Harvey D - 'for a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing' - Jim Blaut's Contribution to...

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‘‘For a Ruthless Criticism of

Everything Existing’’: Jim Blaut’sContribution to Geographical

Knowledge

David HarveyProgram in Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, NY, USA;

[email protected]

Whenever I read Karl Marx’s famous letter of 1844 to Arnold Ruge,entitled ‘‘For a ruthless criticism of everything existing’’ (Marx 1978),I immediately think of Jim Blaut’s enormous contributions to geogra-phical theory and practice. In his open letter, Marx brushed aside theexternal obstacles to social change and addressed the ‘‘inner difficul-

ties’’ that so often constrain us. This was perhaps Jim’s most seriouscommitment: to confront and cure what he called the ‘‘serious maladyof the mind’’ that so pervades our thinking as to blur our vision anddisrupt proper historical materialist interpretations of the world. Wecannot dogmatically prefigure the future, Marx went on to advise, but

we can approach the construction of a new world through a ruthlesscriticism of the ideas and realities that constituted the old. Within thetradition of critical geography, Jim’s (2000) Eight Eurocentric

Historians is, surely, an exemplary model of how to engage in such a

practice. ‘‘Criticism’’, Marx argued, ‘‘must not be afraid of its ownconclusions, nor of conflict with the powers that be’’. Jim was neverone to flinch from conflict with the powers that be and frequentlysuffered exclusions as a result. Nothing prevents us, Marx concluded,‘‘from tying our criticism to the criticism of politics and to a definiteparty position in politics and hence from identifying our criticism withreal struggles’’. Jim, by tying his work to the fates and fortunes of realpolitical struggles, particularly that of the Puerto Rican Socialist Partyand its pursuit of independence from the United States, not onlyplaced his work in the service of real struggles but also achievedcompelling consistency in his theorizations by forging them in thefires of political practice. From all these standpoints Jim was, surely,the most exemplary Marxist geographer we have ever had.

Ó 2005 Editorial Board of Antipode.Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street,Malden, MA 02148, USA



The only question mark hanging over such a judgment stems fromJim’s curious reluctance to come to conclusions. ‘‘This book’’, he

wrote in The Colonizer’s Model of the World, ‘‘has no realconclusion’’(Blaut 1993:215). It is, he says, merely ‘‘an introduction’’.

In The National Question he likewise states ‘‘this book has no conclu-sion’’, and in place of one lists ‘‘several important issues of theory thathave not been dealt with . . . or have been dealt with only partially’’(Blaut 1987:212). Why this reluctance from someone renowned forbeing such a forceful, persistent, and impassioned critic? Why no firmconclusions after, in each case, setting out devastating and compre-hensive critiques of rival positions?

Jim was reluctant to state norms or write out prescriptions. LikeMarx, he thought it impossible and inadvisable to ‘‘dogmatically pre-

figure the future’’. He eschewed utopian schemes. For all his fierceengagement, Jim also maintained a healthy and in some respectsadmirable skepticism regarding the limits of his own work. TheColonizer’s Model of the World, was meant, he observed, as ‘‘an intro-duction, an introduction to the study, to the diagnosis and treatmentof a serious malady of the mind’’ (Blaut 1993:215). He (1987:54)states in The National Question that the perspective he had built wasso closely tied to the struggle for independence for Puerto Rico and

other Third World struggles that it could not properly bear theburden of founding a general theory of the national question or of nationalism. But precisely because of his involvements in actual strug-gles, Jim had far more to say about theory than he was prepared toadvance. Unfortunately, his reluctance to draw let alone speculate asto conclusions often left matters in a chronically unfinished state. This

was, of course, equally true of Marx’s Capital, but in Marx’s case thefirmness of the interim conclusions contrasts with Jim’s reluctance tosee almost any argument as even half finished.

Was there, then, some secret sense in which Jim was afraid of hisown conclusions? I ask this difficult, if not unanswerable, question inthe cause, pace both Jim and Marx, of ruthless criticism. Jim wasnever reluctant to engage and was vociferous in projecting his ideasinto debate (both personally and in print). But had he been moreconclusive and more assertive (a seemingly strange thing to ask of Jim!!) as to the extraordinary implications of the conclusions he mighthave drawn, his contributions would almost certainly have had a far

wider impact. Our task is, then, to project his work on to this broaderterrain with greater force. But this requires coming to terms with hisfailings as well as with his genius.

Let me clear out of the way two potential difficulties. The firstarises out of the incredible variety of Jim’s interests that rangedfrom cartography, place perception, cultural geography and ecology,imperialism, uneven geographical development, peasant studies, the

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Ó 2005 Editorial Board of Antipode.



study of internal neo-colonies, and geographical methodologies as well as political practices in the field. He made, as readers of thisspecial issue of Antipode will surely see, serious contributions to all of these arenas of work. The voluminous footnotes and lists of refer-

ences attests to an astonishing range of reading and an immensescholarly curiosity. From this, it may be argued that Jim operated asa polymath and eclectic and that his work cannot be viewed let alonegrasped as ‘‘a totality of concrete determinations’’ (as Marx once putit). I reject that view unreservedly. While it may be difficult to grasphis work as a whole, again and again he uses insights from one oranother of these diverse fields to evolve nuanced perspectives on

whatever topic he has under immediate consideration. Here he is,for example, in The National Question, in which he is seeking to

establish the thesis that struggles for national liberation are inherentlyclass struggles:

This process of class struggle makes use of all traits and institutionsof culture as instruments and arenas of exploitation and resistance.Therefore religious conflicts, educational struggles, work placestruggles, and all the other, including national struggles, do notfunction parallel to class struggle but are themselves mechanismsof class struggle. It is for this reason that Marxists can assert that

class struggle is the motor of history without falling into somenarrow determinism, economic or otherwise. (Blaut 1987:54)

This passage is revealing in a double sense. Not only does it invoke amultiplicity of ‘‘complex determinations’’ at work in a given situation,but it also records Jim’s abhorrence of ‘‘narrow determinism, eco-nomic or otherwise’’.

This then raises the methodological question of how to interrelatemultiple forces at work in any particular situation. This was the same

question that led Althusser to formulate the concept of ‘‘overdeter-mination’’ as an answer. While it might be interesting to interpretJim’s work in such a light (in which case the inconclusiveness wouldbe seen as a manifestation of overdetermination), Jim early on laidout quite a different methodological framework in two papers pub-lished in The Professional Geographer in the early 1960s (1961, 1962).The papers on ‘‘Object and relationship’’ and ‘‘Space and process’’ arestunning methodological statements that, sadly, the apparatus of decision-making in the geographical establishment of the time failed

(and still fails) to recognize. On this point I need to enter an auto-critique. While I (1969:70–95) took ‘‘Object and relationship’’ (thoughnot, strangely, ‘‘Space and process’’) very seriously in Explanation inGeography, I failed to refer to it thereafter (perhaps because of mysomewhat ambiguous feelings about that book). But I had plainlyinternalized much of what Jim had to say. When, in Justice, Nature

Jim Blaut’s Contribution to Geographical Knowledge 929




and the Geography of Difference (1996), I elaborated at length on thesorts of arguments that Jim had pioneered, I failed even to acknowl-edge his influence or to reference those early pieces—I had simplyforgotten how and by whom the seeds of my ideas had been planted

30 years before. Jim wrote me a very appreciative note about thebook—and enclosed offprints of the two papers from the ProfessionalGeographer perhaps as a gentle reminder!! Needless to say, I feltbadly as well as embarrassed.

But what was it that Jim was proposing, albeit in schematic form?Jim advocated a process-based philosophical stance towards the con-struction of geographical knowledge (he invoked Whiteheadpositively). This was quite different from the casual empiricism thatthen prevailed or the positivism that was then beginning to become

fashionable. It is broadly consistent with the dialectical method thatOllman (1976, 1993) later spelled out at some length. My ownattempts to come to terms (largely via Ollman) with a process-basedand dialectical manner of argumentation also led me back toWhitehead and Leibniz and to embracing a general theory of internalrelations. I find it fascinating and revealing to read Jim’s work in thislight. It is also legitimate to do so since these were the terms in whichJim defined his own approach to the construction of geographical

knowledge. If Jim failed to move towards valid conclusions, that fail-ure must be judged against the methodological presuppositions hehad himself prescribed.The theory of internal relations focuses on the

whole world of influences that enter into any particular determinationor event. Conversely, it allows us to use any particular concretedetermination or event as a window upon a whole world of intersect-ing and intermingling flows of influences (the microcosm is, as it were,an internalized representation of the macrocosm). Much of Jim’s

work focuses on the manner in which ‘‘Western’’ thought has inter-

nalized a particular perspective of the world based on the colonial andneo-colonial experience of domination, repression and exploitation of others. The resultant perspective is described as both ‘‘Eurocentric’’and ‘‘diffusionist’’. When turned around and projected upon the

world, this perspective denies historical agency, ideas, innovativeactivities, capacity for rational action and even a basic humanity tothe inhabitants of the non-Western world. This is the overwhelming‘‘serious malady of the mind’’ that Jim identifies. He construes it as hismission to deconstruct, demystify and open up pathways to resist it.His method is, however, singular rather than multiple. Rather thansetting out to reconstruct the concrete as ‘‘the concentration of manydeterminations, hence unity of the diverse’’—as Marx (1973:101) putit—he selects a single vector of relations. There are virtues of such anapproach. Excavating the traces of diffusionism and Eurocentrism

wherever they can be found reveals how deeply they have infected,

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often without our knowing it, our consciousness and ways of thoughtand representation. This was, after all, what Said (1979) did sobrilliantly in Orientalism—a work whose ‘‘seminal’’ qualities Jim(1993) happily acknowledged.

The difficulty comes when we seek to take this trace and situate it within the totality. This Jim seemed reluctant to do. He acts like thesleuth who is so obsessed with pursuing his quarries that he losescontact with the context. It is almost as if, tormented by diffusionistdemons all night long, Jim awoke in the morning with a compulsion todevour at least one for breakfast. And devour them he did, one by one(Blaut 2000). The works of Landes and Jared Diamond are brilliantlydisposed of and the list goes on to include a whole host of ‘‘progressive’’and ‘‘Marxist’’ thinkers like Brenner, Nairn, Hobsbawm, as well as

Weber and the Weberians. Even Marx is not spared. But, on thispoint the contrast with Said’s Orientalism is instructive. Said weaveshis narrative into a seamless web in which it is the totality that reallycounts while the individuals are elements or moments within a vasttapestry of intersecting influences. Jim picks off the individuals one byone. At a certain point that becomes repetitive. And of course therecan be no conclusion except that everyone is susceptible to some over-

whelming malady of the mind, be it Eurocentrism, diffusionism, orient-

alism, or whatever. Jim failed, in short, to appreciate and realize theincipient power of his own methodology for reconstructing the totality,albeit as a concrete concentration of many determinations. While Said

was far better positioned, given his academic status and provenance, tore-shape the world of thought and launch the whole postcolonial move-ment, I nevertheless hold that Jim’s methodological failure underlayboth his inability to draw conclusions and his failure to exercise agrander progressive influence within the academy and beyond. Thefact that even most progressive geographers hold Said in such esteem

while rarely referencing Jim’s work has a deeper explanation than themere course of academic fashion and the perverse habit of geographersof not valuing their home-grown products relative to those importedfrom outside. I think we are all the poorer as a result.

Let me take up this question in relation to what I believe to be Jim’sgreatest book, his much-neglected The National Question. The bookhas a familiar feel. He takes on a variety of traditions—conservative,liberal and Marxist—and offers ‘‘ruthless criticism’’ of the work of several individuals including Marxists such as Nairn, Hobsbawm andWallerstein. He provides historical depth through thoughtful reconsi-deration of the contributions of Lenin, Luxemburg, Stalin and Bauer.In this case, however, these thinkers function as a foil against whichhe can better work out his urgent commitments to the nationalliberation struggle of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party. This impartsan element of special pleading that some will see as conferring an





inherent bias to his account. In effect, Jim partially concedes thepoint. He accepts that the focus of his inquiry on Puerto Rico andThird World national liberation struggles precludes drawing generalconclusions as to the nature of nationalism.

I think he was quite simply wrong in this. To begin with, no one canavoid political positionality in the production of knowledge. But, evenmore importantly, given Jim’s philosophical stance, it would havebeen perfectly legitimate to argue that the detailed study of themicrocosm is precisely the way to get at the macro character of nationalism. Jim’s positioning lends greater strength rather than par-tiality to his argument. I say this not because I necessarily agree withhis findings, but because the material grounding in actual strugglesgives Jim’s wide-ranging theoretical reflections far greater cogency

than most of the abstract formulations of the national question he isconfronting. Reading the analysis in this light shows how far Jimactually did get in constructing a sound historical-materialist theoryof what nationalism is all about. Let me elaborate.

Towards the end of the work Jim ventures the following observa-tion: ‘‘until we insert this socio-spatial element into our theories of historical materialism, we shall not fully understand the past evolutionof class society and its present condition. And for the modern times,

we shall not understand the mechanisms and functions of nationalstruggle . . .’’ (1987:184). This is, surely, a conclusion of major signifi-cance. It presages a shift in thinking towards what I call ‘‘historical-geographical materialism’’.1 From that perspective almost all priorconceptions of nationalism and the national question are found want-ing simply because they abstract from geographical specificity in anillegitimate way. Jim could well have concluded either that no ‘‘uni-

versal’’ theory of nationalism and national identity is possible or, as Ithink he would have preferred, that any universal theory of national-

ism is empty of meaning if it cannot find a way to account for theconstruction of socio-spatial difference as an active moment in socialchange. The problem is not that Jim’s own study is partial but thatmost conventional theories of nationalism are so one-sided or abstractthat they appear irrelevant when it comes to particular cases or theinterpretation of the geographical dynamics of uneven development.

And this is what Jim’s own study abundantly demonstrates.The central argument Jim proposes is that nationalism only takes

on real meaning in the political struggle to acquire state power. Stateformation and nationalism are inherently connected. This is a generalconclusion worthy of deeper consideration. It would imply, for exam-ple, that the imposition of state forms on the Middle East at theVersailles settlement set the stage for the rise of nationalism (asopposed to other forms of social solidarity based in religion, kinship,ethnicity, and the like). Furthermore, struggles for national liberation

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are class struggles for state power. This is simply so because coloni-alism and neo-colonialism are predicated on systems of class exploita-tion and these always entail class formation and class struggle.Liberation from colonialism and neo-colonialism necessarily entails

confronting and trying to eliminate class exploitation through theacquisition of state power. Jim has no time for those who even athis time of writing (1987) were arguing that state power had becomeirrelevant because of internationalization and the globalization of capital.

The geographical aspects cannot be ignored. In his final chapter on‘‘Class struggles across a boundary’’ Jim considers how ‘‘a significantportion of this struggle has crossed cultural and political boundaries,involving the struggle of workers in, or from, one society against two

class groups of exploiters, some from their own society, some from anexternal society. Also, at times there has been class struggle betweenthe two ruling-class sectors, internal and external’’ (1987:184). A number of implications then follow. The invocation of workers‘‘from’’ as well as ‘‘in’’ a society allows him to elaborate more freelyupon his idea of Puerto Ricans living and working in the UnitedStates as forming ‘‘an internal neo-colony’’ in which the struggle fornational liberation made just as much sense as it did in Puerto Rico. It

also leads him to a more nuanced integration of the cultural dimen-sions to class struggle, praising in particular Amilcar Cabral’s ‘‘elo-quent and profound’’ writings on ‘‘the role of culture, defense of culture, and cultural unification, in the national liberation of colonies’’as ‘‘one of the most important new contributions to the Marxist theoryof nationalism’’ (Blaut 1987:201). The failure of most Marxists to dealadequately with the relations between internal and external strugglesand between class and culture is, in Jim’s view, one of the mostserious problems to be confronted in the historical-materialist analy-

sis of global capitalism.But Jim also nuances the argument concerning who is doing the

struggling and where. The class alliance seeking national liberation isnot automatically proletarian. The long history of nationalism illus-trates only too well how a rising bourgeoisie used it to acquire statepower but he vehemently disputes Luxemburg’s and Hobsbawm’s

view that this was true only for the rise of capitalism and that itlater became irrelevant. He plainly exposes how the class-basednationalism of the colonizer, with its presumptions of moral andpolitico-technical superiority (or ‘‘rationality’’ as Weber preferred it)is just as significant to contemporary capitalism (eg the US invasion of Iraq) as the class struggles of resisting populations in colonial settings.

And those class struggles can on occasion encompass a disaffectedcolonial bourgeoisie as well as proletarian-based movements. Whilefascism and nationalism can connect there is no inherent connection





between them. There are, he observes, many kinds of class strugglebut nationalism is invariably involved precisely because it is a primary

vehicle for the acquisition of state power.What Jim does is to disabuse us of simple formulations of the sort

that say all nationalism is necessarily either bourgeois, fascist, primor-dial, irrational, ethnic, or whatever. The task of historical materialistanalysis (in which the socio-spatial dimension is properly integrated)is to work through actual situations in ways that allow us to decide

which forms of national struggle might be progressive or not, inrelation to resisting the patterns of exploitation that capitalism alwaysimposes. This inevitably means projecting the power of class analysisonto a world of immense geographical difference while paying carefulattention to uneven geographical developments. Jim constructs an

exemplary way to go about this task.Consider, then, the immense contemporary value of studies of this

sort. The revival of nationalism worldwide in the midst of the swirlinginsecurities of globalization, geopolitical confrontations, regional re-territorializations (such as the formation of the European Union orNAFTA) and the naked resurgence of imperialist aggression is one of the most signal features of our times. In what senses are such move-ments progressive or regressive, proto-fascist or liberatory, is one of

the most important political issues we face. Migratory currents arethrusting the question of class struggles across boundaries more andmore into the center of our world. The political struggle for statepower, from Italy to India to Iraq and Brazil, is profoundly intertwin-ing with nationalisms of varied qualities depending crucially upon thedifferent forms of class struggle currently unfolding around the world.Jim may not have got it all right. He certainly never claimed so. Buthis study on The National Question ought to be mandatory reading foranyone seriously interested in the construction of some progressive

front against global injustice and imperial aggression. It is simply thebest piece of geographical writing that exists to date on this topic. Itdeserves our deepest consideration.

Endnote1 My own attempts to formulate the principles of this are set out in Justice, Nature and

the Geography of Difference (1996).

ReferencesBlaut J M (1961) Object and relationship. The Professional Geographer 14:1–7Blaut J M (1962) Space and process. The Professional Geographer 13:1–7Blaut J M (1987) The Nation al Question. London: Zed BooksBlaut J M (1993) The Colonizer’s Model of the World. New York: Guilford PressBlaut J M (2000) Eight Eurocentric Historians. New York: Guilford PressHarvey D (1969) Explanation in Geography. London: Edward Arnold

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Harvey D (1996) Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Oxford: BasilBlackwell

Marx K (1973) Grundrisse. New York: Viking PressMarx K (1978) For a ruthless criticism of everything existing. In R Tucker The Marx-

Engels Reader (pp 12–15). New York: Norton

Ollman B (1976) Alienation: Marx’s Conception of Man in Capitalist Society.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Ollman B (1993) Dialectical Investigations. New York: RoutledgeSaid E (1979) Orientalism. New York: Random House



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