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Indigenous Peoples, Marxism and Late Capitalism

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Indigenous Peoples, Marxism and Late Capitalism New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry Vol. 5, No. 1 (November 2011) Pp. 6-9 Introduction Indigenous Peoples, Marxism and Late Capitalism Scott Simon University of Ottawa he relationship between indigenous peoples and proletariat. The expansion of this system alters indig- Marxism has long been ambiguous. Marx him- enous communities, creating elite groups and new Tself, as a 19th century philosopher influenced by social identities in its wake, with the result of accelerat- Darwinism, assumed that “tribal” peoples represented ing the entire process of capitalist incorporation. simple forms of productive relations and were des- Canadian geographer and ecological philosopher tined to disappear (Marx 1887:51). For him, tribal William T. Hipwell argues that socialism and capi- peoples represented the beginning of social evolution, talism alike destroy the environment and the human as expressed in The German Ideology: “The first form spirit in an overarching system he calls “Industria” of ownership is tribal [Stammeigentum] ownership. (Hipwell 2004:370). Regardless of what one may It corresponds to the undeveloped stage of produc- think of Marxism as a political project, however, the tion, at which a people lives by hunting and fishing, intellectual contribution of Marxism to the anthro- by the rearing of beasts or, in the highest stage, agri- pological study of capitalism remains relevant. If we culture” (Marx and Engels 1965:33). Indigenous use Marxist concepts as part of a larger set of meth- people have sometimes been equally dismissive of odological tools, rather than Marxism as a blueprint Marx. Native American author Leslie Marmon Silko, to yet another form of industrial society, our studies for example, thought that Marxism and indigenous may contribute to even wider goals of social justice. rights were incompatible because Marxism, like cap- The contributing authors of this special issue italism, requires the exploitation of natural resources of New Proposals originally delivered the research and industrial development that conflicts with indig- presented here in the November 2010 meetings enous ideas about the sacred nature of the Earth of the American Anthropological Association, as (Teale 1998). part of a panel on “Indigenous Peoples and the Undeniably, however, the result of more than Circulation of Labour” sponsored by the Society four centuries of imperialism and colonialism has for the Anthropology of Work. In papers discussing ensnared indigenous peoples in the traps of the cases from Alaska, Canada, Taiwan, Laos, and New capitalist world system (Bodley 2008). Around Zealand, these papers all explore the ways in which the world, indigenous lands are expropriated by the capitalist world system expropriates land, natural states and capitalist corporations, in order to chan- resources, and labour from indigenous communities. nel natural resources from above and below ground All four papers, in spite of the obvious differences into ever-widening streams of capital accumula- between them, attempt to use Marxist concepts to tion. Indigenous labour is appropriated by capitalist understand the situation of indigenous peoples in late firms in multinational systems of production that capitalism. All four papers are based on an under- transform indigenous people into members of the standing that capitalism exploits indigenous peoples INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, MARXISM AND LATE CAPITALISM • 7 and lands, that a shift toward indigenous self-deter- destruction of the environment and local cultures, a mination and social justice is desirable, and that new word is needed to describe them both. Industria anthropology can contribute to positive change by seems to fit the bill nicely. providing ethnographically grounded analysis of Ching-hsiu Lin and Scott Simon provide com- dynamics in various local circumstances. All of them plementary perspectives on the relationship between avoid the teleological assumptions and economic capitalism and the Truku people of Taiwan. As can be determinism that has characterized some Marxist seen in Lin’s paper, primitive accumulation on Truku thinking in the past. territory began much earlier than in Laos. As early as Ian Baird, in a particularly rich ethnography of the period of Japanese administration (1895-1945), Laos, demonstrates the ongoing utility of the Marxist the colonial government forced egalitarian commu- concept of “primitive accumulation.” It is useful that nities of hunter-gatherers to permanently settle on he does this in a nominally socialist country, because reserve lands and adopt modern agriculture. After the it makes us reflect on how Capitalism and Marxism transfer of Taiwan to the Republic of China, reserve in practice have both led to the destruction of nature land was privatized. Lin evokes how privatization and of subsistence-based societies. Having collected of land led to the emergence of social stratification, data for over fifteen years, and serving as Executive as better educated and better informed individuals Director of the non-governmental organization could gain access to prime land to be sold to state Global Association for People and the Environment, and industrial concerns. Over time, poorer people Baird testifies to the acceleration of “violent capitalist became landless because they had to sell land to pay accumulation by dispossession.” Lands once used by debts. The process of accumulation and dispossession indigenous people for swidden agriculture are trans- was thus led partly by members of the same commu- formed into rubber plantations, with rubber destined nity, leading to a social cleavage between elites and to be sold on export markets. ordinary people. He categorizes the elites as (1) the Baird makes a strong connection between the “political” elite dependent on the Chinese Nationalist expropriation of land and the creation of a new pro- Party (KMT); (2) the “intellectual” elite, e.g. pastors, letariat. As indigenous people lose access to their who may be critical of the KMT; and (3) the off- subsistence resources, they are increasingly forced spring of these elites, who may live outside of the to work on the capitalist labour market. This pro- community. cess is often violent; indigenous people report they Lin focuses on the symbolic meanings of the have been forced to move when their property and circulation of labour and money since the land priva- crops are destroyed to make room for plantations. In tization and “integration” of Truku workers into the spite of, or perhaps because of, the country’s Marxist- labour market in the 1960s. Seemingly arguing Leninist ideology, the government has facilitated against Marx, he argues that money is not alienat- the expropriation of lands formerly used by ethnic ing to indigenous workers. Instead, money earned as minorities for swidden agriculture. In fact, officials wages becomes a mechanism for maintaining social call this process “development” in the belief, inspired relations. When male workers reach marriageable age, by their interpretations of Marxism, that they are they must, with support from wider kin networks, merely shepherding backwards people through the find ways to finance a wedding feast and expensive inevitable historical stages to industrialization. These rituals of pig sacrifice. Previous marriage customs, officials describe land expropriation as a necessary which involved provision of brideservice and raising strategy to get indigenous people to move out of their of pigs, have been replaced by a commodity econ- subsistence lifestyles and join modern labour mar- omy in which the young men and their families must kets. Baird reminds us that they can do this even raise money to purchase pigs and hire professional more efficiently than western capitalists, since they banquet caterers. This is where Marx becomes rele- are not obliged to respond to political opposition. vant. Just as Marx predicted, primitive accumulation When Capitalism and Marxism converge on a similar and integration into the labour market has led, even 8 • S. SIMON in a previously egalitarian society, to social and eco- to reflect on the double meaning of incorporation, as nomic stratification. indigenous peoples are not merely objects incorpo- Scott Simon focuses even more closely on how rated into a system not of their own making, but capitalism has led to the creation of socio-eco- also subjects incorporating their economic activities nomic stratification in Truku societies. Following in into share-holding legal entities that contribute to the footsteps of Hill Gates, one of the pioneers in indigenous self-determination. She argues that these the anthropology of Taiwan, he attempts a Marxist indigenous forms of capitalism are “rooted in local class analysis of Truku villages, but with the goal of concepts of wealth, accumulation and distribution.” better understanding the social and political dimen- Indigenous capitalisms, unlike non-indigenous cor- sions of women’s entrepreneurship. Descriptive porations, are characterized by consciousness of the statistics, as well as field work data from 18 months colonial relations that led to incorporation, an artic- of field research, reveal the existence of a large ulation of indigenous values and capitalist goals, and “Lumpenproletariat.” Like the indigenous people in the dual possibility of both subsumption into capital- Laos, they have been deprived of their former means ism and self-determination facilitated by new capital. of subsistence due to primitive
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