The French humanitarians positioned themselves in opposition to both Marxist critiques of the formalism of rights and anticolonial affirmations of self-determination as the foundational human right. This shift in priorities was reflected in the composition of the colloquium: while Third Worldism had stressed the political agency of national liberation movements, no nationals of the countries under discussion spoke at the LSF colloquium. In this respect, LSF emblematised what Kristin Ross suggests is a key legacy of French opposition to Third Worldism: the transformation of the 'colonial or third-world other' from militant and articulate fighter and thinker to passive object of sympathy.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 390