Machaon Smeaton

Political Marxism and Eurocentric theorisation of capitalism

Introduction

Political marxism and eurocentric theorisation of capitalism. Explore how Political Marxism, despite challenging some Eurocentrism, offers a narrow view of capitalism that overlooks non-European history and agency. Critiques Ellen Wood's work.

Abstract

This essay argues that Ellen Wood’s work and the framework of Political Marxism (PM) challenge and subvert some forms of Eurocentric inquiry while nonetheless reproducing a narrow Eurocentric conception of capitalism that fails to integrate the history and agency of non-European peoples. This essay will begin by outlining conceptions of the relationship between Eurocentrism and capitalism. This will be followed by an elaboration of PM’s conception of capitalism and an evaluation of Wood’s defence against charges of Eurocentrism. An unaddressed Eurocentric dimension of PM will then be critiqued. That is a problematic conception of the relationship between the economic and the extra-economic in capitalism that obscures the imbrication of a wide range of extra-economic forms of rule, exploitation, and oppression as well as non-western agency from its account of capitalism. This essay will then conclude with avenues toward a specific but anti-Eurocentric understanding of capitalism.

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