Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital was written as both an intervention and a contribution to theory. It was intended to offer an assessment of one of the most influential theoretical frameworks in the humanities and social sciences since the 1990s, and a response to their criticisms of received frameworks. George Steinmetz wonders why I chose to focus so strenuously on Subaltern Studies as the stand-in for the larger theoretical corpus. He observes correctly that there are many other prominent theorists associated with postcolonial theory (hereafter PCT), such as Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha, and others. The reason is that it is the historians and anthropologists in the field who have moved beyond a theory of postcolonial culture, and developed something close to a sociology of modern capitalist forms, as well as a theory of why capitalist modernization has proceeded in the way that it has. And among these more sociologically minded theorists, there is no doubt that Subaltern Studies has wielded an influence that is deeper and wider than any other current within the field. Its most prominent members have generated not only an empirically, historically based argument about the course of modern capitalism in the colonial world, but one that is remarkably coherent and consistently developed over time. As I explain in the introduction to the book, it is not my view by any means that Subaltern Studies covers the gamut of arguments or concepts in postcolonial studies. But it is representative of many of the central ideas that are associated with PCT; it is extremely influential; and its internal consistency makes it not just representative, but the most attractive and plausible denizen of this body of work.1
PCT claims to show that the theories and categories associated with the most influential frameworks of the twentieth century—liberal political theory and Marxist theory—cannot apprehend the actual course of economic and political development in the colonial world. Both approaches are rejected because of their supposed determinism and teleology, which blind them to the specificity of the colonial and postcolonial world. Postcolonial theorists reject what they take to be an illicit universalism in these frameworks, a prejudice that categories and predictions coming out of the European experience must be equally relevant to the specific experience of the Global South. Because it is flawed, this universalism turns out to generate a pronounced Eurocentric bias in both liberal and Marxist theory. And this, in turn, only perpetuates the political and economic dominance of the West over the East. Or so they claim. This rejection of Eurocentrism forms the basis of their normative critique of Western domination, and in more recent work, of the heavy hand of universalizing theories more generally.
There is a great deal at stake here. If the arguments coming from Subaltern Studies are correct, then we are obligated to overhaul much of what is currently practiced in the social sciences and humanities, roll up our sleeves, and craft entirely new frameworks for understanding the evolution of much of the world. Even more, the foundational basis of our criticism of modern capitalism has to be rejected and new political theories have to be crafted that have no truck with Enlightenment universals. It is therefore a little surprising to see how little effort there has been toward a serious assessment of the actual evidence that PCT adduces in support of its claims about the actual differences between East and West, the shortcomings of the received frameworks, the real drivers of historical trajectories, the fount of social agency, and so forth. So the first challenge I undertook in Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital (hereafter PTSC) was to assess these arguments on their own grounds. And by this I mean to reconstruct them, to tease out their implications, and then to see if they stood up to empirical and logical scrutiny.
My verdict in the book is that the arguments developed by PCT and Subaltern Studies fail on both theoretical and normative grounds. With regard to theory, PCT fails in its Subalternist version because it cannot adequately explain the patterns of historical development in the advanced and late developing parts of the capitalist world. It insists that the defining characteristic of the Global South is its deep and abiding structural differentiation from the advanced capitalist world, a difference so deep, so fundamental that it requires an entirely different set of categories. I examine these claims and argue that none of the arguments adduced in their favor withstand scrutiny. There are differences between the two parts of the world, of course; but they are not of a kind that resists analysis through the inherited explanatory frameworks. I conclude that the Subaltern critique of Enlightenment theories is baseless. Furthermore, I argue not only that the arguments made by Subalternists for the specificity of the East are questionable on empirical grounds, but that they also cannot provide the basis for political critique. This is because, their rhetoric notwithstanding, they end up reviving and refurbishing some of the most objectionable orientalist canards about the East. So, far from providing a means of overturning Eurocentrism, Subaltern Studies gives it a new lease on life—for Eurocentrism is just the dual of orientalism.
THE UNIVERSALIZATION OF CAPITAL
Well, these are my conclusions. What are the bases on which I defend them? We start with an assessment of the Subalternist argument against the universalizing categories of Enlightenment thought, chief among which are the ones central to Marxist and liberal social theory—categories like capitalism, universal rights, class, citizenship, and so forth. PCT and theorists from Subaltern Studies argue that the relevance of these categories is highly dubious outside the West. The reason for this is that they presume that the social milieu that they are examining has been transformed in some relevant way by capitalism—in other words, their use presupposes a properly universalizing capitalism. But—and this is the key—capitalism failed to universalize once it left European shores. It is not that the transformation that it is supposed to bring about is yet incomplete. It is, rather, that capital mutates in such a way that it cannot universalize. Dipesh Chakrabarty is especially emphatic on this point. Subalternists deny that it is just a matter of waiting until the social transformations associated with capitalism are complete. Their view is that capitalism cannot universalize, and this is why the categories of the Enlightenment are irredeemably flawed when they are put to use in the East.
So what accounts for the necessity of capital’s failed universalization? There are two arguments that Subalternists make in this regard, one developed by Ranajit Guha and the other by Dipesh Chakrabarty. For Guha, the key lies in a deep historical failing in the colonial and postcolonial bourgeoisie, namely, that it failed in its duty to “speak for all the nation,” to create a liberal political culture in which political rule was based on the consent of the masses. He contrasts this with the experience of the West, in which capital created a culture of rights and liberality, in which rulers treated the ruled as formal equals even while they exploited them. The pivotal events in which capital advanced this agenda were the great bourgeois revolutions of 1640 in England and 1789 in France. But in India, in its “bourgeois revolution”—that is, the Independence movement—Indian capital forswore any such mission. Instead of overthrowing the ancient regime, it accommodated to it and instead of embracing its mission to speak for all the nation, it chose only a pursuit of its narrow economic interests. Hence, capital’s rule in the East turned out to be based on outright domination rather than on hegemony, whereas in the West, the poles were reversed—capital ruled hegemonically, and coercion played a subordinate role. The different character of the bourgeoisie in the two instances created radically different political modernities.
Dipesh Chakrabarty accepts Guha’s historical sociology, but adds to it another dimension, which provided independent grounds for the denial of capital’s universalization. He begins with the observation that capital strives to subordinate all social relations to its own logic. But, he says, this compulsion is not equally successful across the board. There are some practices that do become absorbed by capital. Chakrabarty calls these practices “History 1.” But then there are others that, even while they are influenced by capital, still manage to retain their integrity and resist total subordination. These Chakrabarty calls “History 2.” Chakrabarty then adds the proviso that for capital to have successfully universalized, it must be the case that History 1 obliterates History 2. But of course, he observes, History 2 can never be extinguished. No social formation loses all traces of its local culture, local institutions, and so on. He then concludes that, since History 2 can never be extinguished, since some social practices resist the “totalizing” drive of capital, we must acknowledge that capital never in fact succeeds in its universalizing drive. And since it does not successfully universalize, the universalizing categories of the Enlightenment, which presume that History 1 has in fact won out, only serve to obscure the real nature of postcolonial societies. They fail to appreciate its heterogeneity, they wipe all traces of social differences, and impose on this rich diversity the homogenizing categories of Western thought.
In assessing these arguments in PTSC, I take a conservative approach. I grant to the Subalternists their premise—which is by no means obviously correct—that for Enlightenment categories to have relevance, capital must be shown to retain its universalizing drive. As it happens, I believe that the premise can be easily rejected, but I keep to it in order to make the Subalternist case as strong as possible. So let us assume that it has warrant. Can we agree with the claim that capital cannot universalize once it leaves Western shores? I argue that neither argument for capital’s abandonment of its universalizing drive can be defended.
Guha’s argument for there being a historic break between the political projects of the bourgeoisie in the West and in the East flows from a highly mythologized story about the great bourgeois revolutions, one that was rejected decades ago by historians. I show this in great detail in Chapters 3 and 4 in PTSC. All the critics in this forum accept my reconstruction of Guha as well as my criticism of him. But William Sewell worries that while my basic argument regarding the so-called bourgeois revolutions is convincing, I am not sufficiently attentive to some of the real shifts that they did facilitate, and he brings up, as an example, the importance of 1688 for the separation of powers in the English state and that of 1789 for ideas such as the Rights of Man. But Sewell is reading my argument in an unduly narrow fashion. My argument for the importance of the English and French revolutions is meant to assess whether they performed the functions assigned to them by Guha, and for him, their achievement is very specific—they were instances in which capital fought for, and successfully created, a political culture based on the inclusion of the laboring classes, in which their participation in the political process was not only allowed but welcomed by the new ruling class. My downgrading of the revolutions’ achievements should be read against the claims that I am assessing. I do not deny their significance altogether. It is not that I am unaware of the shift toward a constitutional monarchy in England or the promulgation of the Rights of Man in France. My argument is twofold—that the shifts that did occur were nowhere near what is needed to validate Guha’s argument, and second, that insofar as there was a movement toward greater inclusiveness, it was not because of the universalizing mission of capital, but because of pressure from the laboring classes. Sewell is correct in his claim about the revolution’s legacy for the issues he raises, but his observation is quite consistent with my argument.
I am pleased to see that all of the critics also largely agree with my rejection of Chakrabarty’s argument, though they raise some related issues that are quite interesting. Chakrabarty sets up a test for the universalizing process that is absurdly stringent, one that, to my knowledge, no social theorist has ever countenanced. I argue against Chakrabarty that capital’s universalization does not at all require that capital absorb History 2 into its logic. For that to be the test, it would require that every social practice, every aspect of culture, ideology, and social institutions become reflections of capitalist imperatives. The mind boggles at the thought. A more reasonable litmus is that capital merely has to ensure the subordination of economic practices to its logic, moving against the autonomy of cultural and social practices only if they interfere with or undermine the economic. Chakrabarty only allows two possibilities in his universe—practices either directly support capitalism or they are a threat to it. But it is entirely possible that practices can be outside the orbit of commodity production and be neutral toward it—a possibility that he does not consider. But if this is so, then there is no necessary conflict between History 1 and History 2, and the non-incorporation of History 2 is not evidence of capital’s failure to implant itself. Furthermore, Chakrabarty is mistaken in locating the sources of instability to capitalism in History 2. I argue that the most important sources of instability are in fact exemplars of History 1—centrally, problems within the accumulation process itself, which lead to economic breakdown, and laborers’ defense of their material interests, which are universal in scope.
George Steinmetz raises a very pertinent issue when he wonders if my arguments for History 1 as the main source of instability are too hasty in pushing aside the importance of History 2. He observes, correctly, that I put a great deal of weight on my claim that capitalism can subsist in happy coexistence with practices and institutions in History 2, and hence, that an affirmation of its universalizing drive need not blind us to the fact of historical diversity. But, Steinmetz suggests, is it not possible that there might be plenty of instances in which elements of local cultures or practices, in places where capitalism is taking root, might in fact be inimical to its reproduction? If so, should we not take seriously the corrosive powers of History 2 for the universalizing tendency of capitalism? I entirely agree with Steinmetz on this, and in fact, I point out in PTSC that History 2 can block or destabilize capitalist reproduction.2 My argument is not that History 2 can never be a source of disruption; it is that whether or not it is so is a highly contingent matter, whereas there are elements of History 1 that are systematically in tension with the stability of capitalism. I argue for the asymmetry between the two as sources of instability within capitalism, not for the irrelevance of History 2.3
Steinmetz also proposes, in a related argument, that I could have tried for a more ramified conception of political forms, presumably in Chapter 5 where I discuss the kinds of power relations that are consistent with capitalism. He regrets that I confine my discussion to the labor process, to the detriment of any consideration of the state or other political institutions. If I had done so, he continues, I might have considered how there have been instances in which colonial states blocked the spread of capitalist relations—not liberalism, but the production relations of capitalism itself. This would be an instance of the actual blockage of the universalizing tendency, even on my definition of the term. Steinmetz is again quite right. In the history of colonialism, there have in fact been plenty of instances in which states impeded the growth of capitalism by giving support to traditional social relations. But my ambition was not to insist that capitalism has taken root in every corner of the globe, or to present colonialism as an engine for capitalism’s growth, as Bill Warren4 did famously in his work a generation ago. As I say in PTSC, whether or not capitalism has in fact taken root in a colonial setting is an empirical matter;5 it did so unevenly, sometimes very slowly, sometimes rapidly, and sometimes it was not until the postcolonial era that it spread. There are even regions where its development continues to be episodic and weak. My argument was that even where such developments occur, they cannot provide support for the Subalternist argument, which is not that capital’s universalization might be blocked here and there, but that it either loses its very capacity for universalization (Guha) or never had it in the first place (Chakrabarty), since it is necessarily blocked by History 2. To put it more precisely, Steinmetz suggests the possibility of a causal property’s realization being blocked, while the Subalternists argue for that property being shed altogether. PTSC is ranged against the latter argument, and happily acknowledges the possibility of the former.
THE OTHER UNIVERSALISM
So, one kind of universalizing process that is defended in PTSC is the spread of capitalism around the globe. A second one that occupies a prominent place in the book is the fact of some universal basic needs among human beings, and from that I derive the possibility of real interests that bind together members of a class. In PTSC, I show that Partha Chatterjee and Dipesh Chakrabarty deny both the motivational force of basic needs and the salience of individual interests for non-Western actors. They do not reject the very idea of real need and interests—they just think that Eastern minds are not motivated by them. I show that their arguments against the salience of interests are mistaken and, indeed, that the empirical research of Subalternist historians—including and especially Chatterjee and Chakrabarty—itself demonstrates that non-Western actors are every bit as aware of their objective interests as are Western ones. All of the critics seem basically sympathetic to my argument, though Steinmetz and Sewell both express some skepticism toward my positive account of practical reason, Sewell worrying that it amounts to a version of rational choice theory, and Steinmetz seeming to think that my view amounts to a denial, or at least a denigration, of the fact that all action is meaning-oriented.
Does my argument amount to a version of rational choice theory? I proposed in PTSC that it does not, in large measure because I reject a maximizing model of rationality. But perhaps Sewell is right that this does not merit casting it out of the family of rational choice. In the end, the label matters less than the plausibility of the core arguments. Steinmetz’s concerns are more germane here, since they question the viability of my arguments. But he is mistaken if he thinks that my view calls for meaning-free action. The affirmation of rationality does not require that social agents perform their actions outside the meaning universe that they occupy. I go to some lengths in PTSC to make this clear.6 What it rejects is the idea that the acculturation of social actors can be such as to make them oblivious of their basic needs; I suggest that the pursuit of these needs does not exist outside of culture, but that, because they act as such a powerful motivational force, cultures have to create codes and conventions that respect and acknowledge them. I cannot develop this point here, for lack of space, but I refer readers to the discussion in PTSC, Chapter 8, Sections 3 and 4. My point here is that Steinmetz seems to have misunderstood my argument, and imputed to me a view that I explicitly reject. Now, it could be that I am mistaken in believing that it is possible to uphold the reality of interests, while also allowing that all action is meaningful in orientation. So perhaps it is the case that arguing for basic needs and objective interests requires that we take actors to be asocial or outside of culture. But I do not believe that this is so, and in my view, sociological theory, as it is practiced today, is burdened by a quite profound confusion around this issue.
The needs that I affirm in PTSC play a central role in any viable social theory. As Doug Pederson correctly observes, it is on their basis that we can explain the ubiquity of resistance to social domination—especially resistance to wage labor; but, Pederson continues, even the very spread of capitalism is hard to explain except by reference to actors’ real needs. It is hard to see why laborers in every part of the world, every culture, in every setting where they are expropriated, end up offering their labor power for sale, if it is not because of their desire to uphold their physical well-being. And it is equally hard to see why the wage contract breeds resistance and conflict in every part of the world, if it is not because those same laborers try to defend their autonomy and their well-being against the depredations of their employers.
Now Michael Schwartz is certainly correct in his observation that while I stress the importance of universal needs and interests, it remains insufficiently developed in the book. The main problem is that while I maintain their ubiquity as sources of motivation, I do not give much of an explanation for why their actuation or efficacy is so uneven. My failure on this score is partly because of space limits—there is only so much a book can do. But it is also for two other reasons. The first is that, as a work of critique, the book will tend to operate on the same level of generality as the theories that it interrogates. Since the basic Subalternist argument is for a denial of individual interests, I naturally strive to demonstrate their salience as a basic social fact. I pay less attention to the variations in their realization. But the second reason is that there is a veritable ocean of social science research that does just this, and Schwartz’s scholarship is a great example of some of the best work that assumes rationality on the part of actors and then explains the variations that he points to. My goal in the book was to suggest that this enormous body of work is not vulnerable to the criticisms that PCT makes of it—that it gives short shrift to culture and to agency, that it is parochial, that it denigrates social differences, that it homogenizes the social landscape, and so forth. And having shown that these criticisms are unfounded, PTSC suggested that we can go back to this work to continue the project of understanding the real sources of social contestation, since PCT does not offer much in this direction.
CONCLUSION
So what PTSC argues, in the end, is that Subaltern Studies fails in the case that it makes against the universalizing categories of the Enlightenment, which include liberal and Marxist theory. This is important because, as I suggest early on in this essay, the Subalternists have made the best and most careful of all the arguments in the post-colonial arsenal. It is important to note what the implications are. Bruce Cumings objects to my characterization of their arguments, in particular to those of Chakrabarty, as orientalist. He wonders what is wrong with Chakrabarty’s ambition to generate a framework that is “attuned to Indian realities and freed of European assumptions.” But my criticism is not directed toward Chakrabarty’s ambition, since it is one that I entirely endorse. What makes Chakrabarty’s arguments orientalist is not their stated goal, but their content. Insisting that non-Western people do not have a bounded conception of the self, that they are only motivated by obligations to larger groups, that their consciousness is fundamentally religious, while Westerners are basically secular, that the reliance on Reason is a Western convention, that rationality and objectivity are Western—these are the claims that Chakrabarty and his colleagues make, and it is on the basis of these ideas that I characterize them as orientalist.
It is gratifying to see the response that PTSC has generated in so short a span, even though much of it has been hysterical, as I predicted in my concluding chapter. The reason is not hard to fathom—as Ho-fung Hung points out in his introduction (Chapter 7 of this volume), there is a great deal at stake in this debate, not just intellectually, but also politically. PCT has emerged and flourished at a time of general retreat for progressive forces, perhaps more so than at any other time in the modern era. For the generation of students and activists just coming of age, the only form of critical or radical theory they have ever encountered is some version of PCT or its cousins. Many of the ideas associated with progressive movements of the past century—of universal emancipation, egalitarianism, class organizing, internationalism—now seem quaint to them, if not odious. These are the ideas I try to defend and revive in PTSC. Perhaps Michael Schwartz is right that, in the not-too-distant future, the theories associated with PCT will seem as little more than a bizarre interlude, a temporary descent into self-absorbed tomfoolery by intellectuals. But here today, it is apparent that these currents, however odious their ideas may be, wield tremendous influence in the intellectual landscape. One can only hope that Schwartz is right and that it will soon be behind us.