Why do we need Marxism for racism studies?

What is it about?

This is the introductory article to our anthology "The Diversity of Exploitation": Marxism has been a marginalized discipline globally since the 1970s. In Germany in particular, anti-​communist policies such as the Anti-​Radical Decree from 1972 onwards have driven Marxists out of universities and stigmatized them. Marxism is now largely considered outdated, both in political discussions and in the universities. If Marxist theory is still employed at all today, it is typically in the form of liberal sociology, which replaces the foundations of Marxism with a canonization of Marx as an apolitical social theorist. In this context, the materialist method is typically rejected as reductive by accusing it of economism. We outline why we believe that the Marxist method is still vital for social sciences in general and for racism studies in particular.

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Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Within this thematic complex, the contributions in this edited volume deal with different aspects of the theory and praxis of anti-​racism in Germany. Despite their different emphases, all the contributions are unified by a dialectical-​historical-​materialist approach to questions pertaining to the relationship between class and race.