Vivek Chibber

Early life and career

Chibber was born in India, and moved to United States, where he completed his BA in political science in 1987 at Northwestern University. In 1999, he finished his PhD in sociology at the University of Wisconsin, where his dissertation was supervised by Erik Olin Wright.

He has served with various publications and journals. He currently serves as the co-editor of Socialist Register, for which he was a member of the editorial collective from 2003 to 2006 and advisory editor from 2006 to 2008. He is also an advisory editor to the Journal of Agrarian Change (since 2000) and Historical Materialism' (since 2002).

He has previously served as an advisory editor to numerous journals, including American Journal of Sociology (2007–9), The Journal of Peasant Studies (1999–2000), British Journal of Sociology (2008–13), and Sociological Theory (2009–14). He has also been a member of editorial board of the Journal of Politics & Society (2003–8).

Criticism of postcolonialism

According to Chibber, the sociological concept at the heart of postcolonial theory is that of "difference". Postcolonial theory, he argues, challenges the view of the liberal and radical Enlightenment that both East and West are subject to similar laws of motion, historical forces, needs, and aspirations. As a consequence, postcolonial theorists conclude that the theoretical frameworks and social categories of the West cannot be applied to the East. They insist that capitalism has globalized the world but not universalized it, and hence capitalism in the East is not the same as that in the West. Postcolonial arguments, he goes on, can be summarized by way of three points:

1. Liberal bourgeoisie: Real capitalism should have a liberal bourgeoisie, as seen in the English and French revolutions. In those countries, the liberal bourgeoisie gained power, overthrew the ancien régime, and put in place new forms of state characterized by a liberalist political order, based on the consent of the governed. This happened in the West but not in the East, where the bourgeoisie continues to be illiberal, ruling by outright domination and coercion.
2. Capitalism's reliance on coercion: Real capitalism entails forms of power, governance, and class relations that rely on formal equality and rule of law. Eastern capitalism relies on interpersonal coercion (traditional hierarchies, caste systems, and so on). Capitalists in the East, in addition to extracting surplus by economic means, also do so by political means, including indentured servitude, quasi-slavery, and punishment.
3. Transformation of all social relations: Real capitalism revolutionizes all social relations, including culture, ideology, and social mores. But in the East there is a persistence of all sorts of traditional practices: religiosity instead of secularism, superstition instead of science.

All these non-transformations, postcolonial theory says, point to the idea of fundamental "difference"; hence, Western categories like political economy, Marxism, and liberalism have no purchase in the East. Not only are they irrelevant to the realities of the East; they are also a hindrance to understanding reality and should therefore be abandoned—thus abandoning universalism and adopting localism.

Chibber answers these arguments by analyzing the historical transformation of Europe.

Liberal bourgeoise

Chibber refutes the postcolonial theorists' idea that it was the liberal bourgeoise that brought liberal democratic values. In Chibber's analysis, the bourgeoisie of England and France pursued the same illiberal, undemocratic, and coercive ways that are today found in the Global South. According to him, democratization and liberalization came not from above but through two centuries of struggles by the masses, who extracted civil and political rights from the ruling class, against its resistance. In other words, the illiberal bourgeoisie that we today see in the Global South is not a deviation from a historical pattern but a following of the norm.

Capitalism's reliance on coercion

Here again, Chibber argues that as long as it could, capitalism in the West relied on forms of interpersonal coercion, all the way into the 20th century. These include indentured servitude, company towns, personal bondage, and the use of private militia in advanced capitalist countries like the United States. Hence the portrayal of Eastern capitalist coercion as a departure from the norm is a profound mistake.

Transformation of all social relations

Chibber argues that if postcolonial theorists' claim that capitalism transforms all social relations is right, then all advanced capitalist countries should look the same in terms of society, culture, norms, practices, and beliefs. He points to surveys showing the relatively lower level of superstition in Europe than in North America: 70% of Americans claim they see angels, 50% consult astrologers; 60% call themselves fundamentally religious, and about half believe evolution is just a theory, while these ideas find less expression in most of Europe. Chibber concludes that capitalism does not transform all social practices, neither in the East nor in the West. The only thing it fundamentally changes is the economy, and capitalist countries can have vastly different cultures and psyches while sharing the same model of economy. He admits that economic transformation does indeed bring politico-cultural changes, but these changes are different in different countries.

Awards