marxismNL

10 September 2026. Resistance in Cedric Robinson

To open this year’s Abolition Democracies Seminar, we turn to one of the central figures of the Black radical tradition: Cedric Robinson. We will be reading from his landmark Black Marxism, as well as the less familiar but equally striking An Anthropology of Marxism. In these works, Robinson pursues a central argument: that the dominant Marxist account of history is too narrow to explain different kinds of resistance movements. By reconstructing traditions of opposition that Marx’s taxonomy cannot see - and that in fact precede and exceed it- Robinson demonstrates that the impulse toward liberation is older, deeper, and more diverse than the story of capitalism and the industrial proletariat allows. The two chapters selected for this session are a clear statement of that recovered lineage: one tracing it in the European past, the other in the Black diaspora. Together they reframe radical politics not as something capitalism produced but as something that has repeatedly asserted itself against any form of domination. 

Readings: From An Anthropology of Marxism: Chapter 2 “The Social Origins of Materialism and Socialism”. More readings.

Seminar organized by Safae El Khannoussi el Bouidrin, Daniel Loick, Oscar Talbot, and Merel Raats.