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Wakefield, Marx, and the world turned inside out

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2015

Gabriel Piterberg  and
Lorenzo Veracini
Gabriel Piterberg
Affiliation:
UCLA Department of History, 6265 Bunche Hall, Box 951473, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1473, USA E-mail: [email protected]
Lorenzo Veracini
Affiliation:
Swinburne Institute for Social Research, Mail 53, PO Box 218, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article focuses on Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s theory of colonization, on Karl Marx’s response to it, and on the role that settler colonialism as a global phenomenon played in shaping their thought. Marx’s rejoinder to Wakefield’s interpretation of an episode in the early colonization of Western Australia, when servants had deserted a wealthy colonist, was a foundational moment in the development of his general argument. Wakefield’s reaction to that episode was to develop the theory of ‘systematic colonization’, which he also proposed as an antidote to the prospect of impending revolution. Marx’s notion of primitive accumulation was entwined with his reading of Wakefield’s project. We argue that their different approaches to colonization, the prospect of settling ‘empty lands’ in other continents, can be seen as the starting points of two different political traditions. While revolutionary traditions are well known, this article outlines another global tradition, a political tradition that refuses reaction and revolution equally, and envisages displacement as the best method to produce social transformation.

Keywords

colonizationEdward Gibbon WakefieldKarl Marxprimitive accumulationsettler colonialism
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , November 2015 , pp. 457 - 478
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

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