| Reviews / Comptes Rendus | Labour/Le Travail, 52

Reviews / Comptes Rendus

David Bedford and Danielle Irving, The Tragedy of Progress: Marxism, Modernity and the Aboriginal Question (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing 2000)

THIS BOOK IS ABOUT Marxism, the Canadian left, and the Aboriginal national question. The main thesis of the book is that the Canadian left has been ineffective in addressing the Aboriginal national question mainly because of their interpretation of Marxism as "a variant of modernity that, like liberalism, capitalism, scienticism and fetishized technology, is seen as flowing from the enlightenment idea of unceasing progress through the application of an instrumental rationality." (15) More specifically, the left interprets Marxism and conceptualizes socialism in terms of metaphysical economism, and fails to address issues of human alienation and emancipation.

The book raises the important question of the right of national self-determination for Aboriginal peoples in Canada. The authors argue in post-modern terms that what is at the basis of the Aboriginal question today is a fundamental conflict between a traditional culture based upon non-modern political economy, and modern industrial culture. Can the left then, as the authors question, develop an analysis and alternative that can transcend this dichotomy between a non-modern and modern culture, or are Aboriginal societies doomed to inevitable extinction?

Though the book is short, comprising four chapters overall, it makes a far from negligible contribution to radical critical ideas and possibly Marxism. There are actually two interrelated discussions taking place throughout the book. One addresses the narrow application of mechanical or "orthodox" Marxism by the Canadian left to the Aboriginal question. The other deals with Marx's thinking, including his concept of historical materialism, the "orthodox" and "dialectical" interpretations of his thought, and their application to subject peoples, — Aboriginal — in defining the right of national self-determination.

In forming their criticism of the left the authors draw upon the works of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation/New Democratic Party, the Communist Party of Canada, three Trotskyist groups — the International Socialists, the Trotskyist League of Canada, and the Communist League/Young Socialists — as well as an assortment of Native and non-Native intellectuals whom they consider as typical of the left. It is made clear from the outset they are not advancing a comprehensive analysis of the ideology of the overall left. Rather, the focus is on the left's understanding of the causes and nature of Aboriginal peoples' oppression, and the interpretation of Marxism that underlies their analysis, and its adequacy.

The first chapter outlines in a generalized and idealistic way the social, political, and spiritual characteristics of communal societies. The authors identify and describe schematically initial contact with Western capitalism, or "modernity," and survey policies by colonial and Canadian authorities that resulted in the destruction of the traditional material cultures. At the same time they maintain that communal spiritualism as an ideology continued into the present period of capitalism. The chapter also contains a brief discussion of the existing state system of Aboriginal political organizations, local governance, federal administration, and present pending self-government as the ultimate coup de grace for Aboriginal peoples.

This chapter sets the stage for confusion that continues throughout the book. There is constant reference to traditional non-modern cultures, including their spiritualism that implies that they have continued unabated. Yet, the authors begin by stating that traditional social and material cultures have been for the most part destroyed, or, at the very least, seriously transformed. Also, there is no analysis of how Aboriginals fit into capitalist class relations and how these relations combine with culture, whether it is pristine or transformed, to define the national question today.

In the chapter examining Aboriginal apprehensions of Marxism, the authors delve into post-modernism and its application to the Aboriginal question. Though they note the exception of Howard Adams and one other Aboriginal academic who embrace Marxism to analyze and politicize, the remaining Aboriginal intellectuals and post-modernists whom they consult view Marxism as just another Western, modernist, political, economic, and philosophic system out to destroy all that is Aboriginal. The post-modernists contend that Marxism and its historical materialist method are rooted in the culture of the Enlightenment and modernity, and, like liberalism, are not applicable to Aboriginal cultures. These are seen as pre-modern and profoundly different. In their view, culture, including its ideological element, takes on the characteristic of an independent transhistorical invariable.

Bedford and Irving draw upon the post-modern culturalist hypothesis and apply it to Aboriginal spiritualism, arguing that as an ideology with roots in a pre-modern culture, it is unexplainable by Marxist materialism — the dialectic of productive forces, productive relations, and social relations — which has its roots in a separate and different cultural phenomenon. But the authors then argue that Marxism can be rescued by synthesizing some of its insights with post-modernism. They draw upon Marx's own application of historical materialism to posit the autonomy of culture and ideology in dialectical relationship with material production. Such autonomy explains Aboriginal spiritualism as an expression of a pre-modern culture and therefore an independent transhistorical invariable. For Bedford and Irving the relevancy of Marxism is thus in its ability as a cross-cultural methodology to justify the claims of Aboriginal communities, as homelands of culturally non-modern people utilizing non-industrial technology, to fashion Aboriginal autonomy within a greater modern industrial society.

Bedford and Irving do not see historical materialism as universally applicable to all phases of human social and economic development. Nor do they see non-economic spheres, such as culture and ideology, in dialetical relationship with the economic sphere as historically specific, which is the basis of historical materialism. By arguing the culturalist view that culture and ideology are transhistorical invariants, the authors reinterpret Marx's concept of the dialectic and autonomy to define a pluralistic relationship between the cultural and economic spheres. The culturalist argument is then transferred by the authors to their examination of the Canadian left, Marx's thoughts, and interpretations of Marx on the national question.

Post-modernism is as much another contemporary expression of Enlightenment thinking as other expressions of liberalism, including the metaphysical economism that is the dominant thought of capitalism. It is also nihilistic, and when it informs the thinking of social movements, which is the intent of some of the Aboriginal intellectuals, it calls for a return to some premodern condition that in reality is untenable. Marxism and historical materialism on the other hand represent a break with the Enlightenment and metaphysical thinking. The authors accurately claim that the Canadian left's Marxism is "a variant of modernity." (15) This is a problem with Western Marxism as a whole. All too often its degeneration into dogmatism has led it to deny certain social realities, such as culture and ethnicity. The root of the problem lies in its tendency to interpret economic factors as decisive, that is as over-determining, at the expense of their dialectical interrelationship with other factors. This can easily lead to an economic determinist reading of history. Marx himself is guilty of this mistake from time to time in coming to terms with the root cause of changing social phenomena. But the same mistake of determinism can be made by interpreting culture as a transhistorical invariant, as the post-modernists do it. It too is a return to Enlightenment metaphysical thinking.

Bedford and Irving begin their examination of the Canadian left with a series of questions that seek to delineate the parameters of the Aboriginal national question, while at the same time evaluating the left's analysis and policies. Their questions are centred around the viability of Aboriginal traditional cultures today and the right to national delf-determination. Their fate is contextualized in terms of Aboriginal traditional survival within a modern, technologically intense, capitalist, or socialist society.

The conclusion is that the left overall lacks a developed analysis or political position acknowledging national self-determination, whether it is as nationals with sovereignty, or just substantive autonomy. In general, the left sees Aboriginal peoples as "non-historic" nations in the sense that they had not developed the necessary material preconditions to develop in the image of the European bourgeois nation. Furthermore, their historic social and material cultures have been either completely destroyed or seriously transformed by capitalism and policies of the state. This, together with their marginal incorporation into capitalism, combine to condemn them as not constituting any form of cohesive national grouping. In the authors' view, the left lacks all vision of Aboriginal culture and economic life. Perhaps the most poignant insight into the left's attitude towards Aboriginal peoples is the observation that "compassion has been co-mingled with veiled contempt." (65)

For the authors, the left has not developed a more creative analysis of the Aboriginal national question due mainly to their particular orthodox reading of Marx, as well as their conceptualization of the historical dynamic of capitalism. What the left proposes as socialism is the continuation of modernity with its human alienation and intensive use of technology in the domination of nature. In fact, there is nothing new advanced beyond bourgeois modernity, other than the more equitable distribution of wealth and some basic autonomy for Aboriginals to practice remaining elements of their social culture.

In the chapter on Marxism and self-determination, the authors explore the difference between mechanical, or orthodox, interpretations, on the one hand, and dialectical interpretations of Marx's ideas on the other as they are applied to subject peoples, their cultures, and self-determination. They argue that orthodox Marxists have a narrow, unilineal interpretation of Marx's ideas of capitalist development and nationhood that they apply to peripheral peoples, judging their national struggles in relation to those of Western European historic nations. In contrast, the dialectical analysis looks at national questions and the impact of capitalism within the ambit of culture and ethnicity. This analysis recognizes the contradiction between the emergence of capitalism within Western social formations and its imposition onto peripheral societies, along with the effect it has had on their economies, cultures, and ethnicities. In the accumulation of capital, there is an unequal incorporation and development of peripheral peoples, which, in turn, has produced resistance, the rise of national identity, and the struggle for independence.

This approach suggests that national questions are best analyzed in terms of a variety of political, historical, and economic factors, and by addressing contemporary concrete political and economic needs. This allows an analysis of class relations and how they combine to define the national question. In the case of Aboriginal peoples, class then takes on an inclusive expression as opposed to the orthodox metaphysical interpretation, which sees class as exclusively based on the active wage-labour working class. It looks at national self-determination as a concept inclusive of all national groupings within a nation-state. Instead of being a uniform state that ignores national cultures, Canada can be a multi-national socialist state. In this new arrangement the respective nationalities would have the appropriate democratic political and economic autonomy to self-determine within a greater whole, that would include social, cultural, and ethnic reconstitution in conjunction with economic transformation and development.

Interestingly, the authors employ no class analysis of Aboriginal peoples and their position within capitalism and how these might affect the national question today. They automatically assume there is an absolute sharp divide within the working class between Aboriginals and "whites" based upon the former's generally marginal economic position and social racism. Apparently the "white" working class has fully succumbed to modernity and is part of the oppressing nation. The solution is national independence with sovereignty for Aboriginals, which they call on the left to support. This is problematic. How does one explain the Mohawk, to whom the authors refer in terms of continuing traditional culture, but who work as iron workers? In effect, the authors revert to the same mistake as the left, whom they are criticizing of seeing the working class in metaphysical economistic terms. The book's major shortcoming is that it lacks analytical clarity. Their incorporation of post-modernism and its culturalist argument of continuing traditional cultures contributes to confusion in their analysis of both Marxism and the national question.

Despite such shortcomings, the importance of Bedford and Irving's book is that it identifies the reason why the left in Canada, in particular the Marxist left, has not been successful in developing an alternative to liberalism on the Aboriginal national question. The reason is that the overall left has no vision that transcends capitalism. In the case of the Marxist left it is their inability to break with Enlightenment metaphysical thinking. For this reason alone, the book is worth reading.


Ron Bourgeault University of Regina

Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.