The Wretched of the Earth: the anthem of decolonization?
The Wretched of the Earth: the anthem of decolonization?
In Chapter 5, the discussion of Fanon’s views on Marxism purposefully leads to three stages of development. First, this chapter examines his assertion that in the post-independence state the bourgeois phase is useless and that the lumpenproletariat is not a reactionary class but rather is the most revolutionary; an assertion which reverses the roles Marx assigned to the proletariat and the lumpenproletariat and radically subverts Marxist theory. Second, it charts the historical development of what Fanon dubs the lumpenproletariat in The Wretched of the Earth, by examining Marx’s and Sartre’s analyses of the impact which French colonialism had on the emergence of this class of people as well as on France’s democratic and republican political institutions. Third, it endeavours to read Fanon and Marx, contrapuntally engaging with Peter Stallybrass and Ranjana Khanna and with the political role they respectively assign to the lumpenproletariat.
Keywords: Marxism, lumpenproletariat, peasantry, Sartre, bourgeoisie, expropriation, assimilation, alienation, post-humanism
Manchester Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
