Marxist scholars constructed the liberal position on apartheid as a rival to critique

Evidence

The debate was constructed by Marxist historians and sociologists, as a critical rejection of the then dominant approach to apartheid, which they named as “liberal.” The immediate focus of contention was an empirical issue, about the relationship between apartheid and capitalism; but this was theoretically overlaid with a debate about the relative analytical salience of “race” or “class” in making sense of apartheid’s origins, character, and future. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 557

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the terms of the race-class debate: empirical dispute masked as an analytical race-vs-class question.
• XREF: connects to: Liberal apartheid scholarship treated racism chiefly as instrumental to Afrikaner nationalist power — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 558