Class struggle derives historically from the earlier discourse of race struggle

Evidence

The interpretation of dissymmetries, the rekindling of a war, the reactivation of the war—there is more than this to the revolutionary discourse that has constantly undermined Europe since at least the end of the nineteenth century, but it is still an important strand within it, and it was shaped, defined, established, and organized in the great counterhistory that began to speak of the race struggle at the end of the Middle Ages. After all, it should not be forgotten that toward the end of his life, Marx told Engels in a letter written in 1882 that “You know very well where we found our idea of class struggle; we found it in the work of the French historians who talked about the race struggle.” — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 96

Categorization

• XREF: Marx’s own 1882 letter grounds the genealogy linking race-war discourse to class-war counterhistory. — connects to: The French Revolution was reinterpreted through a history-of-races lens early in the nineteenth century — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 6955; Marx derived the idea of class struggle from race-struggle historiography — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 2457; The dialectic neutralized a prior historical discourse of race struggle — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 298 (+4 more)

Related

• Marx derived the idea of class struggle from race-struggle historiography (similarity 0.94)
• The Revolution’s class struggles were reinterpreted as race history (similarity 0.87)
• The perception of war between races predates class struggle and religious racism (similarity 0.86)
• The dialectic neutralized a prior historical discourse of race struggle (similarity 0.86)
• Marx credited French historians for the origins of his class struggle idea (similarity 0.86)
• The French Revolution was reinterpreted through a history-of-races lens early in the nineteenth century (similarity 0.85)
• Race-struggle discourse replaces sovereign unity with a principle of heterogeneity (similarity 0.82)
• Abandoning humanity’s common origin makes natural war between races plausible (similarity 0.79)
• Historical discourse functioned as an instrument forged in struggles over power. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The dialectic neutralized a prior historical discourse of race struggle #corroborates (0.95) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 298
• The perception of war between races predates class struggle and religious racism #corroborates (0.85) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 104
• The Revolution’s class struggles were reinterpreted as race history #expands (0.75) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 226
• Race-struggle discourse replaces sovereign unity with a principle of heterogeneity #expands (0.75) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 86