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Race and Racism in Marx's Camera Obscura

Eastern Kentucky University, paul.paolucci{at}eku.edu

The charge that Marx's work leaves sociologists few tools with which to understand the phenomena of race and racism has been a common one. Against such claims, this essay attempts to mobilize several analytical devices in Marx's work that help us grasp race and racism as sociological realities. These include an understanding of the inversion process (referred to here as the "camera obscura") Marx asserted was inherent to bourgeois ideology, his method of addressing the issue of tautology in the philosophy of science, and his approach to political-economic analysis. These aspects of Marx's work are essential for any study of race and racism in modern capitalist societies.

Key Words: camera obscura • Marx • race and racism • slavery • colonialism • Christianity • taxonomy • biology • world-system.

Critical Sociology, Vol. 32, No. 4, 617-648 (2006)
DOI: 10.1163/156916306779155207


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