The Wretched of the Earth

In Marxist thought the social human experience is divided into two aspects: base (structure or infrastructure) and superstructure. The base comprises everything to do with the production process: labor relations, production processes, raw materials, technology, etc. The superstructure includes the more abstract forces shaping society: political system, ideology, culture, education, institutions, etc. Both these aspects are in constant flux. According to Marx, the superstructure grows out of the base, but in turn, it also impacts the structure.

A collective noun designating the affluent aristocratic and upper-middle classes, which hold all the means of production in an industrialized society. It is used, usually in a negative sense, in conjunction with “proletariat” when discussing socialist theories about class struggle.

An economic system in which the means of production (factories, mills, plants) are owned by private individuals or small groups rather than the government. In such a system product prices and wages are determined by competition in a free (global) market. Capitalist societies as they emerged in late 19th-century Europe became divided into two main social classes: the bourgeoisie, or property holders, and the proletariat, or wage workers.

These three closely connected terms came into their modern usage in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, when European states began actively and aggressively expanding their borders.

Imperialism is the ideology of territorial expansion administered at the center of an empire. Colonialism is the way an empire usually governs its conquered territories, extracting raw materials and exploiting the local labor force. A colony also presupposes a certain geographic distance from its mother country. In the contemporary period, imperialism and colonialism are usually intrinsically connected to industrialization and the development of capitalism, which necessitated a constant influx of raw materials. Decolonization is the conquered peoples’ process of reversing the effects of colonialism on all levels of existence, political, social, and cultural. As Fanon argues, this process is usually violent and fraught with multiple difficulties, even after liberation.

The term “proletariat” was originally applied by early 19th-century European liberal political scientists and philosophers to working-class people who did not own any property and existed solely on their wages. As a social class, they emerged after the invention of the earliest industrial machines, such as the loom, when the demand for cloth drove wages up and prompted weavers to abandon their small homesteads in favor of full-time work. Marx and Engels believed the proletariat to be the most politically conscious class, which would make a social revolution possible.

In contrast, the “lumpen-proletariat,” or “rag-proletariat,” a term coined by Marx and Engels in the 1840s, was the socially unconscious and politically unorganized class of the poorest outcasts, such as beggars, sex workers, and criminals. Because of their marginal status, such people can easily be exploited by both revolutionary and reactionary forces.

The social and political movements have arguably existed in various forms since antiquity, but they gained traction in the 19th century in response to the negative effects of the then-nascent capitalist system. They were articulated in their modern meaning in the early 19th century by such theorists as Charles Fourier, Robert Owen, and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. The terms are often used interchangeably, though they designate slightly different concepts. Socialism and communism also serve as umbrella terms for a wide range of subtrends, each of which proposes a different solution to the problem of social injustice.

At present, socialism has come to mean an economic and political system where social (governmental, public, or collective) ownership of property and the means of production ensures a more equal distribution of wealth.

Within socialism, communism is the collective name for several ideologically charged schools of thought, sometimes referred to as revolutionary socialism. Communism is linked to the concepts of social classes (proletariat, bourgeoisie) and class struggle that culminate in a revolution and the establishment of a more just, classless society.

Marxism is the term, popularized posthumously by Karl Marx’s followers, used to designate the theories of progressive historic social development and the concrete applications of communist ideology to achieve a socialist revolution that were proposed by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx.

One of the most popular religions in the period between the 3rd and 7th centuries AD. It was founded by the prophet Mani in Persia and was strongly influenced by Gnosticism. It is based on a fundamentally dualistic vision of life as a struggle between spiritual light forces and materialistic dark ones. The religion’s name has become synonymous with “duality.”

As used by Fanon, “Manichaean” presupposes a division into two opposed and irreconcilable sides, i.e., the colonizers and the colonized. In other words, these two groups are fated to be always in conflict with each other by virtue of their nature. Compromise, as suggested by politicians, is inherently impossible.