A single world capitalist unity replaces the three-world schema

Evidence

But one could start with a radically different premiss: namely, the proposition that we live not in three worlds but in one; that this world includes the experience of colonialism and imperialism on both sides of Jameson’s global divide (the ‘experience’ of imperialism is a central fact of all aspects of life inside the USA, from ideological formation to the utilization of the social surplus in military-industrial complexes); that societies in formations of backward capitalism are as much constituted by the division of classes as are societies in the advanced capitalist countries; that socialism is not restricted to something called ‘the Second World’ but is simply the name of a resistance that saturates the globe today, as capitalism it’self does; that the different parts of the capitalist system are to be known not in terms of a binary opposition but as a contradictory unitywith differences, yes, but also with profound overlaps. … One immediate consequence for literary theory would be that the unitary search for ‘a theory of cognitive aesthetics for third-world literature’ would be rendered impossible, and one would have to forgo the idea of a metanarrative that encompasses all the fecundity of real narratives in the so-called Third World. Conversely, many of the questions that one would ask about, let us say, Urdu or Bengali traditions of literature may turn out to be rather similar to the questions one has asked previously about English/ American literatures. By the same token, a real knowledge of those other traditions may force the US literary theorists to ask questions about their own tradition which they have not asked heretofore. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 398

Categorization

• XREF: Directly engages Jameson’s ‘third-world literature’ essay, and the reader’s own prior work on strategic essentialism vs. class analysis in postcolonial theory. — connects to: The world forms one contradictory capitalist unity, not three separate worlds — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 163; Capitalism is a singular economic-institutional ensemble that can be reinvented — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 904; Global capitalism is hierarchical, not divided into monolithic blocs — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 588

Broader Connections

• The world forms one contradictory capitalist unity, not three separate worlds #corroborates (0.97) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 163
• Global capitalism is hierarchical, not divided into monolithic blocs #corroborates (0.80) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 588
• Capitalism is a singular economic-institutional ensemble that can be reinvented #qualifies (0.72) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 904