Critical Marxism in Mexico

Gandler, Stefan

One of the limitations of the actual Marxist discussion is the fact that the ethnocentrism of the industrial, military and political dominant countries and its inhabitants exists even in this branch of contemporary thinking with great force. But the discussion about a new critical Marxist theory only can be realised successfully, if it is developed in an international way. For this reason it is necessary to know about the theoretical production of Marxist in the so-called third world.

In our paper we present the two most important critical Marxists of the contemporary Mexico: the philosophers Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez and Bolívar Echeverría; both former professors at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM. Based on a reflection about their historical and theoretical background, we’ll expose some central philosophical concepts of each one: the concept of praxis in Sánchez Vázquez and the concept of historical ethos in Bolívar Echeverría. Sánchez Vázquez is one of the first Marxists in Latin America who breaks with the dogmatic interpretation of the works of Karl Marx. The central concept to realize this rupture is the one of praxis which he devollops in a authentic way. Bolívar Echeverría tries to overcome the eurocentrism in the latinamerican left with the distinction between different forms of (capitalist) modernities and their different historical ethe.

Finally we’ll make a theoretical confrontation of these concepts and the two intellectuals generations in Mexico and Latin America which are represented by Sánchez Vázquez and Echeverría: the anti-fascist generation of 1936, exiled from Spain in Mexico and the generation of "1968”.

[1]

[1] This paper is based on our book, that will be published in 2012 in English: Stefan Gandler, Critical Marxism in Mexico. Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez and Bolívar Echeverría. Translation George Ciccariello-Maher. Leiden, Brill Academic Press, Historical Materialism Book Series, 610 pp.

4.1 Critical Marxism in Mexico