Subaltern Studies

Discussion

Three arguments against the conclusions of subaltern studies=

by Tibor Rutar:

"Since its publication in 2013, Vivek Chibber’s book Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital (PTSC) has generated a lot of scholarly discussion. A new volume, The Debate on Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital, captures this sometimes ornery debate.

PTSC primarily aims to uncover the conceptual and empirical flaws within subaltern studies, an important strand of postcolonial theory. In doing so, Chibber challenges the broader postcolonial claim that the West and East are so radically different that theories with European origins, such as Marxism, don’t have universal currency.

Chibber finds at least three arguments in the Subalternist literature that support this larger claim. The first concerns the ostensibly different strategies that the ruling classes, namely the bourgeoisie, used to gain and consolidate power. In Europe, they argue, the emergent bourgeoisie ruled by consent, while in India it depended on coercion.

The second argument follows directly from this: capitalism evolved differently depending on the bourgeoisie’s governing style. In Europe, capitalism transformed all social relations according to its logic, but in India it left some pre-capitalist structures intact.

The third argument deals with the social actors’ allegedly different psychological makeup. In Europe, peasants and workers internalized a “bourgeois consciousness” that made them sensitive to their material interests; in India, such consciousness never arose, and so Indians didn’t concern themselves with their objective interests when it came to economic or, especially, political issues.

Chibber convincingly argues against subaltern studies on all three counts.

First, he reminds us that the belief that French and English capitalism embody democratic values and rest on the consent of the masses is pure fantasy. For most of capitalism’s history — both in Europe and elsewhere — consent was conspicuously absent. Democratic institutions only came about through struggles from below, not thanks to an enlightened capitalist class.

Second, while the Subalternists and other theorists of difference correctly point out that capitalism doesn’t look the same across the globe, Chibber shows Marxism needn’t and indeed doesn’t deny this fact.

When Marxists claim their conceptual tools apply across the capitalist world, they’re highlighting a small set of basic properties that are operative in any capitalist society, including the profit motive, wage labor, and competition. How these properties express themselves or what sociocultural dynamics exist alongside and shape them remains open — a problem to which Marxism isn’t at all blind.

Finally, Chibber uses the Subalternists’ own historiographic evidence to disprove the assumption that people act according to their material interests only when properly socialized by Western norms. Indian peasants and workers had as clear an understanding of the risks and costs associated with collective action as their French and English counterparts. The Subalternists in fact concocted an unwitting Orientalism by depicting agency in the East as radically different in nature than in the West." (https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/03/debate-postcolonial-theory-review-chibber-subaltern/)