In this article, I want to focus on the ineluctable question concerning the working class as revolutionary subject. Why has it, until now, hardly lived up to the hopes of Marx and the Marxists? But I can discuss only one aspect of it, namely: what is the working class? What might a critique of the political economy of labour look like that critically reviews the experiences of the past five hundred years while moving beyond the Eurocentrism that continues to dominate Marxism?