Marx for Primitives

Abstract

This analysis of Karl Marx centers one of his earliest political writings, the 1842 commentary on the Rhine Province Assembly debate on the Law on Thefts of Wood, to show an anthropological thread in his writings and this thread’s relevance to the struggles of Indigenous gathering and hunting peoples in the contemporary historical conjuncture. This “bush Marx” or “Marx for primitives” consistently engaged in a deep structural linguistic subversion, challenging ethnocentrism by turning Eurocentric concepts on their head.

Key Words:

• Anthropology
• Ethnocentrism
• Eurocentrism
• Indigenous Rights
• Karl Marx

Notes

1 Or of E. P. Thompson’s (1993) conception, especially in his essay on the imposition of time and work discipline and his extensive discussion of the deployment of customary rights by those struggling against dispossession