Marx and the Indians. From philosophical anthropology to empirical ethnology.

Abstract




In this paper we will follow the opposite direction of that followed by Abensour trying to come to the same conclusion: Marxʼ antistatism and his anthropology. In order to do that we will turn to the last years of Marx and to his studies on ethnology (Ethnological Notebooks). We will argue that there is an anthropological continuum throughout Marxʼs work, from the philosophical anthropology of the 1840s to the empirical ethnology of the last years. Furthermore, we will argue that that continuum is composed of two basic elements: naturalism (by which we mean the epistemological and ontological preoccupation with the empirical) and antistatism (as the realization of the concept of democracy and the anthropology that supports it).