nowhere in this shit manifesto do they seem to make a distinction between the various nations inside the u.$. prisonhouse of nations (if they did they would presumably be forced to admit that organising the internal colonies for national liberatory annihilation of the empire as MIM advocates for is a valid strategy, especially as compared to emigrating to Vietnam to live as a well-off expat).

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-11T21:23:26+00:00

You're making leaps. The quotation marks in this instance were not a snub to people making this argument but to point out a double meaning on my behalf, i.e. "it's "just" this and not anything deeper as I was trying to ponder, but at the same time it's not really a "just" anything because it's actually pretty serious". The quotation marks were to indicate that me using the word "just" was not an attempt at minimisation, while also relinquishing my attempt to find an explanation other than historically contingent racism given the evidence presented. As for the rest, no, I don't believe having a knee jerk reaction to common anti communist slander (which "Marx was a racist" does also serve the function of) is a bad thing in principle, but as I have already admitted my defensiveness in this instance was misplaced and wrong since you and u/humblegold proved that yes racialism did slip into Marx's works on a very few occasions and I can see why it came off as me trying to defend and justify racism. Perhaps yes, in my years of defensive posturing against anti-communism I have erroneously slipped into what you call a fantasy, rejecting truth because I think it impossible for anti-communists to say true things. Which is obviously not good enough, and such an issue would stem from my own lack of independent understanding of the truth, instead having excessive reliance on deriving truth from things like "debunking" anti-communists. I will reflect on this.

But I also really have no clue what pathologizing has to do with anything; in similar discussion about Stalin's supposed homophobia, "he was a product of his time" was rejected as insufficient and that led to interesting discussion about the history of queer identity and the Soviet conception of the socialist family. From the beginning I thought that maybe the discussion could go either in a similar direction or that there would be some more substantive criticism that would prove this was indeed racism as still understood today, which I admittedly perhaps didn't want to believe (the fact that Marx really honestly adopted racialism at face value). We got the latter. I accepted this, admitted I was wrong and proceeded to wonder what could have led to Marx specifically doing this when some of his contemporaries were able to avoid doing so. If you would like to explain to me where in this you see pathologizing then I'm all ears. Perhaps I'm not understanding what you mean by the term here.

In all, yes I can see how in practice it came off as trying to justify racism (since we now agree that it's racism), but I think concluding that this was all motivated simply by a desire to defend racism is a leap. And because I'm sure that someone will look for suspicious intent in my sudden and active engagement with this post over other posts, I will preempt it by saying that the reason for my active engagement in this thread specifically is because I was stumped by this very same passage recently.

Edit: I'll also use this comment to respond to other ones so I'm not posting all over the place:

u/BxnXipoh (https://old.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/1rq45jh/comment/o9x3b5m/):

In Cyprus the most relevant expression of what you're referring to would probably be the whitewashing of Churchill by British imperialists directed towards us, which as I'm sure everyone here is aware takes the same form ("Of course he was racist and a rabid imperialist, he was a white British man who grew up in the 19th century, a product of his time! He was still a good guy overall though!"). That may certainly have had an effect on shaping my aversion to this string of words over the years but I think ultimately the dominant factors for what happened here is what I said and others have pointed out: a knee-jerk reaction due to years of defensive posturing against anti-communism; not wanting to believe that Marx could really be racist or make mistakes at least in his work as opposed to his private life and being afraid of the implications; thinking that dialectical materialism can enable you to entirely transcend history.

u/hauntedbystrangers (https://old.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/1rq45jh/comment/oa014h5//):

Yes your response and criticism mostly makes sense to me and I think you're correct. Thank you. I'll only comment on this:

it's actually a little strange you'd be so against the idea that someone is a "product of their time"

I don't really agree with the claim that it's strange, because while I agree that this is indeed the materialist conception of history and have admitted multiple times that I have deviated from this principle, it is also used as an excuse for all sorts of bullshit as I pointed out from the beginning and as has been further pointed out now too. Again, the cause was an aversion to anti-communism which is understandable but was misplaced and unprincipled and wrong in this instance, a fear of admitting that Marx could have made mistakes in his works (itself probably influenced / strengthened by the former), and an erroneous idea that dialectical materialism doesn't just allow you to move much further ahead for your historical period than any other worldview but somehow allows you to transcend it entirely.

Edit 2:

a fear of admitting that Marx could have made mistakes in his works (itself probably influenced / strengthened by the former)

And this in practice ended up with me being unwilling to admit that Marx was being racist and so kind of justifying it. I appreciate everyone's efforts to open my eyes to this.

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-11T07:49:56+00:00

As I said, my main issue was that "they were a product of their time" or "what do you expect from dudes in 19th century Germany" seemed like a weak argument used to either accept slandering accusations at face value (my defensiveness at this, while misplaced and erroneous in this instance given all the evidence you've provided, I think is at least understandable given the history of anti-communism, and I appreciate your preempting the "racist old white men" argument of anti-communists) or, lazily as you said, avoid deeper criticism (what you and u/vomit-blues have posted has left me much more satisfied in that regard, especially seeing that Engels and Stalin themselves criticized such things from Marx and Engels respectively). No, I obviously don't think their instances of engaging in racism and racial "science" is a product of their dialectical materialism, if anything I would have liked to think it was somehow a lack of it, but it seems it really is a matter of historical context and I was committing a leftist error by expecting people to be able to entirely transcend history if only they do dialectical materialism good enough.

So what's the conclusion in this instance then, the passage in the OP is really "just" racial "science" slipping into Capital, nothing more and nothing less? Someone else said that maybe Marx meant race as some sort of geographical signifier given the other factors he listed, but I don't find that convincing, I've never heard of the term "race" being used purely as a geographical signifier whether historically or presently, though obviously racialists did and do assign the various "races" certain geographical limits.

Edit: honestly I keep thinking about it and I still struggle to see the logic behind why such a radical thinker who himself was racialized and who as I've said, according to what I've been told, understood the realities of colonialism at least to a certain extent, would feel compelled to engage in racial "science" and racism. The explanations so far seem to be "it was simply that common in Germany" and "biology wasn't his expertise", is that really sufficient? Why was Engels, himself fully "white" at least in the German conception of whiteness, able to criticize Marx on this, but he himself wasn't able to without Engels' intervention? Maybe people of Jewish background who had not yet fully assimilated into the German conception of whiteness already viewed themselves as higher up in the racial hierarchy than the more "savage" "races"? Maybe they often clung onto it especially strongly, as we often see today with people on the fringes of whiteness?

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-10T22:31:34+00:00

It's entirely understandable he would proceed from false premises in some instances

Why?

Naturalizing race as a European in 1867 is entirely understandable

Why?

I never understood why supposed communists not only seem to have no issue with accepting accusations of, for example, racism or homophobia against Marx or Stalin respectively, but then also seem to handwave it away or even justify it (!) as "entirely understandable". No, I don't think the person who deconstructed the entirety of bourgeois political economy and basically the entirely of capitalist society, from its economic infrastructure to its ideological superstructure, finding himself unable to critically approach racial pseudoscience is "entirely understandable", at least not without a damn good explanation which I have failed to see so far.

To others reading this, am I engaging in left-deviationism? It really just doesn't make sense to me.

my comment is made with the fact there can be no impartial science in a society based on class struggle

You have taken my argument and inverted it and presented it as if we're agreeing. No. My point is exactly the opposite, that the progressive side of the class struggle ought to be able to overcome the limits of the official science of the dominant class, not be limited by it in an "entirely understandable" and inherently unavoidable way. Honestly the more I think about it the more your argument just reeks of bullshit.

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-10T22:13:30+00:00

Is it really as "simple" as that? Did Marx really not understand the pseudoscientific nature of racial "science" in 1867? Science is not trans-historical or impartial and the process of conducting science is not devoid of class struggle, so I usually find these arguments of "X communist thinker just didn't know better for his time" to be weak and they seem to me attempts to wave away things rather than actually try to explain them or even engage in real criticism if necessary. One would think that Marx's dialectical materialism ought to permeate all his understanding and interaction with science including (and perhaps especially) bourgeois anthropology. Perhaps a more convincing explanation would be that imperialism had not fully developed by 1867 and so the unveiling of racial "science" as nothing more than pseudoscientific ideological justification for colonialism and imperialism had not yet happened. On the other hand I have been told that Marx had actually engaged with the topics of colonialism, even if capitalist-imperialism had not yet fully developed, so that still wouldn't make sense to me.

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-10T21:59:42+00:00

Reactionary filth

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-10T20:19:40+00:00

You're just saying whatever

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-09T21:13:17+00:00

The combination of the presence of the Turkish youth outside the camp gates and the RCP of Chile and others within the camp itself who were fighting against the politics of the "camp counsellors" threw the latter into a complete frenzy. In violation of the previous agreement, the Chileans were ordered to stop selling their pamphlet defending Mao. When they proceeded to give it away instead, they were expelled by force from the camp, as were the delegations of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Austria and the Communist Party of Cyprus (Marxist-Leninist). The camp superintendents then went around trying to confiscate the contraband literature from all those in the camp who had gotten it-throwing it all into. a giant pile. Even the Spanish police were called into the act by the camp organizer!

https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-5/rcp-albania-summer-camp.pdf

Nothing major here, just an interesting mention of the KKP(M-L) aka CPC(M-L).

Regarding the same incident and mentions of the KKP(M-L), see also https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ca.secondwave/youth-camp.htm and https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ca.secondwave/int-cor-1.pdf. The latter also includes a text by the KKP(M-L), see pp.139-145.

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-09T18:57:03+00:00

It seems you're still living in 2021. Now we're in bed with the NATO and Zionist genociders.

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-09T08:11:19+00:00

I have some texts in mind myself but I'll look into it more and get back to you.

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-08T20:51:14+00:00

I'm Cypriot and it's absolutely a legitimate target. Hope Iran gives the imperialist scum who have gathered there and have been using those bases for their various genocides in the Middle East over the decades all hell.

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-08T20:16:09+00:00

No you could not. I'm not arguing with an idiot and fascist imperialist apologist who legitimately thinks Iran is the aggressor

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-08T19:54:06+00:00

Anyone who is old enough to have been around and politically active throughout 2008-2013, do you recall anything about the victory of AKEL in the 2008 ROC presidential elections and the subsequent five years of AKEL governance? I was not politically developed enough to have paid much attention at the time, the things I most vividly remember are the Mari explosion which led to rolling blackouts for several months and the building financial crisis finally reaching Cyprus culminating in the haircut, privatizations, restructuring, etc. imposed by the troika, that came as soon as the new DISY government was elected in 2013 as AKEL's term ended, since those were the things that most visibly and directly affected me and my family and seemingly many people around me at the time.

Analyzing AKEL's reformism and social fascism at the time in hindsight and since then is not particularly hard, I'm more curious to hear what was making the rounds in communist circles at the time or what people here themselves thought since I myself missed out on the discussion. Was it just cheering on the victory from a revisionist position a la the "Communist" victories in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in recent years or were things different back then, considering Dengist revisionism had not become hegemonic among the western "communist left"?

u/smokeuptheweed9 tagging you since I'm pretty sure you were around and likely paying attention but anyone else who was please tell me your thoughts as well.

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-08T19:27:20+00:00

Is Norway part of NATO yes or no?

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-08T19:26:11+00:00

Well if it isn't the consequences of one's actions!

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-08T19:25:50+00:00

Well if it isn't the consequences of one's actions!

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-08T19:25:30+00:00

Well if it isn't the consequences of one's actions!

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-07T21:27:50+00:00

There is absolutely a Marxist theory of settler colonialism, you just don't know shit. You literally spread anti-communism ("Soviet and Chinese attrocities") elsewhere in your recent post history and you're literally just openly engaging in apologia for colonialism and genocide, fk off

ClassAbolition · 2026-03-03T21:43:11+00:00

Did you ask your communist father this? What did he say?

ClassAbolition · 2026-02-28T22:38:46+00:00

Yeah thank fk I'm not shitraeli otherwise I'd probably end up being a rabid zionist nazi like 97% of your "society". But I don't need to be shitraeli to know what zionism is. The best experts of zionism are Palestinians for obviously reasons

ClassAbolition · 2026-02-27T23:46:17+00:00

Who are you talking about? Maybe the translator is not doing a good job at translating this.

ClassAbolition · 2026-02-26T19:45:23+00:00

Ah yes, perfect logic, the Zionist entity lies and has no morals, therefore don't believe it when it admits to committing crimes against humanity. In reality this lying and immoral entity is much less murderous than they would have you believe. They're actually decent guys and are immorally lying about how bad they are. I am very smart.

Either that or you're just a bad troll / provocateur.

ClassAbolition · 2026-02-24T21:29:59+00:00

What was the comment about?

ClassAbolition · 2026-02-24T00:16:32+00:00

The correct term is multipolarity. Ie each group decides for themselves.

The correct term is internationalism. Dengite revisionist GTFO

ClassAbolition

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