In Slavery and Social Death, Orlando Patterson warns that the generalist lives in constant fear of the specialist and runs the risk of being challenged for painting in too broad strokes of the brush. Not heeding the warning, Anthony Maingot offers a general historical and political sociology of the Greater Caribbean societies. He describes the latter as simultaneously modern and conservative (4) and paints a picture of dynamic ambivalence that best characterizes those societies, where, in the contest between ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity,’ it seems that the latter wins (12). Yet, for Maingot, conservatism is the ferment out of which calls for change emanate in “modern-conservative societies,” where the “influence of traditional values” is undeniable (12).
This said, the author wants us to know is that like liberals and radicals, conservative thinkers must not be confused with narrow-minded reactionaries, nor must they be treated as a homogeneous group, for there are both intelligent and unintelligent conservatives (and liberals and radicals). Hence, even a political radical like C. L. R. James was quite socially conservative in his admiration for things British—its music, art, literature, theatre, even cricket—a necessary and unavoidable consequence of his upbringing.
To say that the book reveals Maingot as an intellectually and politically conservative man, then, is not a criticism, for among the all-time great thinkers conservatives are richly represented. His conservatism, though, is not knee-jerk or simple-minded. Clearly, he has a deep respect for tradition and therefore set out to “study traditional (conservative) society in order to understand better how modernity was changing it and in turn, how tradition was affecting modernity” (1). Thus, he writes: “This book is my counter argument to decades of studies describing the Caribbean societies as somehow radical and even revolutionary in ideological orientation” (2). For him Caribbean societies are neither radical nor revolutionary. Sure, there have been those that have spouted a progressive or revolutionary rhetoric, but on balance it is ‘tradition’ that has prevailed.
Disappointingly, the author takes as given precisely what he needs to argue and prove, that is, that Caribbean societies are inherently revolutionary. I do not know the “decades of studies” to which he refers, or the “leaders bent on creating the myth of a revolutionary Caribbean” (11) or the “Caribbean Marxist-Leninists [who] contributed to the myth of a revolutionary Caribbean” (179). These assertions are not supported by quotations, speeches, or published arguments, and leave Maingot open to charges that he has constructed a straw man.
So how does one situate this author's analysis politically and ideologically? He suggests an answer: “Where you stand depends on where you sit” (264). In this book we are afforded a better grasp of his thesis (where he stands) by understanding his ideological position (where he sits). Both become very clear in his treatment of the Cuban and Grenadian revolutions, in his view not only wrong-headed but also economic and political failures.
Maingot neglects to define key terms that appear in his title: ‘Marxism,’ ‘ideology,’ and ‘race,’ not to mention ‘democracy,’ ‘revolution’ and ‘socialism.’ Regardless of how they may have been described, Frantz Fanon, Michael Manley and the Black Power insurgents in Trinidad (among many others) were not Marxists. They were more a mix of political opportunists, populists, and ethnic entrepreneurs trafficking in ‘race’ and omitting class analysis, which renders them non-Marxist. Further, not all socialism is Fabianism, and not all democracy is liberal democracy, and when Maingot writes that “People are persuaded by myths, not ideology” (9) he clearly does not understand myth as embodying the cognitive dimension of ideology. Then there is Gordon Lewis, whom he criticizes for emphasizing the moral aspects of Marxism (77), not realizing that Marx's theory was a theory of morality: exploitation is bad!
Next, the concepts of ‘race’ and ‘class’ need to be specified. Categories such as “white elites” (95), “light-skinned elites” (96), “blacks and colored pardos” (82), “mixed-bloods” (46), and others are descriptive, not analytical. And because color and shade matter socially and politically, because ‘race’ is openly manipulated by the colonial and post-colonial elites in their drive to divide and distract the ‘darker’ working classes, explanation must trump description.
Maingot is keen to challenge and condemn socialism but reluctant to call out capitalism. Haiti, for example, is the poorest country in the hemisphere, but that Haiti is a capitalist country is never emphasized. He seeks instead to lay the problems of Haiti largely at the feet of the Haitians, thus revealing his ideological stance: “The Haitian problem. . . is structural, a situation hardly caused by foreign intervention” (104). Similarly, in listing the economic problems of socialist Cuba, Maingot finds it “obvious” that “none of this . . . can be blamed on foreigners” (106). Thus he dismisses almost 60 years of a crippling US blockade, attempts at assassination of the country's leadership, military invasions, economic boycotts, political isolation, and more. And when he does acknowledge outside interference by the IMF, World Bank, and the US AID, Maingot casually describes that interference as “a case of good intentions turning sour” (109).
In sum, then, Maingot is an intelligent conservative, who I can say has written a brilliant book, even as I find his conclusion pessimistic in suggesting that alternatives for the Caribbean lie either with joining the Venezuelans and Cubans, or surrendering to the United States. There is no discussion of a viable third path that a unified Caribbean might pursue. Yet, Maingot is a conservative who is erudite, reflective, provocative, and above all, a classical scholar as well as a scholar of the classics. His encyclopedic knowledge and understanding of sociological thought and his intimate familiarity with the social and political history of the wider Caribbean are impressive. He dazzles the reader with his intellectual perspicacity and his keen eye for historical detail and political nuance.
