Decoloniality : exploring the connection between modernity, capitalism and colonization

Abstract: Colonialism is rightly blamed for myriad modern ills ranging from poverty to racism. I hold that to correct the injustices attributed to colonialism, a concerted effort to understand and deconstruct the phenomenon is first required. In this minor dissertation, I explicate the connection between capitalism and colonialism. This is done through an analysis of the works of Michel Foucault, Walter Mignolo and Karl Marx. It is my contention and my main claim that the rationality at work in capitalism is the same as that of colonialism. In other words, the origins of capitalism are coextensive with the modern colonial conquest and the appropriation of resources. Two questions are central to my argument. The first question is: to what extent is capitalism responsible for colonization? Colonialism signifies the unlawful appropriation of another’s territory and resources; ‘appropriation’ has here an economic and political sense. The second question is: to what extent is capitalism (via colonialism) responsible for the production of oppressed subjectivities or identities? Here I intend to broaden the sense of colonialism to include the constitution of the identity of the oppressed and dominated groups by the dominating groups. Identity-constitution is central to capital accumulation and the economic appropriation of resources. The meaning of ‘black’ as opposed to that of ‘white’ for the colonialist is that of someone who is ‘inferior’ as opposed to someone who is ‘superior’. In other words, the constitution of the identity of a group or individual is not value-neutral. Rather, it fits within a hierarchized economic system.M.A. (Philosophy