ABSTRACT
In his essay on postcolonial theory, Vivek Chibber defends the cross-cultural validity of Marxism and rejects the idea that postcolonialism is a radical discourse. The claim that universality ignores difference is rejected, as is the notion that universalization is complicit with European domination. Regardless of cultural differences, the compulsions of capitalism are resisted by people in ways that are consistent worldwide. A left that has abandoned the recourse to universalism, he says, can have no critique of capitalism. The further charge that Marxism is reductionist is rejected as complicity with imperialism. The demand by postcolonial theorists for histories that do not conform to so-called European concepts like capitalism are deemed to be politically dangerous since they polemicize the extent to which European universalization has been successful in transforming “ways of life” rather than developing the grounds for solidarity and resistance. Post-structuralism and discourse theory are identified as the source of theoretical confusion. Ironically, it is postcolonial theorists who are now guilty of Orientalism and defend cultural bias.
