In 2013, Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital by Vivek Chibber sent tremors through the intellectual landscape. A Marxist critique of the Subaltern Studies collective, the book didn’t just challenge a school of thought—it reopened a long-standing fault line between universalism and particularism, between the claims of class struggle and the politics of cultural difference. Chibber’s provocations still echo force us to ask whether postcolonial theory has become too invested in identity at the expense of material critique.
This isn’t a new debate. Postcolonial theory, emerging from the ashes of empire and the rise of postmodernity, has long been suspicious of universal narratives. Thinkers like Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha positioned the subaltern and the hybrid as resistant figures—unassimilable by the logics of Enlightenment modernity. To them, universalism reeked of colonialism: another totalizing discourse masking the violence of European reason. Better to honor opacity, translation, fragmentation. Better to provincialize Europe.
But Chibber says: not so fast. His argument is blunt. Subaltern Studies—and by extension much of postcolonial theory—romanticizes cultural difference while ignoring the basic material realities of capitalist domination. By insisting that non-Western societies operate according to fundamentally different logics, postcolonial theorists unwittingly echo the Orientalist frameworks they claim to resist. They preserve the exotic as something ontologically distinct. And in doing so, Chibber argues, they abandon the universalist potential of human emancipation.
Theory Snapshot: Universalism, Revisited
Chibber is not calling for a naïve return to Eurocentric Marxism. Instead, he proposes a strategic universalism—one that sees capitalism as a global structure producing shared forms of exploitation, even as it interacts with local conditions. Cultures may differ, but labor exploitation, class inequality, and commodification transcend borders. The task, then, is not to deny cultural specificity, but to locate it within a shared political economy.
This is where the controversy sharpens. Critics like Spivak argue that Chibber flattens the very texture of colonial and postcolonial life—its linguistic play, psychic wounds, and epistemic violence. They fear that a universalist framework, no matter how well-meaning, risks drowning fragile histories in the flood of capital. For them, theory is not just a map of oppression but a practice of listening—attuned to silences, fissures, and refusal.
Case in Point: Theory in the Age of Aesthetics
The Chibber–Subaltern debate might feel abstract, but its stakes are visible everywhere in today’s culture. Take the rise of “decolonial aesthetics” on social media—hashtags, fashion lines, and art exhibitions that center Indigenous knowledge or non-Western cosmologies. While often celebratory and reparative, these movements also walk a fine line between genuine resistance and commodified difference. What does it mean to “decolonize” your wardrobe while wearing $200 sneakers made in a sweatshop?
Here, Chibber’s critique regains urgency. Without a robust account of labor, capital, and exploitation, the politics of difference can slide into liberal multiculturalism—diversity without justice. Postcolonial theory, if unmoored from material analysis, risks becoming a style: aestheticized resistance, marketable otherness, dissent without teeth.
Why It Matters
The deeper question is this: can we speak of global justice without some shared political language—something like a universal? And if so, who gets to define it? Postcolonial theory taught us to mistrust grand narratives. But in the face of climate crisis, digital empire, and neoliberal exhaustion, Chibber reminds us that retreating into cultural particularism might be a dead end.
We don’t need a return to Eurocentric Marxism. But perhaps we do need a version of postcolonial thought that dares to think globally—not just culturally, but economically and structurally. One that can hold difference and commonality in tension, without letting either become dogma.
