Introduction: Marxism, space, time and East Asia

The emphasis on the politics of translation has made an important impact in the study of intellectual history and by extension, the problem of translation would appear to be an essential method to problematize the writing of production of Marxist ideas in East Asia. The implication of such a deconstruction of meaning would imply the potential fracturing of Marxism, which as a signifier standing in for a body of thought would not be able to withstand the splintering of meaning as practices of translation took place. Postone's Marxist twist is indeed complex, because he rethinks both Marxism and the global problematic. In particular, Postone contends that most Marxists have missed the real crux of Marxist thought because they operate with a transhistorical conception of labor. Harootunian's framework and his theory of formal subsumption in particular, allow for different paths in Third World countries, where capital had not subsumed all of life and labor under its logic.