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International Socialism-Discussion 5

Rethinking Marx
edited by Sakari Hanninen and Leena Paldan

Contributors:
Albers, Bayer, Bidet, von Brentano, Cerutti, Cotten,
Domenech, Elfferding, Gransow, F.Haug, W.F.Haug,
Heilmann, Hirsch, Hountondji, Jager, Kitamura,
Kosonen, Kratke, Labica, Laclau, Liedman, Lohmann,
Marmora, Mehtonen, Merrier- Josa, Minnerup, Mouffe,
Muller, Nemitz, Pasquinelli, Pietila, Ruoff, Sagnol,
Sassoon, Sekulic, Sempere, Sharp, Tjaden,
Winkelmann, F.O.Wolf, Wulff

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109
Argument-Verlag, Berlin

INTERNATIONAL GENERAL/ IMMRC

New York & Bagnolet, France
» International Socialism-Discussion« (ISD) — Background and Objectives
The ruling classes and the centers of state power in the western world are closeknit
at the international level; they coordinate their strategies. The Left, on the other
hand, is generally nationally isolated in its reactions and even at the national level it

is often divided against itself. Its various currents should make a contribution to
changing a situation which results in a hopeless weakening of the Left as a whole.
The ISD series is intended to promote this process.
Our first purpose is to make new contributions accessible for discussion. It would
be counterproductive to exclude any particular position. All currents which give
new impulses to learning processes are to be included. The nationally isolated Lefts
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vincialism and to be able to share in the wealth of analyses, forms, methods, and
new ideas produced by socialist and anti-imperialist movements all around the
world. Furthermore, the advances of the sciences demand and allow a constant re-
newal of the theoretical tools of Marxism and a re-evaluation of its basic premises.
ISD was founded in order to bring discussions from abroad to the attention of
the German Marxist public. Accordingly, we translated texts from other languages
into German. In an attempt to use this channel in the opposite direction, we pub-
lished our third number (Rethinking Ideology) in English. The language barriers be-
tween different countries are not symmetrical. The channels of translation are only
too often one-way-streets. International communication requires a common lan-
guage; we have opted for English as the mostvolume is the
suitable. The present
fruit of cooperation between Marxist scholars mainly from Finland, Sweden and

West Germany. Its distribution has been made possible by a joint venture on the
part of Argument-Verlag and International General.
We hope that further English editions will follow. We also hope that more people
from the international Left will find this a useful forum for theoretical debate and
will contact us in order to discuss related projects. A next international conference
isplanned for October 1984 dealing with problems of research on the ideological:
Subject Ideology. Wolfgang Fritz Haug & Wieland Elfferding

Available:
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2 Neue Bewegungen und Marxismus (AS
soziale 78)
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5 Rethinking Marx (AS 109), in English.

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German ISBN 3-88619-109-5 / English ISBN 0-88477-021-4

CIP —
Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek
Rethinking Marx / ed. by Sakari Hanninen and
Leena Paldan. Contributors: Margherita von
Brentano ... —
Berlin Argument-Verlag, 1984
:

(International socialism-discussion ; 5)
(Das Argument Argument-Sonderbd. AS 109)
: ;

NE: Hanninen, Sakari [Hrsg.]; Brentano, Margherita von [Mitverf.];

Internationale Sozialismus-Diskussion; Das Argument / Argument-Sonderband
 1

Table of Contents

Sakari Hdnninen andLeena Palddn: Editorial Note 6

Margherita von Brentano: Opening Address 7

Wolfgang Fritz Haug: An Introduction to »Rethinking Marx« —

100 Years after his Death 8

Historicity and Perspectives of Marxism

Furio Cerutti: The »Living« and the »Dead« in Karl Marx's Theory 1

Wolfgang Fritz Haug: Learning the Dialectics of Marxism 15

Carta Pasquinelli: Marxism in Crisis:

The Decline of the Marxist Myth 21

Detlev Albers: Thinking Marxism Historically 26

Georges Labica: The Status of Marxist Philosophy 31

Rachel Sharp: Summary of Discussions 37

Historical Materialism

Ernesto Laclau: The Controversy over Materialism 39

Antoni Domenech: What Marxism?

A Propos Marx and Societal Evolution 43

Rainer Winkelmann: The Concept of Machine and the Thesis of

an Epoch of Manufacture in Marx's »Capital« 48

Hans-Peter Milller: Notes on Critical and Uncritical Materialism

within Marx's Analysis of Industry 50

Jacques Bidet: Summary of Discussions 52

Science and Rationality

Jean-Pierre Cotten: The Rationality of a Critical Concept 54

Sven-Eric Liedman: Marxism and Modernization 57

Veikko Pietila: The Logical, the Historical and the Forms of Value 62

Solange Mercier-Josa: Marx and Hegel 67

Karen Ruoff: Summary of Discussions 72

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
4 Table of Contents

Critique of Political Economy

Frigga Haug: Marx and Work: The Immiserization Discourse
or the Logic of Ruptures and Contradictions 76

Pekka Kosonen: Capitalism — Dying or Becoming? 81

Georg Lohmann: »Wealth« as an Aspect of the Critique of Capital 86

Jacques Bidet: Labour-Value a Political Category 91

Michael Kratke: Value Theory and Public Finance 95

Joszef Bayer: Summary of Discussions 100

Nation, Culture and Ideology

Paulin J. Hountondji:
Marxism and the Myth of an »African Ideology« 103

Leopoldo Marmora: Is There a Marxist Theory of Nation? 1 08

Gtinter Minnerup: Marxism and the Nation 115

Lauri Mehtonen: The »Human Essences or the Circle of »Social

Idealism« in Marxism 120

Rachel Sharp: Schooling For or Beyond the Crisis? 123

RolfNemitz: What Can be Learned from Marx on Education? 1 28

Bozidar Sekulic: »Critique of Ideology« and »Class Consciousness« 1 30

Volker Gransow: Worktime? Leisure Time? Disposable Time! 1 32

Marx Sagnol: The »1 8th Brumaire« Comedy or Trauerspiel?

: 135

Michael Kratke: Summary of Discussions 138

Classes and New Social Movements

Chantal Mouffe: Towards a Theoretical Interpretation of

»New Social Movements 139

Thomas Heilmann: New Social Movements and the

Transformation of Politics 144

Y. Michael Bodemann:

The Naked Proletarian and the Organicity of Classes 146

Frieder Otto Wolf: Summary of Discussions 151

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 .

Table of Contents 5

Politics, Power and the State

Joachim Hirsch: Notes Towards a Reformulation of State Theory 155

Michael Jdger: On the Concept of Power within Marxian Theory .. 160

Sakari Hanninen: Rethinking Marx's Discourse on Democracy 1 63

Minoru Kitamura: Marxism and Revolution by Majority 1 67

Donald Sassoon: Marxism and the British Labour Tradition 1 69

Karl Hermann Tjaden: What Does »The Productive Forces Will

Burst the Capitalist Relations of Production« Mean? 1 72

Joaquim Sempere: The Growing Role of Subjectivity in Every

Current Project of Socialism 177

Thomas Heilmann: Summary of Discussions 179

The »Withering Away of the State«

Erich Wulff: Farewell to Marxist Eschatology 182

Wieland Elfferding:
The Relevance of the Withering- Away-of-the-State-Thesis 186

Frieder Otto Wolf: The Future of Marxist Politics 190

Sakari Hanninen: Summary of Discussions 196

* * *

Notes on Contributors 199

ARGUMENTSONDERBAND AS 109
6

Editorial Note

The presentvolume is based on the material of the International Con-

ference on Rethinking Marx —
100 years after his death held at the Free
University of Berlin in February 1983. In this respect the volume reads as
the proceedings of the seminar.
The table of contents follows the agenda of the seminar. There are 48
contributions divided into 8 sections. The character of the contributions
varies considerably; in the first place we have so-called position papers, se-
condly commentary papers, some of which are interventions and reactions
in the actual course of the seminar, some independent contributions, and
finally summaries of discussions. The summaries of discussions give a per-
sonal reflection of the debates of the seminar rather than attempt at a
comprehensive review of the seminar proceedings. Furthermore, over-
lapping in the summaries has proved unavoidable; some of the points
raised in the seminar are repeated in more than one summary. This is not
due to lack of editorial coordination but reflects appropriately the course
of the seminar.
All the contributions printed in this volume are shortened and/or re-
worked versions of the original contributions. The present collection
gives, as the seminar itself, a landscape view of various positions on re-

reading Marx today rather than concentrates on some selected topics.

The contributors to this volume represent many different nationalities
and language territories. The »original voices« of the authors can be easily
distinguished linguistically, too. Most of the contributions have, however,
been technically edited in order to attain a readable English version. The
technical editing also includes giving the articles as uniform an appereance
as has been feasible, as well as subtitling some of the articles. The notes
and references have been left in their original form.
The editing of the volume would not have been possible without the
financial assistance of the Academy of Finland.
There are numerous people who have contributed to creating the means
for communication but are unidentified in this volume, i.e. those who ha-
ve helped in translating the articles from French, Spanish, Finnish, Ger-
man etc. Our thanks to these persons.
Sakari Hanninen
Leena Paldan

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Margherita von Brentano

Opening Address

I have the honour and pleasure to welcome you on behalf of the Institute
of Philosophy; so I ask your permission to speak of Philosophy, even if

the term does not appear on the programme of this conference.

You need not fear that will raise the old and endless question whether
I

Marx's theory is or includes Philosophy, or if it is »Aufhebung« of Philo-

sophy, be it in the sense of negation, conservation, transformation or just
of »have done with it«.

Anyway, one aspect of the relation of Marx and Philosophy is, I think,
undeniable: that the work of Marx was and is a challenge to Philosophy.
There have been other challenges in history: Early Christianity and its
interpretation by Paul was a direct challenge to classical Greek Philoso-
phy, »a folly to the Greeks«, as Paul proudly called it. In form of the
great scholastic systems, Philosophy overcame this challenge and worked
its way up from a servant to theology to its mistress and successor.

Empirical science and its interpretation by David Hume was a challenge

to metaphysics in its great 17th century systems. Kant took up that chal-
lenge and laid a new foundation, on which idealistic Philosophy rose to
the heights of absolute knowledge.
Marx's challenge went deeper and further. His early diagnosis of Philo-
sophy as mere interpretation of the world, that needs revolutionary
change, his accusation of the poverty of Philosophy, his exodus from Phi-
losophy, challenged not only the Philosophy of Feuerbach or of
Proudhon, but all Philosophy and haunted all attempts to regenerate old
or generate new Philosophies since.
Not only schools of thought that openly offer an alternative to Marx-
ism (as Max Weber or Popper), or those that try to integrate or reshape
Marxist theories (as the Frankfurt School) take on this challenge: those
that do not even mention Marx or Marxism may also be deciphered as
answers to his challenge —
so Nietzsche, Heidegger —
even Wittgenstein's
dictum that »philosophy leaves everything as it is« may be read as an an-
swer to the eleventh Feuerbach-thesis, an ambivalent answer, both con-
firming it and denying its tendency as impossible.
The Institute of Philosophy has from its beginning,
at this University
where Marxism's challenge
for at least the last twenty years, been a place
to Philosophy and the counter-attacks on Marxism by Philosophy, an-
cient and new, have been openly discussed and fought out I use the —
word »fight« because, as you can imagine, this was and is not always a
peaceful activity.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
8 Wolfgang Fritz Haug

But has always been a vivid, dynamic activity, never boring; and a
it

which weapons change hands, in which alliances change, in which

fight in
no party stays unchanged and where rethinking positions is a permanent
process.
So it is only natural that we can assemble here to push forward the ur-
gent business of rethinking Marx and, in doing so, honour him in a way
suitable to his work.
This conference is not a rendezvous of Marxists tel-quel, but of scholars
who work in many different fields of scientific inquiry, having learned
from Marx that theoretical work is not applying a ready-made »ism« to
given data, but discovering those problems that need to be solved and de-
veloping tools to solve them. Marxism, rightly understood, is not a corpus

of doctrines, but a way of developing the right tools for urgent problems.
I hope and wish that this conference will promote that activity.

Wolfgang Fritz Haug

An Introduction to » Rethinking Marx«

100 Years after his Death

The was addressed to scholars from various countries who con-

invitation
ceive of theirwork as being within the tradition (or one of the traditions)
of the Marxian project. Memorial speeches were not asked for, but con-
tributions to a renewal of Marxist theory. The main scope was not to
»honor« a classical thinker. Marxism-socialism is a living, unfinished pro-
ject unavoidably living through no better way for Marxist
crises. There is

scholars to honour Marx than by approaching him and his heritage in his
own way. We therefore invited for a critical re-reading of Marx, in the
light of the manifold crises, dangers, problems, innovations of our present
world. How does the work of Marx respond to experiences and methods
of thought developed during the past century? Steps of learning are often
preceded by a period of gradually growing uneasiness with customary
concepts, methods, attitudes and practice forms. Interests and perceptive-
ness slowly shift with the changing problem-configurations, until suddenly
a further development becomes possible. We hope to contribute to the
preparation of such a new
by bringing together reflections from dif-
step
ferent countries and various political and theoretical backgrounds.
For this occasion three West German Marxist reviews cooperated on a
volume, Aktualisierung Marx' (Argument-Sonderband AS 100, 1983, ed.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
A n Introduction to »Rethinking Marx« 9

by Detlev Albers, Elmar Altvater and myself). was made available for
It

the participants of the conference in advance; reflections and analyses,

which are in the following pages only alluded to, can be found there in ex-
tenso. The importance of the conference —
as of the volume Aktualisie-
rung Marx' —
will be found less on the level of the answers than on the

level of the questions. What is on the agenda is the opening up of new re-

search and accompanying discussions. However, this is an open-ended

its

process without any guaranties. Without new efforts of synthesis to reach

a frame for common theory and practice this opening could be con-
demned to an act of self-dissolution.
There were many gatherings in many countries to commemorate the
Marx-Centennial. One specificity of our conference consists in the fact
that it was organized by Marxist scholars themselves, not by a party or
other political institutions. Such an autonomous meeting, though it is not
welcomed by all political organizations, has its own right and necessity
apart from those meetings which are articulated by parties or state ap-
paratuses. If Scientific Socialism is to be more than an ideological formu-
la, then the scientific elements must demand that its own forms and laws

of movement be respected. To be sure, socialism cannot be reduced to sci-

ence, nor can its scientific elements be reduced to politics. Thus it is neces-
sary to develop different spaces and forms of practice within Marxism. As
long as this necessity with its dialectics of differences and interrelations has
not been learned, there will always prevail the false dialectic of a power-
subjected ideology on the one hand, and of a more or less unrelated and
atomized intellectuality, a helpless prey to market-relationships and aca-
demic career relations, on the other.
The Centennial of Marx' death may, however, be considered as a sym-
bolic occasion on which to create a frame for controversial communi-
cation between Marxist scholars. Like it or not, in the Federal Republic of
Germany and West Berlin we must attempt this —
as would have to be
done in various other developed capitalist countries —
under conditions
defined by the absence of a hegemonial field around a Marxist workers'
movement. It would, though, be fatal to accommodate ourselves to this
absence. To accept the unrelatedness of theory to political practice would
be no better than to submit theory to authoritarian control. Thus this kind
of »freedom« from organizational links should be realized in an even
more responsible way.
There are other barriers against a self-organized conference of Marxist
intellectuals from different currents and countries. The communication
tends to be quite underdeveloped. This conference is intended to con-
tribute within its very modest possibilities to the development of an inter-
national Marxist scientific community. Normally the balance of forces as
determined by cultural imperialism also blindly determines the theoretical

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
1 Wolfgang Fritz Haug

exchange relations between Marxists from different countries. English (or,

to some extent, French) texts are translated into other languages, but al-
most never the other way round. Are we surrendering to these relations of
forces in deciding to discuss and publish in what is for most of us a foreign
language? We believe, on the contrary, that in so doing we can make the
best of it. At least we circumvent the gate keepers. Certainly, the English
we are going to speak (and to print) is not necessarily that of the Anglo-
saxon countries. It is, nonetheless, a language in which scholars from all

the continents — and the five continents are all represented at this gathe-
ring — can communicate. In this language all of us who are not native
speakers of it, will speak more slowly, articulate more carefully perhaps,
use fewer and more current words. We may even speak more understan-
dably to our compatriots, because the artifices of intellectual discourse are
less available.

Some of our participants —

not only Germans —
have expressed their
annoyance with these linguistic conditions. Wasn't Marx German, they
ask. Indeed, he was. Nevertheless he also spoke and wrote in other lan-
guages, when it was necessary.
The linguistic aspect is one question. Another is intellectual style, as it
is normally linked to national cultures. Johan Galtung has outlined a ty-

pology of such styles. Let me be begin with his portrait of the Teutonic
style. In this style hierarchical relations are supposed to prevail; the gener-

al pattern would be the pyramid; the systematic way in which everything is

to be done would be contained by those patterns; a deductive logic would

dominate. Confronted with other positions, a Teutonic thinker would be-
have within the alternatives of submission and condemnation. It goes —
without saying that this style would ruin our conference.
Then there is the Gallic style. It is supposed to express itself in elegant
wordplays of individualistic master thinkers, who never pay attention to
one another, though they are able to recognize each other within the
frame of an individualistic hierarchy. —
The Gallic as well as the Teutonic
style defines forms of darwinistic struggles among intellectuals.

Let us turn to Galtung' s portrait of the Nippon style. Here the subsum-
tion of a position under a thought school seems to define a major preoc-
cupation.
Then there is the Anglo-Saxon style. Here general hostility to theory
prevails, though one is prepared to find in every contribution something
to appreciate. With the English a documenting attitude would govern the
relations toward other positions, with the US-Americans, an orientation
towards operationalizing and collecting data. —
The general orientations
of this style are, as Galtung asserts, quite appropriate for UN-bodies;
nevertheless they are inappropriate for Marxists. None of these styles
would be of great help. But in which intermundium of intellectual styles

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 1

The »Living« and the »Dead« in Karl Marx's Theory 1

are we then supposed to move? —

Following Galtung once more, the
Scandinavian countries have a special chance to learn from the different
styles, to compare them, to borrow the best from each, to avoid the bad.
Let us hope that the strong presence of Scandinavians at this conference is

a good omen. Though the Scandinavian Galtung is himself not always a

perfect example. For him Marx — together with Freud and Hitler (sic!) —
ispurely and simply the representative of the Teutonic. Against Galtung a
major task will be to appropriate Marx universally, to »de-teutonize« his
interpretation and also to overcome its eurocentricity. Of course, an in-
dispensable first step for what Henri Lefebvre has called la mondialisation
of Marxism is to acknowledge and criticize the Teutonic and Eurocentric
remnants in Marx and, more importantly, in our readings of Marx.
In the present world, Marxism is the most important candidate for a
universalistic articulation of the potentiality of acting (Handlungsfahig-
keit). It will become more capable of universalization as we become better
able to think (and accept) regional specificities within Marxism. This is a
prerequisite for a Marxism of tomorrow.
To be sure, Rethinking Marx can only be a contribution to an ongoing
and necessarily multivocal process. The title of this book, therefore,
reaches beyond its contributions.

Furio Cerutti

The »Living« and the »Dead« in Karl Marx's Theory*

Marx or Marxism
The title of this contribution has been borrowed from Benedetto Croce's
criticism of Hegel. By applying it to Marx one hundred years after his
death, I mean to suggest that even those such as I who come from a Marx-

ist tradition should and must exercise a selective treatment of Marx. Better
this than to abandon him altogether with no scientific reflection at all, as
many ex-leftist »penitents« have done. It is also preferable to separate the
living from the dead instead of assuming a position of rigid defense in
name of his entire patrimony.
In order to make a selective approach to Marx in a scientifically autono-
mous and productive manner, it will also be necessary to separate Marx

* This lecture by Furio Cerutti has been published in an extended German ver-
sion in Das Argument No. 138 (1983).

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
12 Furio Cerutti

from Marxism, or better still, from the various Marxisms. There are four
reasons for doing this: (1) A scientific theory can be better evaluated if it is

first considered independently of its presumed consequences (revolutions,

but also the Archipelago Gulag). (2) Since the history of a doctrine cannot
exist separately from the social processes of which that doctrine is an ex-
pression, the existence of a history of Marxism is a purely ideological no-
tion. (3) Looking at the world and history from within an intellectual tra-
dition can provoke a sense of stagnation or create a lack of breathing
space — even in the case of critical Marxism. (4) All of this is not intended
to motivate a return »back to Marx«.
We certainly do not want to take a step backwards with respect to his
materialism. By materialism I mean an immanentistic conception which
not only does without God, but also without Hegelian essences as well as
general formalistic patterns of contemporary sociology (e.g. system/en-
vironment) and »structures« hypothesized by structuralists. As a scientist
Marx does not develop a philosophical anthropology of man, but rather
observes and reflects upon the action of men: differently from other na-
tural beings, they produce and reproduce their lives while making modi-
fications of nature and themselves. This activity is carried on socially, by
men working together, and during its course laws and structures are pro-
duced under which individuals become agents (Trager) rather than sub-
jects. For Marx there are no general laws of history; there are only pro-

blems common to all of its periods: (1) How the total social labour neces-
sary for the reproduction of associated individuals is distributed with re-
spect to their different needs. After the disintegration of the primitive
community, this problem can be resolved only by planning or through a
market structure. (2) How the social labour divided among individuals (in-
dividual activity and products) is unified, brought together in a social syn-
thesis; that is, how cooperation is organized with respect to the work divi-

sion.
There are different solutions to these two persistent problems, con-
forms which the social process of life as-
sisting in the different historical

sumes. The form constitutes the dimension of history in Marx. With this
concept he ties together two dimensions society and history — which —
otherwise by definition remain separate in the social sciences. In Marxian
materialism the social process cannot be understood in terms of formal or
super-historical processes; it must be analyzed in its historical forms, that
is, in the succession of the economic formations of society. Marx thus
places a limiton the universalizing claims (explicative and/or normative)
of concepts and theories whose historical origins and meaning are not ma-
nifested within the context of the interests, the struggles and the sufferings
of men. This position characterizes the Marxian theory as both scientific
and critical (an expression of unity uncommon in social theory); as a

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 3

The »Living« and the »Dead« in Karl Marx's Theory 1

theory it is emancipatory — independently of its political developments.

Herein lies the principal interest of Marx today, his privileged position
among the classics of modern thought.

What is Alive in the Marxian Theory

Holding fast to the materialistic core of Marx does not mean that we must

assume defensive positions or protect any supposed a priori superiority of

Marx or Marxism with respect to other theories. On the contrary, we must
recognise that Marxism has excluded certain objects which can be better
dealt with by other theories from other points of view (e.g. the forms of
everyday life, the operation of complex organizations, the exterminism of
world power relationships etc.). A materialistic investigation should shun
the historicistic overestimation of the Prozesshaftigkeit (the process char-
acter) of social evolution as well as the mania for deducing everything
from essential forms (e.g. the commodity form); it should make use of
new instruments which do not belong to the Marxist tradition, but avoid
eclectic »pastiches« by means of a judicious epistemological approach. In
any case, it is more important to think in a materialistic manner as did
Marx than to strive to be a »Marxist« at all costs.
Once again referring to Croce's slightly biological metaphor, I will try
to sum up what is alive and what is dead in the Marxian theory in the fol-
lowing four points:
1 . Marx did not elaborate a philosophy of history; instead he furnished
a theory of history abreast of the historical research of his times. He him-
self warned against a transformation of his »conceptualisation of the his-

torical process« (Le Goff) into a super-historical philosophy of history; in-

stead of totalitarian interpretations of the morphological model of Capital

Marx emphasised the importance of the real »historical environments
Furthermore he was not a victim of the ideology of progress later adopted
by the working class movement: his concept of a »progressive« social for-
mation does not refer to this ideology. If today's ecologists show little in-
Marx, this depends on their confusion between Marx and Marx-
terest in

ism.
In Marx we find neither a general determinism nor a secularized doc-
trine of salvation. Those problems which do emerge in his work are all si-

tuated on the level of modern science. The first difficulty is that he attri-
butes a character of necessity to the passage from capitalism to a new so-
cial formation. Not only has this not been historically proven, but the very
concept of necessity is in conflict with the relatively open and contingent
character of the historical process recognised by Marx himself. He pro-
mode of pro-
ceeds from' the economic laws of his model of the capitalist
duction and projects their effect on future history in general, history
which Marx furthermore conceives as »a natural process« Here Marx . in-

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14 Furio Cerutti

tends the central concept of his materialism, the »social process of life«, in
too restricted a sense. Proceeding differently than in many of his concrete
analyses, in his model of transition this concept is reduced or restricted in
an economistic fashion.
Marx lacked an articulated conception of the social process of life. The
psyche, symbolic production and institutional action were all missing
from his theories, nor could it have been otherwise for reasons belonging
to the history of science: If the sciences corresponding to these objects had
already been developed during his lifetime, he probably would have in-
tegrated them into his scientific approach.
This is precisely what Marx spent his life doing — not canonizing Marx-
ism but integrating new elements whenever they helped him to discover in-
ternal relationships within the social process: he did it with regard to the
new developments of the natural sciences as well as in relation to new
theories, such as the theory of evolution, or to new sciences, such as eth-
nology, introduced towards the end of his life. We must ask ourselves the
following questions: Would Marx's conceptual system be open to ap-
proaches to a theory of socialized individuals which differ from his ap-
proach based on the mode of production? Does Marx conceive of indivi-
duals only as the personifications of socio-economic relationships, thus
impoverishing his central concept of the individual? Or is all of this true

only within the structural framework of Capital, but not for a conception
of the individual developed in all directions or for the concept of »histori-
cal environment to which Marx makes reference?
2. Still another problem: Is Marx's concept of society holistic or organi-
cistic? Is it true that he sides with the Gemeinschaft against the Gesell-
schaft in his »anti-modern utopia« consisting in the transparence of inter-
personal relations to be restored under communism?
Marx does not conceive of society as a normative, self-regulating entity;
instead, even in an association of free men he hypothesizes the formalizing
of their relations through an account of work time and value. In this case,

however, values would not become exchange values because the social
synthesis would be realized through planning. The premise of all this is a
lightening of tasks in reproductive activity, to be achieved not through an-
onymous means of communication like money or power, but rather by
displacing man's burden of material reproduction through the use of
science and technology as the primary forces of production. Here Marx is
talking about a formalizing of social relations which does not in any case
become formalistic, and which remains subject to the decisions of freely
associated subjects.
The latter expression contains three key concepts: freedom, subject, and
association —
that is to say commonwealth. Thus, in the midst of a new
conception which unites society and history we encounter categories

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Learning the Dialectics of Marxism 1

known to us from the ontological or normativistic tradition of moral and

political philosophy. Does this constitute an unsolvable contradiction? If
so, it is it shows us that problems which today
a productive one because
and have often been used to point out the limits of
are considered topical
Marx's supposed historicism are, on the contrary, a result of the develop-
ment of his theory.
3. These problems include institutional rules for operating a »free asso-
ciation^ or, in other words, the problems of how the state and politics
work in democracy. As Norberto Bobbio appropriately reminds us, the
general lack of research and analysis in this direction constitutes one of the
greatest theoretical and political disasters in the history of Marxism and
socialism, and has all the earmarks of a gigantic removal.
4. Finally we have the problem of ethics which legitimately arises every
time we speak of freedom and subject. This is all the more true today after
the failure of the Marxist philosophy of history, together with its progres-
siveoptimism and its determinism. The difficulty lies in the materialistic
elaboration of these problems, for which it is necessary to bear in mind
historical development as well as the socially conditioned nature of values
and rules, without once again falling back on a conception of history
based on laws.

Wolfgang Fritz Haug

Learning the Dialectics of Marxism*

In »Crisis or Dialectics of Marxism« I have tried to show that Marxist as-

sumptions on must be applied to Marxism as well. This self-ap-
dialectics
plication may even help to clarify our ideas on dialectics. Marxism is in
movement. And it is driven by contradictions. Those who claim an ideolo-
gical Eternity for its truth contribute in so doing to making passive dialec-
tics of Marxism all the more fatal. Though this movement within contra-

dictions is unavoidable, it can assume very different forms and meanings,

following our un/conscious way of tackling it. Dialectics of Marxism: we
must learn them in order not to be mastered by their most castastrophic
forms. The history of Socialism — , though it is still the history of Early
* W.F. Haug, »Krise oder Dialektik des Marxismus«, in: Aktualisierung Marx',
Argument-Sonderband AS 100, 1983. French translation in: Socialism in the
World, Belgrade, VII, No 36, 1983, p.3-25.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 6

1 Wolfgang Fritz Haug

Socialism — is now developed enough to provide us with experiences: of

failures, of unexpected turns (in the sense of Lenin's and Brecht's use of
the term), of paradoxical unities of struggling opposites, of the nullity of
fixed essences, etc. To be sure, we have to emancipate our understanding
of dialectics from Hegel. For if there is a. failure in the history of Marxism-
Socialism, it is the failure of the »centered totality«, of the false equation
of dialectics with automatic progress, of the — mostly unconscious — or-
ganizing pattern of the one subject-substance. It is time to finally say fare-
well to such visions. The real world is no closed totality, but an open,
structured whole, with irreducible differences. There is a multiverse to dis-

cover within the universe and vice versa.

Proposed changes of Marxism arouse fears. Don't they transcend the
borderlines? What are the criteria for Marxist identity? If we admit that
different versions of Marxism have been developed and that Marxism
exists in a plural form (Seve) —
don't we thereby dissolve it's possible
identity? For Gedo the answer is clear: »If the one Marxism doesn't
exist, then Marxism doesn't exist.« (Gedo 1983, 139) His conclusion is as

unequivocal as this: Since it cannot be that Marxism doesn't exist, it must

exist as the one and closed system, whose inner coherence is granted by

Philosophy. Only Philosophy can grant a clearcut identity. »For in what

should the Marxist characteristics of the 'Marxisms' consist? Where is the
criterion that distinguishes them from Non-Marxisms?« (Gedo 1983, 138)
Before we answer the question, we must question Gedo's question itself.
From which point of view does Gedo ask it? His leading interest in de-
fining Marxism is obviously to eliminate Non-Marxism. The inclusion
seems to be expected as a result of exclusion. But can this approach to
identity lead anywhere except to such wonderful self-evidences, which can
be pseudo evidences, such as this: that the outside is not inside, and vice
versa. Isn't it only a fake authority of Philosophy which regulates this
game of inclusion by exclusion? Isn't the taciturn center of this discourse
state power, subduing philosophy to its authority?
The assumption that there is something like a »doxical« (or dogmatical)
core of Marxism, delivering criteria for orthodoxy, is indeed an effect of

inner contradictions and a compromise form. The first orthodoxy was

shaped by Kautsky. Lukacs articulated his critique of Kautsky within the
same kautskyan form, when he discussed the question »What is Orthodox
Marxism?«. To be sure, he filled it with quite different contents. He tried
to free revolutionary activity from some of the burdens of the evolutionist
Marxism of the II International. However he nourished the myth of the
»doxical« fundament. A critique of his most influential History & Class
Consciousness remains therefore until today a prerequisite of tackling the
»camera-obscura effects« within Marxism: its ideological turning. Be-
cause this is one of the manifestations of passive dialectics of Marxism:

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Learning the Dialectics of Marxism 1

the rearticulation of Marxist theory by Philosophy of Consciousness. Cor-

respondingly the guaranties for »orthodox« identity are formulated in
terms of consciousness: Principles, basic ideas and ideals, represented in
philosophical form, have to be confessed in order for one to be a »Marx-
ist«. So the Philosphy of Marxism seems to grant it's Eternity. However,
this Eternity proves to be a momentary one. It is denied by the real move-

ment. Every version becomes, what it defined, a diversion.

Which instance shall we then address for the decision? Will we return to
Marx? Or will we return from this return, because it tends to deliver
Marxism to the hair-splitters, who are »munching the letters« of Marx'
writings, as Lukacs said, or to the Talmudists, as Stalin used to put it. Will
we deliver the question to the hierarchical organisms of politics? But can
we deliver topower structures the project of the self-emancipation of the
working Wouldn't we have to deal with pragmatism on the one
class?
hand, to legitimizing distortions on the other? Shall we therefore wait for
the spontaneity of the Masses? Shall we withdraw Marxism from the poli-
tics of power and restore it as Critical Consciousness in our minds? Or

shall we rely on its positive character as a science and try to submit the po-
litical institutions to the execution of scientific Truths? Or would this only

introduce the State into the scientific practices and institutions and lead to
the Lyssenko syndrome, promoting the representative of the state author-
ity into the pontifex maximus position of the highest »scientific« author-
ity?

To be thrown blindly from instance to instance is the experience of pas-

To learn active dialectics instead means to put forward two
sive dialectics.
questions. The first concerns the relations of the different and irreducible
instances of Marxism. But how to approach this problem? This leads to
the second question: What are actually the constitutive necessities for
Marxism? Or what do we need Marxism for?
What is problematic is much less Marx than our reading of Marx. Every
generation has created —
and has to create its appropriate Marxism, start-
ing from the needs for it. This is one of the reasons why crises are a regular
component of the life of Marxism. It has always been shortsighted to mis-
take the crisis of a historically specific formation of Marxism for the ulti-
mate Crisis of Marxism as such. That is why the rule is: Marxism is dead
— long live Marxism. The real salient instances are the social struggles and
crises from which, in every epoch anew, the necessity of a unifying theory

and practice is realized. To be sure, the basic articulation of problemati-

ques is never basic in the sense that
it is pregiven. It is already the result of

and political practices and struggles. Therefore, the necessity of

theoretical
Marxism is no »Iron Necessity« or »Iron Law«, as it was stamped in the
phraseology of the Second International. Phraseologies of this kind are
not nothing: They organize a sort of power. They fulfill an ideological

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18 Wolfgang Fritz Haug

function. Or, as Marx put it: »The term iron is a signature, by which the
orthodox recognize each other. « (See MEW
19, p.25) This kind of ortho-
doxy (»Rechtglaubigkeit« in the German original of Marx) has always had
the effect of a barrier against necessary innovations. To go back in the last
instance to the necessity (or focussed necessities) of (and for) Marxism, by
no means leads into a metaphysical realm of an eternally given essence. It

leads into the basic dimensions of struggles. And it leads into the struggles
for a comprehensive project articulating the awareness of different crises
and liberation interests, and the elements of the respective Social Move-
ments, in a strategy of social transformation. The texts of Marx play an
enormous role in the foundation of such a project. To go back in the last
instance to the real practical necessities helps to prevent these texts from
being institutionalized in a para-religious way. One of the inexhaustible
modernities of Marx' theory is exactly his primacy of practice as formu-
lated, for instance, in the »Theses on Feuerbach«. Whilst no metaphysical
approach to Marx is compatible with Marx's own thought and practice,
the necessity approach to the question of Marxist identity is in full accor-
dance with it.

It should go without saying that the social needs for Marxism do not re-

main unchanged in the changes of society. There are insights into the
and mechanisms of valorization and crisis, also of
general class relations
the abuse of natural conditionsand of the one-sided development for the
productive forces under the rule of private property, turning them »into
destructive forces for the majority« (Marx, MEW 3, 60), etc. — insights
which in a general way have proved their validity. On economic terrain the
global failure of Keynesianism has made even former Keynesians aware of
the topicality of Marx' Critique of Political Economy. On the other hand
the profound changes of the human world since Marx must inevitably lead
to a permanent rethinking (and further development) of Marx' theories
and strategies. Lenin's intervention in Marxism was of this sort. The inter-
ventions linked to names like Mao, Ho Chi Minn, Mariategui, Gramsci,
Cabral, and many others, respond to the same necessity of specific elabo-
rations of Marxism following the historical conditions of every region and
also of every epoch. Among the inescapable specificities (of the German-
European Marx as well as of all his successors), the configurations of »Ci-
vil Society«, with its and its ideological powers and
cultural inheritances
traditions, play an important and relatively autonomous« role. Patterns
of articulation are preshaped here. One has only to consider the problems
of translation of Marx' Capital in the various languages to get an idea of
the articulative decisiveness of cultural traditions. It is however vital to
fight against the easy national myths of pregiven civilizational essences, re-
siding in a mysterious transcendental space beyond the concrete social
(including the economic) relations (a reedition of the romantic idea of the

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Learning the Dialectics of Marxism 1

Volksgeister). Specificities of a civilizational kind are therefore misused if

they are made to be barriers to universality.

We have to admit, however, that »regionality« is not only a problem of
Marx's successors, but of Marx himself. His patterns of articulation are
largely European and, what is more, German. Particularly the German
dialectical idealism of Hegel has deeply marked the material grammar of
Marx' thought, in spite of his rupture with Hegel. To say it more precisely,
there is a life-long struggle in Marx himself between quite different pat-
terns of articulation. In »Crisis or Dialectics« I follow such struggles with
particular attention to the struggle between a Hegelian speculative logic
stemming from the Philosophy of History and a Historical Materialistic
line. This inner struggle gives a certain textual ambiguity even to Marx'
most rigorous work, to Capital. Hence the inevitability of interpretation.
What is at stake in these ambiguities and inner struggles is nothing less

than our strategic problem which is implied in the necessity of learning the
dialectics of Marxism: How to articulate the different necessities, move-
ments, instances, etc.

Althusser's critique of the ideological pattern of the expressive totality

has its persistent right. Interpretative patterns of this kind, linked to sub-
ject-object-thinking and the dualist structure of consciousness-philoso-
phy, belong to the most deeply rooted ideologems. They are central swit-
Through them a binary order unfolds
chings in the ideological grammar.
The meaning of the epistemological revolution, articulated in the
itself.

»Theses on Feuerbach«, is just the breaking up of this ideo-logic. The

turning towards the »ensemble of societal relations« opens a continent of
differential articulations, a multiversal reality of the universe. Thus the
founding document of what in it was called »the New Materialism« pro-
claims the primacy of practice as well as the rupture with reductionist con-
ceptions. The different patterns of interpretation have proved their power
in the readings of Capital they produced. On the one hand we had the in-
terpretations of »Capital-Logic« with its derivation debate (Ableitungsde-
batte). They
one »logical development as the work of concept-beget-
see ,

ting concepts, in Marx' theoretical exposition, and in reality the breeding

of one essence. Mats Dahlkvist, the author of a commentary to Capital,
has called this the »World-Egg-Thinking«. Like a fertilized egg one sub-
stance-subject is thought to develop itself. Human individuals and their
activities are thought of as personifications of economic categories. Such
interpretations can point to a certain number of formulations in Marx
which seem to justify them. In so doing they have to ignore the organizing
conceptions of Marx' theory and practice. Realities are not only thought
of as »parts« of and the »absolute domination of totality over its
totality;

parts«, as proclaimed by Lukacs (1919/1923), is not imposed in the analy-

ses of Marx. His analyses of domination do not resolve the dominated in

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20 Wolfgang Fritz Haug

the dominating. — In the very center of Marx' conception — linked to the

critical analysis of class structures and to the elaboration of a strategy of
class struggles aiming at the abolition of classes — we find the concept of
Vergesellschaftung, which sometimes is translated as »societalization«,
sometimes as »socialization«. The making of their social relations by the
associated workers determines Marx' perspective. The structures and insti-
tutions of this association were conceived of by Marx as social self-
management, not, however, in categories of the State. Therefore the in-
terest in the articulation of different forces, practices, regions, etc. is basic.

Those who follow similar lines of a non-reductionist Marxism today

very often believe that they have to get rid of the concept Scientific So-
cialism. The way which
it has been practiced very often by socialist
in
State power, seems to have more or less the following meaning: There is a
system of truths, established and applied by competent authorities in the
name of the working class and of Marx. In this model there seems to be al-
ways one truth, pre-established, unmoveable, thus pre-deciding along the
one correct »line«. The rest is deviation. With this we are quite obviously
in the realm of ideological myths. This myth envelopes a hard »ad-
ministrationist« practice: the elimination of contradiction. If this is scien-
tificity, it is self-evident that it must be criticized with the perspective of its
abolition. It is, however, a misrepresentation of scientific procedures.
The one pre-given Truth has nothing whatsoever to do with scientific cri-
teria.»Sciences« exist in the form of processes, which are composed of a
multiplicity of differing lines. Contradiction and public discussion are no
disturbances to Truth, but forms of determining truths. Therefore the po-
sition of scientific instances, practices and criteria is not in opposition to
democracy. Though these are situated on quite another »level« of social
life, there is a homology between science(s) and democracy. What we have

to get rid of, is a pre- or even anti-scientific conception of science, which is

in effect a conception of science as an ideological power.

But wasn't Marx himself caught in a conception of »Science«, which is

typical for the 19th Century and is deeply ideological in this sense: It is de-
terministic, even naturalistic, in the very center there is the concept of
Law, its revelation being Truth. Much effort —
and also much anti-marx-
ist propaganda —
is dedicated to this message. To be sure, there are some

kernels of truth in it. But on the whole it is nevertheless a misrepresenta-

all it has to be taken into account that the
tion if not falsification. First of
above mentioned concept of truth would be called »metaphysical« by
Marx. Truth cannot be established except in practice (see 2nd Thesis of
Feuerbach). On the other hand, the scientific quest for truth must free it-
self from external intervention, and Marx calls »mean« and »shabby«
those researchers who subdue their thought to powers (see for instance
MEW 26.2, 110-113).

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Marxism in Crisis: The Decline of the Marxist Myth 21

Scientific Socialism —
and this, not Marxism, was the concept adopted
by Marx himself —
has to be re-thought. It has to be emancipated from
an unscientific conception of science. What is more: It has to be under-
stood not as the formula of a given essence, but as a necessary com-
petence; it aims at the self-socialization of different social forces. Scientific
Socialism as conceived of by Marx brings together the workers' movement
and science(s) in the perspective of a classless and self-managing society.
For the purpose of this text I can leave aside the many problems which are
linked to this project and which Marx did not yet see. I also leave aside the
question if he was not too naive in respect to the problematiques to which
under the conditions of an answer. These and
class society the State gives
other important questions are going to be discussed elsewhere. Here I
want to insist on the importance of a non-reductionist conception of
Scientific Socialism already present in the work of Marx. Equally absurd
for him would have been the ideas of either subduing scientific practices to
the »dictatorship of the proletariat^ or the associated workers to a rule in
the name of »Science«. Though Scientific Socialism can only be con-
structed on the class basis of the workers, it cannot be reduced to this ba-
sis. It always remains a »differential articulation« (Laclau). Socialization
(the German Vergesellschaftung) has to be freed from connotations which
depict it from above and competence of one center realizing one
as the
truth. The alternative to a »centered« and hierarchical vision is not an
»anarchistic« one. Different levels with their specific logics have to be re-
spected and allowed to find their balance. If the political instances repre-
sent politically dominating »lines«, their domination of scientific proces-
ses would ruin science and reproduce the Lyssenko-syndrome. The same
— mutatis mutandis —
is valid for different cultural practices. Learning

the balance of these unending contradictions is a basic element of learning

the dialectics of Marxism. At the same time these dialectics are indispen-
sable for a new type of structural hegemony**

Carla Pasquinelli

Marxism in Crisis: The Decline of the Marxist Myth

Like an elusive form of unrest the crisis of Marxism has gradually eaten
away at the legitimate foundations of Marxist theory, without having yet
found forms adequate for its own theorization. The crisis has first of all

** See my essay »Strukturelle Hegemonie«, Das Argument

in: 129, p.628-48.

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22 Carla Pasquinelli

hit the Marxists, upsetting their ranks and attacking their most deeply-
rooted convictions, taking them by surprise. Inevitably, such turmoil has
elicited a defensive response. Some have crisis by
preferred to ignore the
denying its existence, hiding behind the anachronistic and doomed bastion
of their own past. Others have rushed to reconvert their options, wander-
ing as a result through a forest of different outlooks in search of impro-
bable syntheses. In reality, both groups have repressed the recognition of
their inability to deal with mourning, or have fled from the impossibility
of facing a phenomenon that has encompassed so much of the cultural
and political life of the last years, not to mention a great deal of their own
lives as well.

The already ardous task of facing one's own past has not been made
any easierby terrorism. The undeniable effect of this culture, whose ex-
treme but coherent consequences, combined with a complete lack of real-
istic revolutionary outlets, have deprived it of any recognizable shape, has

been the temptation to disclaim any responsibility for its catastrophic out-
come. But terrorism is not one of the causes of the crisis of Marxism; it is
a symptom, a warning beacon which points towards »the political as the
site of theoretical contradictions and impasses. And in fact, when the

problem has been faced, the confrontation has begun on the political ter-
rain. On the one hand, an accusatory finger was pointed at the results of

real socialism at the very moment when Communist Party no-

the Italian
minated itself for participation in national government. And on the other
hand, new social actors have had to be accounted for, those »new sub-
jects« whose presence has rearranged the pieces of the chessboard of polit-
ical conflict and raised doubts about priority of a single revolutionary sub-
ject. But the admission that the crisis of Marxism is a political one should

not constitute an excuse for avoiding critical and self-critical reflection

about theory, what it has represented, and the way it has been used.
Let us then turn back the clock twenty years to the sixties, the last great
flowering of Marxist theory, which nonetheless already held the seeds of
the crisis that would explode much later, at the end of the seventies. Those
few who have happened to think back on those years have all been im-
pressed by one aspect, which in those days led Marxist research in its ef-
forts to redeem itself from Stalinist orthodoxy. This was the return to
Marx, complicated by interminable arguments regarding the Hegel-Marx
relationship, in turn countered by the Marx-Engels relationship, the
espousal or rejection of the early works, and so on. Looking at those hun-
dreds of now-forgotten pages one cannot help but share Bobbio's an-
noyance with the »waste of intellectual energy«, behind the philology and
the misuse of the principle of authority. But the real error was yet another;
this apparent subordination of the present to the past was actually a cover-

for a subtler form: the subordination of theory to the immediate needs of

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Marxism in Crisis: The Decline of the Marxist Myth 23

political struggle. The tendency to look for protection within the most dis-

parate readings of Marx, whenever one was forced to take a clear political
stand, in the end caused Italian Marxists to be heard by an ever-dwindling
audience. More important, it all but eliminated the boundaries between
ideology and science.
On the one hand, here was a self-reproducing line of thought. On the
other hand, there was the ever more ideological character of the »primacy
of politics«, for which political necessity became the final arbiter of know-
ledge, and which turned politics into a universal language that gradually
came to replace the specific languages of each discipline. The final result

was to deprive the single disciplines of their own integrity and to rob
Marxism of its heuristic capacities.
The point was to attempt to update the ranks, to keep up with con-
stantly transforming reality, which somehow always managed to stay out
in front. The updating of Marxism took two forms, both of which turned
out to be inadequate to the task. Behind the tiring discussion of dialectics
and the Marx-Hegel relationship, one could on the one hand detect the
last act of the historicist interpretation of Italian backwardness being

played out. On the other hand Marxists.remained imprisoned by the capi-

talistic ideology of development (i.e. neocapitalism and consumerism), fo-

cusing their attention exclusively upon production and the factory, while
ignoring an analysis of the overall reproduction of society. Within these
theoretical confines, it was truly difficult to predict the forms the econom-
ic and political crises would take. And this also made it impossible to re-

cognize the emergence of »new subjects«, whose economic and social po-
sition could certainly not be interpreted on the basis of production. It
seems to me that the trouble Marxist research has encountered in dealing
with the theme of the State also derives from the impossibility of analyzing
the latter from the viewpoint of production.

The Marxist Tale

It has been these different and often contradictory interpretations that
have led some people to consider this disorderly proliferation to be one of
the causes of the crisis of Marxism. Others, including myself, have seen
this as a sign of life, the only certain result of which was to delay the arriv-
al of this crisis as long as possible. But today, discussion revolves not so
much around which of these interpretations is correct, although it is true
that some may seem more obsolete than others. The true bone of conten-
tion is the foundation that forms the basis of all these different viewpoints
— that irreducible assumption which in 1957 led Sartre to call Marxism
the unsurpassable philosophy of our times.
Now, little more than two decades later, Marxism seems not only to be
greatly outdated, but it seems that what no longer works is exactly the

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24 Carla Pasquinelli

aspect that bid Sartre announce his verdict: Marxism as a vision of the
world, a framework which gave meaning to all our actions, which other-
wise were subject to absolutely random contingencies. For Sartre, as well
as for the Marxists themselves, Marxism was a unifying and all-inclusive
explanation of the mysteries of the world, a wide-ranging, emancipatory
tale based on the categories of totality and historical subject, in which rea-
son and myth collaborated to give the proletariat the power to liberate.
It was in the name of this myth that Sartre decided to move on to Marx-

ism and to relegate existentialism to a corner that then seemed entirely

marginal, giving it an assignment that Marxism, impoverished after years
of Stalinism, was no longer able to support: the task of taking care of the
individual.
The attempt to push aside the individual failed. New social actors
forced theirway onto the stage to reclaim their place in history. We are
witnessing the return of immanence and the affirmation of a form of
humanism based on the rediscovery of day-to-day values and on the expe-
rience and leadership of the individual, intent upon fulfilling his own
needs and desires. Moreover, this process of fulfillment no longer calls for
a project of collective transformation but can remain within the present
form of life. The Marxist tale suddenly seems to be inadequate, because
although need and freedom are certainly not estranged from it, in the
background there was always the idea, or the awareness, that needs were
alienated, that if today were denied, a better form of economic and social
organization, i.e. communism, would make possible their realization.
Today, this universal outlook no longer exists. What has been rejected
is just this finalistic, eschatological idea, this framework that gives order
and meaning to the criticism of the present. Thus the crisis of Marxism co-
incides with the end of transcendence.
In part Marxism finds itself caught up in the crisis of classical rationality
to the extent that it has shared many common concepts with the latter: in

particular the idea of progress and of the project, which in the classical
reason imply a linear and cumulative concept of time. What is at stake is

and
the very possibility of the project, that is the possibility to anticipate
to shape what is to come. The attempt to do so, may on the one hand
furnish both significance and perspective to the present. But on the other
hand the idea of the project may be reduced to nothing more than a pro-
jection — an extension of the present into the future, thus negating even
the idea of future, and reducing the space between present and future to a
secondary and functional instrument based on a linear and evolutional
conception of time.
But the idea of the proletariat as a historical subject charged with the
liberation ofmankind contains another element: indeed, it does not
march resolutely forward into the future, but makes its way through a

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Marxism in Crisis: The Decline of the Marxist Myth 25

complex world tinged by vindication for those whom history has defeated
or left behind. It is no coincidence if this very interpretation, elaborated
by the young Lukacs, was aimed principally at the Marxism expressed by
the Second International, the viewpoint which had most completely as-
similated the idea of progress. Benjamin pointed this out and then re-
turned to the issue to elaborate a different way of interpreting time, a
viewpoint that lies behind the idea of the oppressed class as the subject of
knowledge and history, in as much as this class fulfills its mission not only
by means of the »idea of the liberated grandchildren« but also feeding
upon the »image of the enslaved ancestors«.
Thus the idea of the project is countered by the myth, and by the differ-
ent representation of time which integrates future and past breaking with
linear and evolutional time in favour of a circular concept. This myth, as I

said earlier, legitimizes the proletariat in its role as the liberator of man-
kind.
But the Marxist has lost its credibility. The crisis of Marxism coin-
tale

cides with this loss and with the demise of the unifying and legitimizing
powers of the great emancipatory tale. Marxism no longer seems able to
give meaning to the world. So the crisis of Marxism cannot be entirely ex-
plained as the failure of a paradigm of rationality. The crisis of Marxism is
the crisis of the myth.
But it is not true that this crisis means the end of Marxism: it merely
coincides with the decline of the emancipatory tale. In the end, this crisis
has had a liberatory effect, because now finally we can think of Marxism
as one of many ways of modern thinking.
Making immanence the present-day statute of Marxism means restoring
the idea of communism to its original dimension of a »reai movement that
abolishes the existing state of things«. Those who are nostalgic for the six-

ties may take this as reason for regret, but they should bear in mind the
words of Marx: »Communism is not a state of things that must be estab-
lished, nor an ideal to which reality must be made to conform«. This early
declaration remained one of the foundations for all of his later thinking;
indeed, far from foreshadowing a liberated society, communism is actual-
ly the theoretical framework that makes possible a critical analysis of the

present form of life. It is an organizing idea, a form of Kantianism, if you

will, but it is no more than the rejection of transcendence or, at the very

most, the immanent use of it.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
26

Detlev Albers

Thinking Marxism Historically

1. am not the Paladin of Marx«, wrote Antonio Labriola, one of the

»I
firstand most important Italian Marxists, in 1898. »I accept every criti-
cism, for I am, in everything I say and write, a critic myself. I support
wholeheartedly the phrase: 'To understand is to overcome'; but I must
add: To overcome is really to have understood^. A hundred years after
Marx's death, these words still seem perhaps more than ever suitable for
expressing the insights as well as the difficulties which Marxists have to
face, both generally and in the Federal Republic in particular; and even
more so in Social Democracy here.
By submitting to the maxim that »to understand is to overcome« they
represent, in a nutshell, a conception of Marxism which opposes every
form of canonisation. But Labriola' s approach is broader: the attempt to
think in terms of Marx's insights, in his and in our time, demands that we
translate the experiences of the historical process unfolding before us back
into the totality of hitherto recognized laws of social development; that we
exempt none of Marx's from such a continuing rescrutiny; that
insights
we develop them further, overcome them where necessary; and thus main-
tain it dynamic force for social change.
as a
»To understand« can and must mean »to transcend«, but its precondi-
tion must be real understanding. If the first statement is a call for self-criti-
cism, the second is directed no less decisively against criticism of Marx
from outside. For is it not an essential of criticism of Marx that (just as
much today as a hundred years ago) it interprets this or that statement ac-
cording to the letter instead of its actual intention? That it always »re-
futes« what is only a home-made prejudice about what Marxism is?
Whereby, of course, it must be admitted that the followers of Marxism
themselves have often given cause for such misunderstandings.
2. The socialist idea, which owes its first scientific expression to Marx's
work, has left its mark on this epoch as on no other. Radiating out from
Europe, it has reached every continent, in some ways as unchecked as the
spread of capitalism, as whose »gravediggers« it has seen itself since the
Manifesto. This is true whether it is to be found in the vanguard of suc-
cessful revolutions in Europe, Asia, or South America; or whether it
forms (as it often does) the intellectual backbone, the unbreakable inner
line of resistance which has failed or has been forced into failure.

Nevertheless, as great as the heritage and the fertility of the Marxian

ideas are, measured in terms of their capability of becoming a real point of
reference in the thinking of millions of people all over the world, it is im-

ARGUMENTSONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Thinking Marxism Historically 27

portant not to overlook the fact that the decisive test of Marxism as a
science and praxis of liberation of all forms of class society is yet to come.
The vast, world-wide race between the potential of capitalism, still

capable of expansion and of overcoming all the self-produced upheavals

at its central points, and the no less strenuous attempts to break through
the logics of profit once and for all — this race has not only not been won.

The longer it continues, the greater the danger of catastrophe becomes —

be it military, political, or ecological.
We
must take stock of why Marxism has to date only been able to
achieve its successes on weak links in the chain of the capitalist system,

why, having become the ideology of a new state power, it has succumbed
to such strong tendencies towards petrification, dogmatisation and de-
formation. But, above all, why a period of five generations has proved in-
sufficient to defeat the old system on its bastions. Is not the obvious con-
clusion that the form which Marxism has to take on, in order to be a us-
able theory for the breakthrough in the centres of international capitalism,
still has to be developed, discovered, invented?
3. Thinking out Marxism in historical terms rests on the insight that
there should be no regression beyond the decisive discoveries of its foun-
ders — why else would we speak of the history of Marxism? but that —
none of its constitutive elements, neither philosophy nor economics nor
politics, can be spared renovation and further development. None of these
key areas of revolutionary critique, and scarcely an individual element
within them, over these five generations, has not been subjected to
numerous revisions, simplifications, dogmatisms, and apparent re-

futations.
But, in turn, the argument against must be taken into consideration.
We understand the scope and complexity of the challenge facing social-
ism; but out of a critical and self-critical appropriation of the history of
the development of socialist thought and of the struggles to put it into
practice we can reap an approach to the inescapable challenges and tests
of the present day.
4. The new philosophy entered the stage of history as a »spectre«, as it

is already ironically called in the Manifesto, as a counterposition de-

nounced, persecuted, and declared anti-patriotic by all the powers of this
world. It took a long time, often more than the span of a lifetime and in
some places right up to the present day, before the shift in the balance of
power made it impossible to impose this hopeless, peripheral outsider role
on its followers.
In this sensewas an amazing success that, in spite of the setback of
it

Marxism had, in the first decade

the dissolution of the First International,
after Marx's death, already become the almost indisputable world- view of
the organized labour movement on the old continent. The process of the

ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 ©

28 Detlev Alters

welding of the labour movement and Marxism, consolidated by the theo-

retical work of younger authors, had advanced so much by 1914 that for a

long time the first moments of crisis, like the debate on revisionism at the
turn of the century or the disputes surrounding the consequences of the
Russian Revolution on 1905, were underestimated.
was only the outbreak of the First World War and the antagonisms
It

which it caused on all areas of the International, but above all the question

as to how the crisis of the old system shaken by the war could be exploited
by the labour movement, which made apparent how inadequate, incom-
plete and contradictory Socialism's answers to the most pressing problems
of the day were, answers which up to then had been regarded as adequate.
While some declared October 1917 and the strategy of Lenin and the Bol-
sheviks as the road to proletarian revolution, others tried slotting together
varying socialist strategies according to the specific social conditions; while
a large number began to reject radical social change as a goal at all.
Thus the World War and the October Revolution mark so far the
First
deepest watershed in the development of Marxism. The socialist idea has,
on the one hand, grown tremendously in power; for the first time it has
formed its own durable and irreversible state.
But that does not allow us for a moment to evade the question as to
why this transition has never occurred »in the West«, i.e. where the fate of
international capitalism must be decided. Neither here nor »in the East«
has Marxism been able to keep its authentic intellectual foundations in-
tact.

The Second World War, unleashed by fascism, forced both camps in

5.

the labour movement, western democracies and the Soviet Union into a
struggle of life and death. The end of the war, the victory of the anti-Hit-
ler coalition and the successes of the anti-fascist resistance movements led

to a renewed growth in power of the socialist cause; the era of intercapital-

istworld wars seemed at an end. Nevertheless this same period the fort- —
iesand fifties —
developed into what the British Marxist Eric Hobsbawm
has called the »golden age of American capitalism«, which almost irresi-
stibly became the leading force in the whole capitalist world. Indeed, it

succeeded in leading the capitalist world into a new expansive phase of im-
mense intensity.
The weakness of the Left in the centres of the old system has once again
become apparent in the face of this new upswing in international capital-
its rapid restoration in Western Europe and Japan and its
ism since 1945,
dynamism, which extended well into the sixties and seemed to be surviving
all the losses on the periphery.
Fourth-generation Marxism is therefore particularly confronted with
the problem of abandonment, levelling-off and dogmatization. Where its

followers can still regard themselves as a part of the organized labour

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Thinking Marxism Historically 29

movement, something which can no longer be taken for granted, they are,
within the communist family of parties, straitjacketed in a canonised
structure of dogma, whose screening against critical impulses »from be-
low« and »from inside« stands in crassly disproportionate relation to its
recurring and proved instrumentalisation »from above«.
The situation in the parties of the Socialist International is in no way
more favourable. Where Social Democrats, as in Sweden, hold govern-
mental power for decades, they thoroughly weed out all traces of system-
transcending goals or praxis. In the other European countries the corre-
sponding parties see themselves as reformist, subscribing, whether they
like it or not, to the foundations of the existing economic order. Willing-
ness to carry on the socialist and Marxist heritage of earlier generations is

at a general ebb.
6. But the game is not yet decided; capitalism has still not managed to
inter its gravediggers, even where it it had the area
could be satisfied that
of its centres in check. What up apparently just as short-
in 1968 flared
lived protest in the USA and Western Europe became an indisputable cer-
tainty in the seventies: international capitalism, both in its »rich« core
areas and in its plundered and impoverished periphery, was at the begin-
ning of a new era of crisis.

Even a quick glance at the most serious aspects of the problems of capi-
talism today is enough to show that the answers which the Left have thus
far given are inadequate. The race mentioned earlier between the forces of
the old and new social logics threatens in the meantime to damage or even
destroy the basics of life for humanity as a whole. No-one can deny today
that the basic preconditions in the process of exchange between humanity
and nature in the future need completely new elements of worldwide plan-
ning and cooperation, if catastrophes are to be avoided and the chances of
life for future generations to be secured. But it is not merely the scope of
the ecological crisis (although it penetrates every area of society) which is

presenting socialism with new problems

end of the twentieth cen-
at the
tury. The struggle for peace and for the reduction of that unbelievable
waste of human and natural resources invested in armament are no less
relevant here than the construction of a new world economic order which
will introduce a real redistribution of resources in favour of the so-called

Southern Hemisphere.
New problems and questions are piling up in the Western metropoles.
The labour movement finds itself confronted with a situation in which the
forms of organization which it has inherited —
as political party, as trade
union (not to mention the internal decision-making structures of these) —
have become anything but self-understood. All those initiatives which we
so imprecisely put under the heading of »new social movements« have
contained within them from the beginning an element of breaking-off, re-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
30 Detlev Alters

flective stocktaking and often rejection of that whole world of experience

which we regard as traditionally Left«.

7. But what has all this got to do with the basic ideas of the »philosophy

of praxis«? Does it not rather underline the necessity of arriving at a com-

prehensive theory of social contradictions, of their genesis, their struggles,
And is not this the natural territory of his-
the prospects for their solution.
torical materialism,of an authentic Marxism of the present day, one
which of course must be renewed and freshened up? Where else are even
the bare bones of a different, equivalent theory or worldview visible,
which would be a match for the demands being made on us?
We still have to fulfill the task Gramsci defined for Marxism: to counter
»the most sophisticated forms of modern ideologies« and thereby »to
educate the masses of the people who have remained at a medieval level of
culture«. Both fronts demand openness towards new questions and tasks.
Just as the »doctrine of revolutionary praxis« (Bauer) was hardly possible
in the first generations without a variety of changes in its form, it is all the
less likely or desirable that it will be able to do without such changes in the

future. Quite the contrary: All traces of this have repeatedly proved to be
mummifications of the socialist idea.
A hundred years after Marx's death, it has long been a fiction to wish to
refer to a single school of Marxism. Since 1917 at the latest, different
»Marxisms« have held the field. And this process is in itself in no way
harmful, but stands rather as proof of the capacity of socialist thought for
praxis and hegemony. Present-day socialists and Marxists will have to take
seriously the imperative necessity of creating new syntheses — and all the
more self-confidently, the more they become acquainted with the very
core, with the very basics of their standpoint, which more than ever before
need to be cleared up. All they will be doing is to hold to Marx's famous
maxim that »the educator must himself be educated« if we are to achieve
revolutionary praxis«.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 31

Georges Labica

The Status of Marxist Philosophy

On the Experience of Editing the

»Dictionnaire critique du marxisme«

The object of my contribution will be to question the relation between

Marx and Marxism, in a perhaps unusual aspect, that of philosophy. The
question we shall examine is: how was it possible that a radical critique of
philosophy under the aegis and the name of Marx gave birth to a system
as strongly coherent and as vast as »Marxism« or, if one prefers, »Marx-
ism-Leninism«?
In order better to grasp this paradox, its implications and its conse-
quences, allow me to propose a factual approach. I shall start from a re-

cent experience, related to the publication of a Dictionnaire critique du

marxisme, published in France in the context of the commemoration of
the one-hundreth anniversary of Marx's death. 1 This book takes the form
of a collection of some four hundred terms, specific to theory, presented
with their historical development and the problematics to which they gave
rise. The fact that I forged the design of this work and directed its execu-
tion by no means signifies that it is entirely transparent to me. Rather, I
learned a great deal from this undertaking, and I would like to share a cer-
tain number of reflections which, as you will see, are not unrelated to
questions that concern us here today. I shall begin by noting that such an
undertaking was scarcely possible much earlier. The resistance of ortho-
dox establishments, manifested in particular by strictly dogmatic defini-
tions (consigned to various lexicons) — dogmatic in the literal sense —
contaminated intellectual circles far beyond their sphere of influence, hol-
ding critical effort, as it were, in suspension and resulting in what amoun-
ted to a refusal of independent thinking. Thus, my friends and I agreed to
a primary rule of methodology: we would term Marxist all those who, in
one way or another, claimed a tie with Marx. For this was the very condi-
tion for avoiding references to schools and their doctrinal conflicts. And
yet thiswork accepted being inscribed within a history and produced by it:
the history of editorial policies, inasmuch as these show to what extent
Marx and Marxism were sensitive to the laws of the market, whether this
involved the interest, disavowal or denial, from ostracism to gluttony,
found in re-publications of all sorts, even including comic books.Is it not
true, as a general rule, that the sale of Marxist books obeys the fluctu-
ations in class struggle? But, even more clearly, this history reflects the in-
dividual fates of its collaborators, both well-informed specialists and mili-
tants, over several generations and diverse ideological, political or theore-

ARGUMEOT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
32 Georges Labica

tical currents. These collaborators are not orphans in search of their iden-
tity, but rather witnesses intent on ensuring within a field especially secu-
lare the returnof those banished from the official manuals people like —
Lukacs, Trotzky, Korsch, and others such as Pannekoek, to name only a
few. This climate of thought which, in my opinion, has its origins in the
1968 movements, had the notable effect of taking Marxism away from its

self-proclaimed protectors, and of handing it over to the public domain,

even forcing it into the private, protected sphere of the University. A glo-
bal phenomenon of new Reformation, opening up the
desacralization, a
path for free, unfettered readings, made possible, once again, thanks to
the impetus of living contradictions, calling upon the wide-ranging poster-
ity of Marx.
The general, enduring context that has come to occupy this stage of his-
tory was, as we know, to present itself under the convenient features of
the crisis of Marxism. I shall not contest here the aptness of this expres-
sion, nor the meanings that have been attributed to it. I shall limit myself
to noting that »crisis« in my opinion designated the existence of a three-
fold series of questions, concerning: 1) the development of countries of
»really existing socialisms 2) the policy of Communist Parties and, more
broadly, of the worker's movement in capitalist countries, 3) theory itself.
These three critical fronts are obviously interdependent. The question
of democracy, for example, concerns them equally, whether it takes the
form here of the free circulation of people and of ideas, there of central-
ism, and elsewhere of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the back-
ground is lurking those sacred monsters of the State, the Party, Transi-
tion. What strategy for the West, in Spain or in France, even if it be Euro-
communist, can afford to avoid a reflection on, and not simply well mean-
ing replies, concerning the October Revolution and the notion of proletar-
iat? This is not the place to argue this point, and I shall therefore limit my-

self to two remarks. I shall first ask the question: what crisis?, in order to

point out that the crisis is also the very mode of existence of Marxism. Has
it not been in crisis since its inception? For example: Marx, who claimed-
not to be Marxist; old Engels bogged down
in the quarrels of the Second
International; the confrontations between Mencheviks and Bolsheviks;
and of conflicts within the Bolscheviks etc. With respect to a »thought
that has become a world«, as Henri Lefebvre aptly describes it, should we
be surprised that it is so deeply dependent on struggles, especially classes,
which are precisely its material —
history in person? Consequently, is it so
surprising today to see in the precise attribution of this crisis of Marxism a
special task and the site where important issues are at stake — the »death
of Marx«, to mention only the crudest and most exaggerated of these?
From this comes my second question: the crisis of what? I shall argue the
following thesis in regard to this question: we are dealing with the crisis of

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 .

The Status ofMarxist Philosophy 33

marxism as an ideology, as a coherent system, hence as a philosophy. Let

me specify that this reply does not have the audacity to claim to be the on-
ly one possible, or to exhaust the problem. But it is, in my eyes, a prelimi-
nary one which has not yet been sufficiently expounded and which literally
governs some noteworthy effects, which I will only suggest. I am therefore
going to examine this preliminary point and ask you to consider the »phi-
losophy« of marxism.
To be brief I development and I shall
shall distinguish three stages in its
examine the first two in detail, which concern things
not, for lack of time,
you already know or what others have said. For myself, I retain the fol-
lowing:
1 The first stage is the fact that Marx performed the most radical crit-

ique of philosophy that has ever been made. He cruelly wrote in The Ger-
man Ideology that »philosophy and the study of the real world are in the
same relation as onanism and sexual love«. I think I have shown else-
where 2 that this critique provided the conditions for the possibility for
the enunciation of a science of history, which itself is produced through
the »critique of political economy«, to which Marx was to devote the rest
of his life.

2. The second stage, from Engels's final years, mentioned above, to Le-
nin's Materialism and Empirio-criticism, and even after the latter's death,
sees the constant renewal of discussions, of crises in other words, concern-
ing the status of the philosophical. Illustrious in this respect are notably
Kautsky and Bernstein, Plekhanov and Labriola, Bukharin and Gramsci,
whose impassioned debates marked their epoch, and, in any event, signi-
fied to what extent the problems remained open. 3
3. It is with the third stage that things change totally. It coincides with
the advent of Marxism-Leninism, the expression itself dating from the end
of the 1920's. Since the terrain here is not as clearly charted as the earlier
stages, it is necessary to establish some chronological references.
The context of the 1930's opens with the 16th Congress of the CPSU
(Communist Party of Soviet Union) which, assuring that the foundations
of socialism have been built, decrees »the general offensive of socialism«
and »integral collectivism«. 4 In the summer of 1935, the 7th Congress of
the Communist International, confronting the rise of Fascism, cements
the reinforcement of »Marxist- Leninist cores« in the Communist Parties:
Mao, Thaelman-Pieck-Ulbricht, Thorez-Cachin, Gramsci-Togliatti, Kuu-
sinen, Foster, Gottwald, etc. between 1934 and 1939 that arises the
It is

double phenomenon of the consecration of the cult of Stalin and the set-
ting up of a strict philosophical code. The 17*h Congress (early 1934) proc-
laims »the realization of the socialist reconstruction of the economy«, and
the »liquidation of capitalist elements and capitalist consciousness.« After
the massive purges within its ranks, the party presents itself as »unified

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
34 Georges Labica

and monolithic« in which opposition is no longer expressed. In November

1936, the 8th Extraordinary Congress of the Soviets adopts a new constitu-
tion. In 1937, Stalin's power is established in every domain. In 1938, the
History Manual of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) is approved. On the
eve of World War II, the 18th Congress (1939) announces, with collecitivi-
zation, »the achievement of socialisms
And philosophy? It figures in the official history as Chapter IV, under
the title, we know, of Dialectical Materialism and Historical Material-
as
ism. What is perhaps less widely known is the fact that this chapter is de-
voted to the period 1908-1912. The analogy between 1934-39 and 1908-12
isthus imposed deliberately. The analysis of the period that links the first
two decades of this century, a political and historical analysis, is in this
way paralleled and sanctioned by a theoretical analysis. This theoretical
analysis, which will become the breviary of the diamat (cfalectical materi-
alism), is nothing other in the reader's eyes (i.e. presents itself as being
nothing other), than the explanation of theses advanced by Lenin in Ma-
terialism and Empirio-criticism. It will be noted in passing that this proce-

dure of theoretical repetition, which will have many other applications,

finds its point of anchorage and its matrix here. This signifies, in any
event, that the official birth certificate of Marxism-Leninism is closely
linked to the theoretical consecration of Stalinist politics. Many additional
proofs of this can be seen by following the systematic construction of this
legitimation: the Questions of Leninism date from 1939; the liquidation of
Trotzkyism, after Trotzky's assassination in 1940, will become the guaran-
tee of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, hence of the Stalinist vulgate, which
the war will help to make sacred to the whole international workers'
movement, and far beyond it.
5
It is therefore not a matter, as we see here
and there, of setting up the »Stalinist version« of Marxism- Leninism, but
rather of its constitution out of nothing, and of its exposition in the form
of a closed corpus of the Marxist or Marxist- Leninist philosophy. Up until
then, despite certain attempts (Plekhanov, Lenin), this philosophy had ne-
ver attained a form such as this and doubtless never made this claim, but
had existed only in a residual, uncertain, diffuse and, in any case, a prob-
lematic manner. The 1938 brochure, under the triple seal of a power that
succeeded in having itself delegated and validated by Marx and Engels,
thanks to Lenin's approval {Materialism and Empirio-criticism serving to
re-establish Marxism as philosophy) served as a seal of approval for dog-
mas. Here are the main ones: histmat (historical materialism) as the exten-
sion and application of diamat, the laws of the dialectic, the succession of
modes of production, and, above all, the Party as the sole master-of-theo-
ry, Stalin being its spokesman. From this comes, moreover, the world-
wide leadership of the CPSU and the theophany of this model. It should
not come as a surprise to us, wherever the appeals for change may come

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
The Status ofMarxist Philosophy 35

from, whether openly or hypocritically, they will remain without affect as

long as there persists a refusal to follow them back to their root, to the set-

ting up of a philosophy.
Thus the »crisis« is the radical questioning of this teratological Marx-
ism, of this ideology, produced by a history that still advances on the
wrong side. Let us consider once again the three aspects suggested pre-
viously and let us look at the negative side: 1. With respect to socialist
countries, concerning specifically their models, be they economic, politi-

cal, agrarian, artistic or military, as well as the forms of servitude; 2. in the

CPs of capitalist countries, externally, on the terrain of current class strug-
gles which they never cease to want to control, while being continually in-
adequate; internally, where the identification Party/State subsists, when
they are so far from power; 3. within theory, the same play exists between
the norm and variations; this is Marxism that has managed
true of official
to cover over living, or surviving, Marxism so well that one was justified in
thinking that it had ceased to exist. Even the Sartre of Questions of Me-
thod was victim to this dominant illusion; the moles of underground
Marxism are named Gramsci, Lukacs, della Volpe, H. Lefebvre or Gold-
mann.
In less than a century the critique of philosophy was turned into a re-
ligious practice, the vocabulary itself echoing this, exhibiting by its Fidelity
(and its small change: to the USSR, to the Party, to Gensek, etc.) the car-
dinal virtue and the principle of salvation. Who is not reminded of the sin-
ister joke about Marx resurrected obtaining with great difficulty authori-
zation from the Soviet leaders to say a word on the radio and who ex-
claims to the »proletarians of all countries«: »Pardon!«? This is what —
is in crisis, finally, as Althusser said.
This overly-brief resume 6 allocs me to return to my initial considera-
tions and to list them by necessity as a balance-sheet of assets and liabili-
4

ties, whose conditions would (finally! again) be brought together. The ef-

fort to put together a Dictionary, which we have done, is certainly one

way of doing this. In an initial phase, it is the most modest and, it seems to
me, the most reliable way. The various manifestations to commemorate
the centennial, if not all of them, and even these have a meaning if only as
symptoms, at least some of them serve in other ways in drawing up this
balance-sheet. 7 To each one, we have to wish to be productive and distin-
guish, as Croce and Hegel well understood, between what is living and
what is dead. In the same spirit, I shall take the liberty, without insisting
on the point, of making several concluding remarks.
Since it is supposed to be fitting to do a check-up on Marx, rather than
to oppose a particular idea to the deformations that are supposed to have
betrayed him, and even less to propose some non-existent scientific purity

in the face of ideological dress, we are forced to undertake the most rigor-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
36 Georges Labica

ous examination of the family novel. Marxism, or Marxisms, as real be-

coming(s) are but so many discourses that are to be reconstituted. No lon-
ger shall we relegate to the attic of collective memory the idiot aunt or the
misdirected cousin. When it is a matter of resolutely refusing to rewrite
history in relation to the tactical needs of the present, no tribunal is called
for. The program is vast.
2. All of those among us who are no longer blinded by anathema or
partisan apologetics are summoned to the concerns of a scientific reading
(finally terso). Give back the rights to a polyglot Marxism to take the place
of a wooden tongue, this is to be the rule. It corresponds to the will to

treatMarx »as a scholar among others«, regardless of what it may cost;

nothing more nor less.
3. This is why the »return« to Marx, if it has a sense, and it does have
one, even if only concerns the observation of the maintenance of the ca-
pitalist relations of production, of which it made the first diagnosis, is no-
thing other than the re-discovery of its critical force, at work in all of
Marx's writings, finally (four) applied to the history of theory itself, hence
to its concrete practices.
4. 1 shall cite here only one aspect related to this, inherent in the limited
object of our contribution. If it is true that the advent of Marxist or Marx-
ist-Leninist philosophy provides, in Stalinism, the most striking proof,
since Hegel, that philosophy and the State are interrelated (and perhaps,
but this is another question, the truth of all philosophy), how then can we
not admit that we are presented with a double aberration, so harshly repu-
diated by Marx, that of a reign of philosphyand that of a reign of the
stemming from Marx, is not what is
State? Consequently, in a direct line
understood about the State at the same time understood about philoso-
phy? In necessity of the withering away of the State, translated by the
transitory necessity of the existence of a »half-State«, does this not, ipso
facto, concern philosophy? The ad absurdum demonstration that is con-
stituted by the appearance of the complete State, in the total historical ab-
sence of any dictatorship of the proletariat (has this been sufficiently no-
ted?), precisely as a half-State, joined to and legitimated by the establish-
ment of a philosophical system that is fully coherent and without weak-
nesses, does it not compel us to rethink in analogous terms what could
(ought to) be, under the refusal, and in an even more hidden form of the
question, the status of philosophy and that of a half-philosophy?
These construction sites are open, and their stakes are, in my eyes, con-
siderable. With Ernst Bloch, I shall only name their principle: »an incom-
mensurable horizon that is no longer an imposture«. 8

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Summary of Discussions 37

Notes
1 Dictionnaire critique du marxisme. Paris 1982 (German edition in Argument-
Verlag, 1
st
vol. 1983, 2 nd vol. forthcoming).
2 Sur le statut marxiste de la philosophic Paris 1976.
3 See in particular Predrag Vranicki, Storia del marxismo. Roma 1972, 2 vols.
4 See: Histoire du Parti communiste de I' Union Sovietique. Moscow. Under
the direction of B. Ponomarev, no date.
5 A new illustration of this has been given recently by Fernando Claudin: San-
tiago Carillo, Cronica de un secretario general. Barcelona, February 1983,
who speaks, precisely, of a »Stalinist mode of being« (p. 47).
6 I go into greater detail in a work that will soon appear, devoted to Marxisme-
leninisme (Paris: Ed. B. Huisman), Febr. 1984.
7 I shall present orally some information gleaned from the International Col-
loquium, TOeuvre de Marx un siecle apres (Paris X, CNRS, Sorbonne, Ecole
Normale Superieure Ulm) March 17-20, 1983, which will be published. It is

for this reason that I do not go into this in this paper.

8 Le Principe Esperance. Paris 1976, vol. 1, n. 252. Bloch began to write this

work in 1938.

Rachel Sharp

Summary of Discussions

The debate commenced with Ernesto Laclau questioning Carla Pasquinel-

li's use of the concept of immanence. In his view, such a concept shares
exactly the same problems as that of transcendence, namely that it presup-
poses some notion of a social totality. The latter idea has to be rejected
given that there exist no means whereby we can scientifically understand
society. Whilst concurring with the latter point, Pasquinelli wanted to
exempt her notion of immanence from such a criticism. She reasserted her
commitment to an idea of immanence entirely enclosed within the reality
of the present and refused any concept of Marxism as teleology or escha-
tology. The idea of Marxism which she wanted to retain was entirely secu-
larized, based upon a series of projects, all of which are rooted and anch-
ored in the present.
Frieder Otto Wolf, whilst applauding the desire not to be submerged in
anything resembling religious ideology, intervened to ask of Pasquinelli
the nature of the new kind of developments being brought up in the cur-
rent situation and to be more specific about the new mode of politics
which she was advocating. In response to Wolfgang Haug's paper, he ar-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
38 Rachel Sharp

gued that theissue was not whether we should maintain a commitment to

the idea ofMarxism as scientific socialism but to be able to free ourselves
from the notion of a scientific Weltanschauung as a mediating link. Ad-
dressing issues raised in Albers' paper, he suggested that the lack of an ef-
fective socialist working class movement in advanced capitalist countries
may have more to do with the power of the productive forces under capi-
talism than with the inadequacies of Marxist theory.
Detlev Albers, in his response, wanted to stress the failures of classical
Marxism. To go beyond the latter required not only a more penetrating
economic analysis but a further elaboration of Marxist philosophy, an
analysis of politics, culture, ideology and their interconnections. He reite-
rated the fact that the Marxist tradition comprised the cumulative expe-
rience of five different generations of Marxists, each of which confronted
different conditions, and sought to engage with varying political issues.
The problem for our generation was how to forge a revolution in advan-
ced capitalism, how to move beyond capitalism.
Herbert Bosch and Margherita von Brentano both posed the question
of the unity of Marxism. If as Wolfgang Haug had argued, one could not
of commitment to a method, is there, or can there
retreat into the security
be, any unified core to Marxism, given the different historical experience
and traditions of Marxists in a range of eras and national contexts? Albers
implied that this question should not preoccupy us. The central issue was
one of politics, of how to engage in revolutionary praxis in the here and
now. We, who live in the metropolitan centres of the capitalist world
should not concern ourselves with the adequacy or otherwise of Marxism
in other contexts such as in the Third World or in socialist countries.

Carlo Pasquinelli suggested that the idea of socialism as it has devel-

oped in the west was now outmoded. There has been no unilinear devel-
opment of capitalism, the working class has not proved itself the subject
of history. The crisis of classical rationality is with us ... new social sub-
jects of history are emerging with which we must connect.
Herbert Bosch rephrased his question about thecommon core of Marx-
ism. Albers maintained that it specify a common
would be impossible to
problem that Marxists everywhere have faced. Any definition of Marxism
must include a pluralism of views and traditions. Our priority now was to
provide answers to the current contradictions, both those of a global
scope such as the ecological crisis and the accelerating arms race, and
those specific to different national, political communities with their uni-
que histories.
The main problem with the was the somewhat abstract na-
discussion
ture of the debate. This seemed fixated at the point of the fi-
first session
nale of the previous year's Conference on Rethinking Ideology. There the
consensus seemed to reflect the need to confront the specificities of the

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
The Controversy over Materialism 39

present crisis in world capitalism. However, little advance in that direction

seemed to have occurred in the intervening year. Moreover, the tensions

over defining what is the common core of Marxism seemed no nearer re-
solution. Apart from espousing some moral commitment and a concern
for a better future, participants seemed reluctant in this session to self de-
fine themselves in relationship to anything positive in the Marxist tradi-
tion. To stress pluralism, diversity, capitalism's multilinear evolution,
multiple subjects of history, diverts attentionaway from some common
and general features of the capitalist accumulation process, the effects of
which we are all confronting.
The ascendancy of the New Right may certainly be a living proof of the
failure of socialists to intervene effectively in the current crisis, but that
more effective politics can be developed without any adherence to the
scientific core of Marxist analysis of capitalism seems doubtful and a re-
treat into relativistic impotence. To commit our faith to the new social
movements, without simultaneously analysing their contradictory poten-
tialities for a project of emancipation from capitalist oppression, may be

premature.

Ernesto Laclau

The Controversy over Materialism

The concept of »materialism« plays a variety of roles in the field of marx-

ist which aren't coherent 'and compatible among them-
discourse, roles
selves. Consequently, in the brief remarks which follow I won't attempt to

construct a general concept of »materialism« nor search for a common

denominator to the totality of its uses, but rather to detect in certain types
of reasoning the moment in which the recourse to »materialism« forms
part of an explanatory structure.
1 . In a first sense, »materialism« alludes to a type of discourse whose
object is »the totality of the existent«. Idealism and materialism would be
discourses differentiated through their way of conceiving and characteriz-
ing that totality. This is we find inscribed concepts such as
the place where
»infinite matter everywhere in movement«. It isn't difficult to show that,
in as much as they are discourses referring to »the totality of the existent«,
both materialism and idealism aren't different. Because to establish the
distinction between them, it would first be necessary to establish the diffe-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
40 Ernesto Laclau

rence between »matter« on the one hand, and »spirit« or »concept« on

the other, and to affirm that the substance of the real is one or the other.
But if the discourse refers to the totality of what exists, in that case it is

being affirmed that the spirit is also matter in one alternative, and that
matter is That is to say, that it is impos-
also spirit in the other alternative.
sible to discriminate between the two because they are both affirming
exactly the same thing. Hegel knew this so well that he maintained that
materialism had historically been one of the first forms of idealism. The
basis of this antinomy is the attempt to define (that is, to place limits to)
that which is conceived as boundless. This contradictory intention had to
lead to absurd disputes in which all the opponents stated the same thing
without realising it. Something which is prior to every distinction — pre-
cisely because it comprises them all — could at most have a name, but not
a concept, since the latter supposes differentiation. And if it is a question
of names without the corresponding concepts it makes no difference
whether we call this entity God, matter, nature or square root. But of
course, the name is also inappropriate, not only because there is no con-
cept of the entity which this name designates, but also because the entity
itself is purely fictitious.

2. In a different sense, the term »materialism« has been used not to re-
fer to the totality of the real, but rather to establish a point of view con-
cerning the relative efficacy of the distinct parts of the real. One can there-
fore talk about the determinant role of the economy in different historical
processes. Let us consider two versions of this argument: one a popular
version, the other a more elaborate one consisting in the affirmation of
the »determination in the last instance by the economy« The popular . ver-
sion is the one which can be found in assertions such as »human beings
have to eat before they can think«. This affirmation contains two ele-

ments: one is a truism which consists of the implication that human beings
would die without eating (this is evidently true, but equally so is the fact
that they would die without breathing); the other is the perfectly false sug-
gestion, that human beings can eat before thinking. How? By putting into
operation an instinctive system similar to that of animals? Marx clearly re-
jects a dualism of this sort. In studying the work process he maintains:
»Here, we begin with the supposition of labour already moulded under a
form that belongs exclusively to man. A spider performs operations simi-
lar to the handlings of a weaver, and the building of bee hives could, given
their perfection, shame a master craftsman. However there is something
which gives an advantage even to the worst craftsman over the best bee,
and it is the fact that prior to undertaking the task he designs it in his
brain. The end result of this work process is something which prior to the
process already existed in the mind of the worker; that is to say, a result of
something which already had an ideal existences That is, the reproduc-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
The Controversy over Materialism 41

tion of material existence presupposes thought and isn't prior to it. It is a

social reproduction because of this. Behind the dualism between thinking
and eating hides another dualism which has had a dismal influence on
marxist thought: the dualism between theory and practice. As if theory
wasn't a specific practice, and as if practice was a blind and mechanical
process! Here we find an intellectualistic and idealistic conception of
thought combined with a vulgar materialist conception of practice.
3. With regard to the argument concerning the concept of »determina-

tion in the last instance by the economy«, we face a different problem.

This argument isn't based on simple dualisms such as thinking/eating or
theory/practice, but rather in the relative effectiveness of the different
levels of social reality. Here a first distinction is necessary: the discussion
concerning the validity of the concept of »determination in the last in-

stance by the economy« has nothing to do with the question concerning

the influence and importance of the economic processes in concrete social
formations. One could arrive the — empiricallyat but pos- false logically
sible — conclusion that everything which occurs some part of these in for-
mations is the result of changes which occur in the sphere of the economy,
without this proving the validity of the concept of »determination in the
last instance« . Because the theoretical location where this latter concept is

constructed isn't that of »concrete social formations« but rather that »of
the a priori and hence necessary structure of every possible society«. And
the problem is the following: is this a legitimate and valid level of analysis?
Is it true that every society has an a priori underlying structure? There are
two problems with this way of posing the question. The first is that if there
is something called »the economic« that is determinant in the last instance
in any type of society, it has to have an identity which doesn't depend on
any type of concrete social arrangement —
because it is an invariant which
produces its effects independently from the type of society involved.
However »the economic« considered in these terms is merely an abstrac-
tion of certain characteristics common to different forms of the material
reproduction of society. And if we bring together the combination of the
abstract characteristics —
that is to say, predicates in an entity which —
produces concrete effects —
determination in the last instance, here and
now —
we are incurring what Marx in his critique of Hegel's Philosophy
of Right called a hypostasis. But to maintain that the abstract (the con-
cept) determines the concrete, is quite simply ... idealism. A second prob-
lem, which is merely a consequence of the first is that the different instan-
ces of a society appear in thisapproach in a certain hierarchical order —
for example, the distinction between a base and a superstructure. We are
on the terrain of a topography of the social. And this topographical distri-
bution can only be established on the basis of an abstraction. It is impossi-
ble to determine a-prioristicaUy whether this abstraction is pertinent

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
42 Ernesto Laclau

or not: it depends on the problem that is to be studied. However, if one

thinks of this abstraction as a »real essence«, as the necessary form of ev-

ery society, we face the same problem as before: the abstract determines
the concrete. In this sense it is important to recognize that the critique of
economism which has developed so much in recent years is extremely limi-
ted: this critique has only insisted on the broadening of the area of the ef-
ficacy of the superstructures; yet these are merely displacements within a
topography that remains unquestioned. If on the other hand one aban-
dons the idealist problematic of »determination in the last instance«, the
true problems of a materialist analysis begin to emerge: to what extent is

the so-called field of the economy unified, or on the contrary, is the result
of complex social articulations? What degree of autonomization of these
spheres exist in a given society? What is the relative power of each of these
spheres in order to impose a continuity of effects over others? Etc.
4. The preceeding analysis led us to the assertion that the status of the
abstract isn't that of being the essence of the concrete; yet the question
that remains open is to determine the degree and forms of concrete exis-
tence of the abstract. Because if essentialism is an erroneous plulosophical
position, so too then is the proposition that the abstract only exists as a
moment of analysis or in the field of the imaginary. It seems to me that
this is a decisive point. Let me give an example. Let us suppose the follow-
ing line of reasoning: »man« is from selecting
an abstraction which results
certain common characteristics from the »French«,
»Germans« or the the
»Italians« on the one hand; or from the »workers«, »capitalists« and the
»petty-bourgeois« on the other. Consequently the category of »man« has
a purely analytical validity and we would incur a hypostasis if we attribu-
ted to it a concrete existence. Yet this argument is deceptive, because it

doesn't consider that in a variety of discourses »man« is a concrete catego-

ry — for example, in legal and constitutional discourses which establish
the rights of man and which institutionally organize a combination of
concrete social practices; or in a religious discourse which establishes that
human beings in as much as they are such, are bearers of certain rights
and duties. Consequently, it is necessary not to confuse those abstractions
which would emerge from the exclusive point of view of a logical hierar-
chy, with those other abstractions materialized in discursive forms which
inform and organize social relations. Certain categories which would be
relatively »concrete« from a logical point of view can perhaps produce ef-
fects only at an analytical level; while others, formally more abstract, can
be an integral part of a variety of concrete discursive structures. Further-
more, the hierarchy and forms of their articulation don't rely either on
purely logical reasons —
think of the many ways in which the categories
of »human being« and »race« have been articulated in the twentieth cen-
tury.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
What Marxism? 43

To summarize: the only meaning of the term »materialism« which

seems valid to me is that which opposes the reduction of the real to the
concept; this implies that we must radically abandon the idea of a unifying
essence of society.

Antoni Domenech

What Marxism?
A Propos Marx and Societal Evolution

The idea of societal evolution is perhaps one of the topics which tests the

ability of contemporary Marxism to confront three unavoidable intellec-

tual tasks: (1) The conservation of many of its classical methodological

positions and, above all, its dialectical apercu of social life, apercu that has
always — but more recently in particular — been positively estimated by
mainstream social scientists such as Schumpeter, Georgescu-Roegen or
Raymond Boudon. The abandonment of obsolete analytical categories
(2)
(such as the labour theory of value) and methodological traits (such as the
topic of essence and appearance), which, quite understandably, tempt ma-
ny to see Marxism as a mere chapter of the history of social sciences. To
hold (1) and (2) together means that contemporary theoretical Marxism
ought to be rescued from the history of ideas and reinserted into main-
stream social science. An analytically renewed Marxism could even
strongly influence the present course of restructuration in the social scien-
ces. (3) The previous claims are not mere hairsplitting, but add up to an
argument for a radical and historical feasibility of the substantially unre-
versible —
though perhaps redefinable —
moral aim of revolutionary
Marxism: communism. The implication of (3) is moral conservatism with
respect to the tradition.
I am afraid that the simultaneous affirmation of (1), (2) and (3) defines
a minor tenet in the present panorama of western intellectual Marxism. In
the following lines I shall, however, try to obey the three desiderata in exa-
mining the idea of societal evolution. For the sake of classification I shall
call the three desiderata (1) heuristic conservatism, (2) analytical subver-
sion, and moral conservatism with respect to the tradition.
(3)
conservatism. After decades of discredit, interest in evolu-
(1) Heuristic
tionary understanding of human history and social systems has again re-
vived. John Maynard Smith, one of the most celebrated evolutionary bio-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 «

44 A ntoni Domenech
logists of our time, has correctly stressed that »with the recent revival of
scholarly interest in Marx, other social scientists have embraced the Marx-
ian scheme of social evolution« The key to the renewed interest in the
1
.

»Marxian scheme« is probably the crisis in current social science to do

with what Georgescu-Roegen (1971, 79-80) calls »the temper of our cen-
tury«: »The temper has thus come to conform to one of Plato's adages:
'He who never looks for numbers in anything, will not himself be looked
for in the number of famous men*. This attitude has also some unfor-
tunate consequences, which becomes obvious to anyone willing to drop
the arithmophormic superstition that there is little, if any, inducement to
study Change unless it concerns a measurable attribute. Evolution would
still be largely a mysterious affair had Darwin been born a hundred years

later. The same applies to Marx's analysis of society.

Evolution implies »emergence«, novelty by combination, qualitative

change; and qualitative change is hardly schematizable in arithmophormic
terms. Thence, evolutionary theories can only have a (sometimes very) li-

mited predicted power, even though they are normally endowed with a
great interpretative ex post explanatory power. The social scientists who
have recently turned Marx have surely been searching
their attention to
for an interpretative understanding of human history.
But not only dialectical sensibility for qualitative change makes the
Marxian tradition attractive. Another trait of dialectical thinking is also
particularly appealing: its globalizing power, i.e., the power of interdisci-
plinary intellectual activity which tries to discover patterns common to
many disciplines in order to gain a coherent picture of complex reality. In
the best Marxian traditions, interpretative will and globalizing ambition
have always gone together. 2
(2) Analytical subversion. The social scientists actually interested in an
evolutionary approach (above all, ethnologists such as Rappaport, Harris,
Service, or the first Sahlins) have been seduced by the conceptual and ma-
thematical tools (above all, optimisation theory and systems theory) which
biologists use in their investigations. Some of these social scientists call
themselves »cultural ecologists« or »cultural materialists«. They have
turned their attention to the relationships between culture and environ-
ment in order to conceive the cultures as ecosystemic segments; as »energy
capturers and transformer The scholarly success of »ecological ethno-
.

logy« in the 1960s and 1970s has also decisively contributed to the acade-
mic rehabilitation of Marxism in the USA.
»Social immanent evolutionists«, as we shall call them, also gained a
great audience in the 60s and 70s. Nevertheless, since they have neglected
economic and ecological phenomena, they appear in today's economic
and ecological crisis as a rather marginal phenomenon. This orientation
can further be seen to include sociologists and social philosophers as diffe-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
What Marxism? 45

rent as Luhman and the Habermas of the Zur Rekonstruktion des histori-
schen Materialismus in the German area. They also continue the metho-
dological tradition to which the 19th century evolutionists belonged.
In spite of Darwin's and Marx's pionieering work, it is not until in the
20th century that evolutionary thinking has become aware of the fact that
evolutionary processes are stochastic processes. From this perspective, one
ought first try to identify a filtering mechanism responsible for the evo-
lution and adaptation of the considered populations, or organisms. The
mechanism acts by selection or »filtering« random small variations so as
to seperate them into the adaptive or functional ones and the unadaptive
or dysfunctional ones; it acts by maintaining the former and by annihi-
lating the latter. The paradigmatical evolutionary mechanism is natural se-
lection which is utilized by biologists in functional explanations. 3
The investigations of »social immanent sociologists« do not postulate
such a filtering mechanism. Their concept of societal evolution rests there-
fore on a developmental idea, without relationships with the environment,
without indication of plausible internal processes which would be respon-
sible for the alleged development. Hence, the accounts provided by these

sociologists are, even at best, very mysterious black box explanations. A

necessary condition of an evolutionary vision of social life, then, is to fur-
nish plausible feedback mechanisms capable of supporting functional
consequence explanations in social science. 4
Let us now summarize a few desiderata which an evolutionary vision of
human should fulfill: (a) it should explore the relationships be-
social life
tween cultures and ecosystems: (b) it should provide feedback mechan-
isms which make evolutionary explanations reasonably suitable; and (c) it
should try to see the mechanisms as plausible ones.
»Social-immanentist theories« do not fulfill (a), (b), or (c). Sociobiolo-
gy certainly fulfills (b), but neglects (a) and obviously does not fulfill (c).
But what about neoevolutionist ethnologists? It is obvious that they fulfill
(a). Nevertheless, it can be questioned whether they also fulfill (b).

They often speak of cybernetic loops, homeostatic devices, of concepts

borrowed from evolutionary biology and ecology. But when ecologists
speak of homeostatic devices, they refer to
e.g. — not to principles
results
— of stochastic processes determined by mechanisms of natural selection.
The trouble is that most of the ethnoevolutionists seem to have no clarity
on this crucial point. Therefore, with respect to (c), »cultural ecology« is
fairly disappointing.

The actual facit of »cultural evolutionism« is that it appears reasonable

when confronted with human societies which are still very dependent on
their milieu; societies which are susceptible to pure — or almost pure —
ecosystemic explanations, because insight learning and purposive behav-
iour play no important role in them. In this way, »cultural ecology« can

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
46 Antoni Domenech

well account for socio-environmental homeostasis in »primitive so-

cieties^ 5 But what about capitalism? What about its success and its ex-
tremely dangerous relationships with ecological patrimony?
Some ecoethnologists are aware of these difficulties. Accordingly, they
have begun to study »maladaptation« and related topics. 6 But it is hard to
see how they could develop fruitful theoretical frameworks without con-
sidering the proper mechanisms which govern the evolution of human so-
cieties: reinforcement and learning filters.

»Cultural ecology« has still one way to escape these objections. It is, in
any case, right in that the human species is also submitted to ecological
and thermodynamic constraints. It makes sense to say, abstractly, that
human survival demands a high degree of stability in the relationships be-
tween culture and nature. Periods of instability, even very long ones, have
to be seen as exceptional. And, as an example, the exceptionality of
modern capitalist culture has to do with the exceptionality of its energetic
basis: the giant — but limited and nonrenewable — stock of fossil fuel.

Hence it is not unsound to argue that either modern civilization has to im-
prove its relationships with natural patrimony radically or mankind will

inevitably perish. 7
The trouble with this type of argument is that it is too abstract to (a) ex-

plain the causes of instability and/or »maladaptation«; and to (b) provide

a framework in which purposive corrective actions were conceivable.
become aware of certain difficulties in evo-
Lately, biologists have also
lutionary biology presumably arisingfrom the lack of differentiation be-
tween long-term and short-term evolution. What is most interesting is a
recent attempt to approach short-term evolution with a mathematical in-
strumentarium proceeding from the social sciences: game theory. One
might hope that an application of game theory to the problems of social
evolution would decisively contribute to their clarification. With game-
theoretical tools one could at least consider (i) societies not as more or less
undifferentiated wholes —
in their ecosystemic relationships but with —
their characteristic class and institutional divisions; (ii) the type of game
which individuals and groups of individuals are playing against other indi-
viduals or groups of individuals; and (iii) the type of game that a given so-
ciety is playing against nature.
Moral conservatism with respect to the revolutionary tradition. Neo-
(3)
evolutionary and game-theoretical approaches should not be mutually
exclusive. Every societal stage, or every mode of production analysed in
game-theoretical terms is itself the result of an evolutionary process. Neo-
evolutionary cultural ecology helps us understand that without the radical
correction of the present trends of planetary capitalism with respect to the
ecosphere, mankind will inevitably perish. Both the explication of the me-
chanisms underlying evolutionary explanations and the game-theoretical

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
WhatMarxism? 47

framework can help us understand how this situation emerged and per-
haps what is still feasible in order to counteract lethal tendencies in human
The only way to escape the fate of ecological death is a radical
civilization.

break with what Marx called spontaneous (naturwuchsige) evolution of

mankind, and that implies a radical break with the planetary disorder
emanated from the system of world market economy, and the realization
of world communism as the only rational and egalitarian way of planning
the satisfaction of human basic needs.

Notes
1 John Maynard Smith (1982)
2 Nobody has covered this more masterly and thoroughly than Manuel Sacri-
stan. See Vol. I of his collected papers (Sacristan 1983).
3 Marx's lack in perceiving the stochastic nature of evolutionary processes
shows clearly in his letter to Engels from 7 August 1866.
4 See Philippe van Parijs 1981, Chs. 4, 5 and 6.
5 See the classical studies of Rappaport (1968) and Harris (1965).
6 See Rappaport (1977).
7 The illusion of nuclear energy as an alternative to fuel scarcity fails to per-
ceive the global entropic nature of modern economy. See Georgescu-Roegen
(1971) and (1973).

Literature
Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas, 1971: The Entropy Law and the Economic Pro-
cess, Cambridge (Mass.)
Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas, 1973: Energy and Economic Myths, reprinted in
his Energy and Economic Myths, New York, 1976
Maynard Smith, J., 1982: Models of Cultural and Genetic Change; in Evolution,
36 (3), May 1982
Parijs, Phillipe van, 1981: Evolutionary Explanation in Social Sciences, London
Rappaport, A., 1968: Pigs for the Ancestors, New Haven
Rappaport, A., 1977: Maladaption in Social Systems, in The Evolution of Social
Systems, J. Friedman and M.J. Rowlands (eds.), London
Roemer, John, 1982: General Theory of Exploitation and Class. Harvard
Manuel, 1983: Panfletos y materiales. Vol. I: Sobre Marx y marxismo,
Sacristan,
Barcelona

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
48

Rainer Winkelmann

The Concept of Machine and the Thesis

of an Epoch of Manufacture in Marx's »Capital«

This paper presents some results of a historical-critical edition of unpub-

lished excerpts by Marx on technology. The main objective of this edition
1

is a philologically reliable presentation of these excerpts based on a theore-

tical understanding of what the theoretical subject of these excerpts was

for Marx, combined with an analysis of the use he made of them.

The work analyzes the research process of Marx, showing its dynamics,
its failures and great achievements very clearly; it is an inductive approach

to problems of materialism, aiming to further development of a new ma-

terialism, which rests on the achievements of Marx.
Marx starts the analysis of the great industry in Capital with the analysis
of machinery, for he proceeds from the assumption: »In manufacture, the
revolution in the mode of production begins with labour power, in mo-
dern industry it begins with the instruments of labour« {Capital, 371). He
continues: »Our first inquiry then is, how the instruments of labour are
converted from tools into machines, or what is the difference between a
machine and the implements of a handicraft?« {ibid.).
After a brief discussion of this difference and the concept of machine,
Marx comes to the point: »The tool or working machine is that part of
machinery with which the industrial revolution of the 18th century
started« {Capital, 373). —
Marx fuses two questions together here: what is
a machine and the question of the application of machinery on a socially
large scale, that is, the industrial revolution.
This connection confirmed (and perhaps caused) by the central defi-
is

nition of machine2 which is the definition advanced by Ch. Babbage. 3

,

Babbage' s definition follows A. Smith's argument that machinery is

merely a result of the division of labour. It is thus not so much a techno-
logical definition, but a politico-economic one. But in Marx's citation it

becomes a technological definitionof machine.

When Marx relates the development of machinery merely to changes in
the instrument of labour, he comes closer to the truth as concerns techno-
logy than Babbage. But together with his overarching starting-point — the
question of the causes of the change of the social mode of production, i.e.

here the industrial revolution — this leads here to a clear tendency of fe-

tishizing machines: their development causes the changes in the social

mode of production. The relation to the development of social labour and
its relations is here cut off; the development of technology has taken in

their place. This is a technological concept of history.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
»Machine« and »Manufacture« in Marx's »Capital« 49

From here, Marx comes to the construction of an »epoch of manu-

facturer as an intermediate stage of production that lies between the typi-

cal feudalmode of production (handicraft) and the »typical capitalistic

mode of production (industry). In this epoch — following Marx — manu-
facture is neither the most common nor the dominating form of organi-
sation of production4 : it is merely the technologically most advanced one.
Thus the epoch of manufacture is the technologically necessary epoch of
preparation of industrialisation. 5
Marx takes manufacture and industry as two phases of the same line of
development. This is a technologically defined line that designates the de-

velopment of the most advanced productive forces of both stages of his-

tory. This thesis is historically incorrect, and supports theoretically a tech-

nological and evolutionistic concept of history.
In the work of Marx, we
find elements of a technological concept of
history as well as an evolutionistic concept of the development of techno-
logy. Both are non-idealistic but materialistic concepts: this is, however, a
natural-scientific, pre-Marxian materialism that Marx applies here in ex-
plaining human history.
There are thus several types or better, stages, of materialism in the work
of Marx. Technological materialism is sometimes mixed with historical
materialism. In this way, Marx partly shares the reified consciousness of
his bourgeois opponents. Concretely, there are several divergent concepts
of the industrialisation process in the work of Marx, based on the differ-
ences in his materialism. Thus these differences are of great practical im-
portance.
To separate these differences is the first step for a repotentialisation of
Marx's theory. 6

Notes
1 Marx: Exzerpte; cf. the paper by Hans-Peter Miiller in this volume.
2 »The machine, which is the starting point of the industrial revolution, ... mechanism
operating with a number of similar tools ... set in motion by a single motive power ...«
(Capital, 376).
3 Cf. Marx: Exzerpte, p. LVIII.
4 Cf. Capital, 368.
5 In consequence of his concept of machinery, Marx overlooks here the existence of ma-
chines before industrialisation or even before capitalism, for example in the ancient
Greece.
6 The concept of repotentialisation of theory (or other products of labour) was devel-
oped by L. Krader 1979.

Literature
Krader, Lawrence, 1979: A Treatise of Social Labour, Assen
Marx, Karl, 1970: Capital, Vol. 1, Lawrence & Wishart, London
Marx, Karl, 1981: Exzerpte uber Arbeitsteilung, Maschinerie und Industrie, Historisch-
kritische Ausgabe. Transcribed and edited by Rainer Winkelmann, Frankfurt/M.,
Berlin/ W., Wien etc., 1981

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
50

Hans-Peter Muller

Notes on Critical and Uncritical Materialism

within Marx's Analysis of Industry

If we analyse the history of application of his technologico-historical ab-

stracts concerning J.H.M. Poppe, K. Karmarsch and J. Beckmann 1
, we
find that one of Marx's main subjects which are founded on them is the
problem of the causes of the industrial revolution. Referring to Charles
Babbage's definition of machinery in his own manuscripts of 1861-1863 as
well as in Capital, Marx tends to see the principle of production by machi-
nery applied to working machinery as the starting point of the first in-
dustrial revolution, the same principle applied to the prime mover (e.g. the
steam engine) as the starting point of a second industrial revolution as
well. 2 But what about the preparatory stage of this development?
Analogous to the processes within the natural kingdom as shown by
Darwin, Marx held that there is existing a historical process of preparation
within the history of human and social instruments producing as a result
the necessary conditions for the application of the principle of production
by machinery. Marx characterizes this process by the notions of »differen-
tiation, specialization and simplification of tools«. 3 By these notions,

chosen analogously with those of Darwin, Marx may have tried to outline
what he held a special and social kind of variation, selection and here-
ditary transmission within human technology during the age of manufac-
ture. This repeated significant combination of Darwin and Babbage can
be taken for proof of the thesis of an element of evolutionary conception
of history within Marx's analysis of industry. 4
Marx was right when he held that the principle of production by ma-
chinery cannot yield a criterion that helps to subdivide human history. He
shares in this conception whenever pointing out that the principle of pro-
duction by machinery is an age-old and well-known principle applied to all
sorts of mills, »but they do not revolutionize the mode of production^ 5
On the other hand, he shares just in this recommitted position, whenever
implying that the principle of production by machinery can obtain the
state of criterion for the subdivision of human history as well, i.e. when-
ever relating the historical break-through of the application of the prin-
ciple of production by machinery to peculiarities of working machinery
and whenever enlarging this relation by the element of a preparatory and
by reference to Darwin, therefore an evolutionary, process of differenta-
tion, specialisation, and simplification of human instruments during the
development of the division of labour. His technologico-historical ab-
stracts confirm his conception that the prevalence of these evolutionary

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 1

Materialism in Marx's Analysis of Industry 5

processes depends e.g. on the technical complexity within the processes of

production. This can be taken as a starting point for our thesis that there
is an element of a technological conception of history within Marx's an-
alysis of industry.
But it is more than just unsteadiness and errors that can be found in
Marx. It is he himself, too, who in contrast to all evolutionary and techno-
logical conceptions, makes clear that from the point of view of a social
materialism man's activity in relation to nature and within society has to
be pointed out as the motor of history. 6 Technology only reveals the active
component and relation of human beings to nature, but neither founds
nor determines record of human activity.
this process. It is rather the

Technology can therefore not be conceived by analogy to evolutionary

processes of differentiation and specialization. Technology must be con-
ceived as the revealing record of the active relation of human beings to na-
ture and within a certain social organization of their labour. The social
human history — or the history we make in contrast to that we do not
make, and here Marx is explicitly referring to Gambattista Vico7 , who in-

troduced this subdivision into the science of history — must be subdivided

by inner criterions of social labour in contrast to the history of nature or
the history we do not make. These are the conclusions we have to derive
from this often-neglected note of Marx, one of the few positive explica-
tions of materialism containing the key to both a critical and materialistic
conception of technology, of the motor of human history and of the pro-
blem of its periodization.
It is Marx himself who pours out this mockery on the abstract, and
scientific materialism excluding the historical process. 8 But it is the same
Marx who, at times, tends to an evolutionary and technological con-
ception of history, both being a kind of materialism —
but not a critical
one.
So the analysis of the origin and the history of application of his tech-
nologico-historical extracts can be used as a means for a critical repoten-
tialisation of his materialism by means of what Karl Korsch had called the
»application of materialism to materialism itself«. Repotentialisation is

the way by which we can separate the living from the dead in Marx's ma-
terialism. 9

Notes
1 Cf. Karl Marx: Die technologisch-historischen Exzerpte. Historisch-kritische
Ausgabe. Transcribed and edited by Hans-Peter Miiller; Frankfurt/M., Ber-
lin/ W., Wien 1981.
2 Cf. Karl Marx: Zur Kritik der Politischen Okonomie (Manuskript von 1861-
1863), in: MEGA2 , Abteilung II,Band 3.6, pp. 1913ff. Cf. also Karl Marx:
Das Kapital, Erster Band. In: Marx-Engels-Werke, Band 23, Berlin/DDR
1968, pp. 391ff., especially p. 396.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
52 Jacques Bidet

3 Cf. op.cit., pp. 1913-1914; op. cit., p. 361.

4 Marx again refers to Darwin in direct context with technology. Cf. Das Kapi-
tal, pp. 392-393, note 89.
5 Op.cit., p. 395.
6 Cf. the above mentioned note 89 on pp. 392-393.
7 Cf. op.cit.
8 Cf. op.cit.
9 The notion of »repotentialisation« has been engraved and elaborated by
Lawrence Krader; cf. his A Treatise of Social Labor, Assen, 1979.

Jacques Bidet

Summary of Discussions

The discussion in this section focused primarily on Ernesto Laclau's inter-

pretation of materialism. Wolfgang Fritz Haug opposed Laclau's presen-

tation of the meaning of Materialism in the thought of Marx. For Marx
»idealism« is not primarily a view, but a socio-structural reality; he there-
fore sometimes speaks about other ideological powers. Historical Materi-
alism has inevitably to analyse in the first instance this complex structure
of domination, in which »idealism« is »inscribed«. It is necessarily op-
posed to idealism, though not at all on the same level. Laclau's argument
would make sense only in confrontation with certain conceptions in —
Marxism- Leninism for instance —
which 1) reestablish Philosophy as the
terrain of confrontation, 2) oppose a »materialistic« decision to an »ideal-
istic« position, and 3) thereby fall back into a metaphysical materialism as

criticized by Marx. Haug asserted, that for Marx and Engels their »mate-
rialism« receives its meaning first of all by its character of theoretical inter-
vention into the class struggles and the structures of class domination and
its ideological reproduction.
Laclau, in reply, argued that materialism means: 1) not to reduce reality
to concepts, and 2) understanding that concepts are also part of reality.
Frieder O. Wolf felt that Laclau was right in maintaining that materialism
is not a scientific theory of reality, but wrong in neglecting materialism as

a philosophical position operating in the dimension of meaning that has

been theorised as »illocutionary« or »apellatory«. Frigga Haug main-
tained that materialism is illocutive, or intervening, Marx opposes philoso-

phy as a classifying, subsuming, etc. activity. Minoru Kitamura criticized

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Summary of Discussions 53

the use Laclau makes of materialism and analysed this notion in Democri-
tus, Gassendi and Leibniz.
Frieder O. Wolf supported the idea of conceiving materialism as a (very
meaningful) philosophy in the sense of a class struggle within theory, i.e.
which means the fighting out of ideological antagonism within theory. On
this pointhe agreed with Frigga Haug, but criticized the conception of
idealism as a discourse coming from above as insufficient. We should,
Wolf argued, rather consider the distinction between two sorts of articula-
tions/compositions of practices operated by the dominated and the do-
minating classes respectively.
Ernesto Laclau specified his position by claiming that he does not want
to reproduce Marx's and Engel's views as such, but to provide a basis for
a reformulation of materialism today. There is a sense in which material-

ism cannot stand, i.e. as a discourse of the totality of what exists. From
this point of view it is impossible to attribute a differentiated content to
the total entity, and materialism and idealism are mere names devoid of
any positive content. But there is a second sense of materialism: the asser-
tion that the real is subject and not predicate and, consequently, the asser-
tion of the nonconceptual character of reality. The real has no essence.
But on the other hand concepts are part of reality. The classical epistemo-
logical distinction concept/reality assumed that concepts reproduce the
real but are not part of it. Any materialistic concepts should start from the
supercession of the dichotomy. Frigga Haug's statement that priority
should be given to economy (because people must eat before they can
think) was rejected by Laclau, according to whom men cannot provide
their material reproduction without thinking.
Jacques Bidet reflected on Antoni Domenech's paper. The attempt to
import such general categories as »filters« into Marxism meets difficulties.
The specificity of Marxism is to provide specific concepts for different
sorts of society, and to understand these societies on the basis of their in-
ternal differentiations and contradictions. »Filters« are things that every
individual is supposed to be confronted with. This concept defines a uni-
versal condition for humanity. How, Bidet asked, can this be combined
with historical materialism into a united discourse.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
54

Jean-Pierre Cotten

The Rationality of a Critical Concept

The notion of reason (or of nature), as elaborated by the Enlightenment,

makes possible the unification of rational ways of thinking. But it is not
reducible to these ways of thinking, although it is not possible to separate
this notion from these ways of thinking either. The notion of reason is ne-
cessarily hybrid: we cannot determine its theoretical strength and so it al-

ways may be possible to criticize such a notion while saying that it is not
relevant. In short, there is no theory of »the« reason but, at the same
time, it is not legitimate to turn this »reason« into a pure normative state-
ment. Furthermore, »reason« is one of the key words through which
consciousness of a possible transformation, a revolutionary transforma-
tion, of the social formation, is played out.
The conception of reason as such is possible only if a genuine revolu-
tion, the birthand the development of a society which is entirely different
from that of the »Ancien Regime«, takes place. In order to justify such an
assumption, we can refer to some important public speeches during the
French Revolution, those of Robespierre, for instance. The unity of the
notion of reason cannot be understood apart from the birth of another
hegemony, of a new hegemony, a »bourgeois« hegemony, which, in turn,
cannot be separated from the domination of a peculiar form of sociality,
the sociality existing in »civil society«.
Indeed, the situation within the doctrine we call »Marxism« seems quite
different. But I think one can safely say that, upon closer scrutinizing of
this doctrine, the situation is not entirely different. We must not underesti-
mate the differences between the design for a transformation which emer-
ged in the 18th century and the aim of a transformation which was to be
qualified as socialist during the 19th century. It will always be dangerous
to understand the latter of these designs as advancing further on the earlier

one. Nevertheless, the meaning of the notions peculiar to Marxism cannot

be assessed according to the »existing theory«, because it cannot be sepa-
rated from the possibility of another hegemony.
The notions elaborated by Marx are not only concepts that are to pro-
vide an immanent analysis of »civil society«. If they were, this would
imply that the classical analyses by Hegel, Smith, Ricardo and Rousseau
were not carried on far enough; as if Hegel, Smith, Ricardo, or Rousseau,
were blind to certain features of this »civil society« . These notions are part
of a theoretical analysis but this analysis is necessarily a critical one. Thus,
this analysis cannot be separated from such a thing as the historical possi-
bility. But what does this »possibility« refer to within what pretends to be

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
The Rationality of a Critical Concept 55

a »materialistic conception of history«? — I would like to propose the fol-

lowing distinctions:
1) the possibility, according to a »superficial« evolutionism, the evolu-
tionism of Kautsky for instance which was among the leading trends of
the Marxism in the Second International, can only refer to what is not yet
real, but what shall necessarily, i.e. rationally, occur as the next link of a

known chain;
2) the possibility, according to a more Hegelian scheme, can be what is

not yet real or, better, what is not yet effective (wirklich). The basis for a
critique of the present lies in the possibility of defining the distance be-
tween the concept (Begriff) and the moment reached by the process in be-
coming, a teleology is unavoidable;
3) the possibility can be something totally different; in such a hypothesis
there is no bridge between the present matter of fact and what-ought-to-
be. I think, here, of certain versions of »critical theory«.
It seems to me that these three points of view, historically based, are all
together unsatisfactory, if somebody tries to think what »possibility«
means from Marx's point of view.
economy, cannot deal with something
Capital, as a critique of political
from »civil society«. This »totally different« society
totally different
would only be communist society, and not a so-called »socialist« society.
But what about this totally different society?
A theoretical understanding of the forms of the specifically capitalist
appropriation cannot be achieved within an immanent analysis of the
»bourgeois« form of appropriation. Just think of the concrete forms
within which the immediate producers are separated from the means of
producing and reproducing their social existence. All the forms of appro-
priation are not reducible to the form of appropriation in the sphere of the
process of production. In order to circumscribe this form of appropria-
tion as a particular one, it is necessary to distinguish this form from the

form which dominated before. This means that the »bourgeois« form of
appropriation is not the truth of the historical process taken as a whole.
There is a sketch for such an analysis in some lines of Grundrisse, but this
analysis is very fragmentary. It is also possible to distinguish the present
form of appropriation from a radically different form of appropriation,
what the »classics« called »social appropriation or »collective appropria-
tion^ which does not define at all what is called the »socialist mode of
production, but the transition in the direction of communism.
But what permits us to delineate what is not yet existing in reference to
what is today?
Marx says virtually nothing of this radically different appropriation. I

would mention what Philippe Zarifan has written mDela socialisa-

like to
tion (published in 1981 by Francois Maspero). If it is true that Marx said

ARGUMENTSONDERBAND AS 109 ©
56 Jean-Pierre Cotten

nearly nothing about the precise content of social appropriation, Engels is

more explicit about But what matters still more is to compare

this subject.
Lenin's analysis during and after the October Revolution with his prac-
tice, both of which are attached to a specific historical situation. Marx is

silent about this subject, because he was consciously anti-utopian. Marx

did not consider it possible to delineate the features of a society that is in

the process of becoming a communist society. One can only sketch a so-
ciety which no longer reproduces modern bourgeois society. It is not pos-
sible to deduce the content of the new form from the previous one. If one
wants to speak in terms of dialectics, this dialectics is not Hegelian, at least
is concerned. It can only be assumed that such appro-
as far as this topic
priation would no longer be a private one. The immediate producers and
their means of producing and reproducing their social existence would no
longer be separated from one another. There is a topic which is so classical
that I hardly dare speak of it: the concrete mode of appropriation in bour-
geois society creates the historical conditions for the birth of this new form
of appropriation. Such an assumption cannot be denied. Historical prere-
quisites do exist, but it is impossible to infer from these conditions, from
an immanent analysis of these conditions, the totally different. We
should, I think, overlook the mythical use of a law of necessary cor-
respondence or the schema of the necessary overcoming of »antagonistic
contradictions« between a »private« form and a »social« content. This is
because a rational analysis must distinguish the historical effects of a doc-
trine from the rational content of this doctrine.
The social appropriation critically reveals a peculiar form of appropria-
tion which produces and reproduces a separation. Social appropriation re-
absorbs what looks like an alienation of the social individuals in relation-
ship to the several aspects of the social process, and it points towards the
tendentially unlimited appropriation of the process of production and of
reproduction of social life.

All these topics, whether speculative or »philosophical«, are to be

found already in The German Ideology. The crucial topic is: the historical
possibility for the social individuals to express themselves via self-action
(Selbstbetatigung),where objective processes no longer dominate the real
life It does not seem sufficient to assert that
of those social individuals.
such notions have to be stored away in the great shop of the Utopias. But
it is also true that the Critique of the Gotha Programme does not repeat
about communism what was The Ger-
in part speculatively expressed in
man Ideology.
I agree that to ask such questions is unreasonable as the post-capitalist
countries, until now, have only partly escaped from the domination of the
worldwide hegemonic capitalist relations. We can ask the question of the
historical possibility of an appropriation qualitatively different from the

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Marxism and Modernization 57

hegemonic forms of appropriation in modern bourgeois societies, but no

answer is possible today —
neither a positive nor a negative one. Only
within the process of development of concrete forms of the labour pro-
cess, of the organization of this process, of the appropriation of the simple

and enlarged reproduction of this process (technology, sciences and ma-

nagement included), will it become possible to give a tentative answer to
the provocative question I have asked: »Is 'social appropriation' some-
thing different from the Utopia produced by a very specific society?« If

the answer, to be given some day, is positive, then practical transforma-

tions would have been achieved, transformations we cannot yet foresee.

Sven-Eric Liedman

Marxism and Modernization

In the first part of this article, I refer to Jiirgen Habermas and his mode of
analyzing the modernization process, especially in his impressive Theorie
des kommunikativen Handelns To me, Habermas' s approach seems
1
.

both and representative of an actual mode of thought, whereas his

fruitful

interpretation of Marx's ideas of the topic is adventurous, to say the least.

From Habermas I shall take the straight way back to Marx and Capital,
where a seminal ambiguity concerning the process of capitalist moderniza-
tion is to be found. This ambiguity (or dialectical character, if you prefer)
may lead to two different and incompatible strategies, the one giving pre-
dominance to technological development (or, more adequately, to the de-
velopment of the productive forces) and the other to class struggle, the lat-
ter being to some extent identical with the relations of production. In the

complicated history of »Marxism«, it is easy to find how different objec-

tive circumstances have favoured the one or the other alternative. The Se-

cond and Third Internationals give us good examples of technological op-

timism, whereas the Cultural Revolution in China represents an extreme
case of the opposite inclination.
Today, we are faced with a partially new and bewildering —
situa- —
tion, where on the one side left-wing groups take an extremly negative
stand to technological development and sometimes even to modern life in

all respects, and where, on the other side, a renewed, at least partially
Marx-inspired, approval of modernization in a broad sense has appeared.
This paper just points at the problem; it is merely a beginning.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
58 Sven-Eric Liedman

Habermas's Position
In his opus magnum, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Habermas
does not from Marx but from Max Weber, arguing that Weber in his
start

treatment of modern capitalist-bureaucratic development uses only one

aspect of his full concept of rationality and rationalization. 2 The process
of modernization is consequently seen only as increasing technological or
instrumentalist rationality, whereas the potential of rationality embedded
inWestern diversified culture is overlooked. To Weber, progress is conse-
quently identified with man's increasing domination over man and nature.
According to Habermas, a perspective of a Weberian kind — which to
some extent is the perspective of Adorno and Horkheimer too — lacks the
force to resist two different but typical reactions to the outcome of mo-
dern development. The first reaction is uncritically positive, as in the neo-
conservatism now in fashion, the second being irrationally negative, as
among die Grtinen. In order to increase the intellectual possibilities to ap-
preciate the results of the tremendous changes during the last three or four
centuries in a sounder way, Habermas wants to conceptualize the dual,
ambiguous character of this process.
On his long odyssey through the history of social theory, Habermas
comes to Karl Marx as well. He has treated Marx more fully before, most
recently in Zur Rekonstruktion des Historischen Materialismus3 His main .

points on Marx are of old date. He maintains, now as before, that Marx
was an inveterate optimist as far as technological development was con-
cerned, seeing the development of the productive forces as the motor of
history. This means that Marx, according to Habermas, had no real idea
of the risk of instrumental reason. Most valuable in the Marxian legacy is
the analysis of commodities where the double nature of a commodity cor-
responds to the doubleness of Systemwelt (system world) and Lebenswelt
(life world). Exchange value corresponds to the system of money, whereas
use value has to do with the actions, the real existence of man.
Here, we have no reason to analyze or to criticize the Rekonstruktion of
Habermas. However, Habermas helps us to formulate two important
questions, both far-reaching but the second one more than the first: 1. Is
Marx's view of development as one-sided as Habermas claims? 2. What
kind of conceptual scheme do we need, inside a more or less well-defined
Marxist tradition, in order to grasp the modernization process in its tech-
nological, economic, social, political and cultural aspects, inside ca-
pitalism as well as inside »really existing« socialism?

The Essential Tension in Capital

Marx often expresses a kind of technological optimism that we, rightly or

wrongly, attribute to the 19th century. Most programmatically, this op-
timism is to be found in his famous Preface to Zur Kritik der politischen

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Marxism and Modernization 59

Okonomie, where he characterizes the relationship between productive

forces and the relations of production in such a way that productive forces
always seem to be progressive and liberating, whereas the relations of pro-
duction, owing to their inertia, tend to develop into hindrances. 4
In Capital, it is not history but the capitalist system that is the subject.
Traits of the same optimism can be found even here, e.g. in the famous
passage on the realms of necessity and freedom. Here, the increasing
human needs are expected to be satisfied thanks to the increasing power of
productive forces. 5 The whole topic seems, however, to be much more
complicated in the whole Capital than in the Preface.
It is worth while noticing that in the first volume of Capital Marx, with

few exceptions, uses »productive force« in the singular. Elsewhere, he

had been common in the classical tradition in
uses the plural form, too, as
economy from Adam Smith. As far as I understand, the plural
political
form means to Marx the externalization of the concept. To talk about dif-
ferent productive forces — division of labour, cooperation, or even diffe-
rent technologies, such as steam power, electricity, etc. — means again to
use a quantitative perspective, i.e. to see the different forces as different
factors, the efficacy of which may be determined in a quantitative way.
Apparently, the theoretical ambitions of Marx are manifold. We may
mention the legacy from mechanical theory and from Hegel. A third one
originates in Darwinian theory or, more correctly, in evolutionary biology
and also in evolutionary theory in cosmology and human history. Here,
we have the perspective of historical development as natural history, the
laws of which Marx intends to decipher in accordance with what he says in
the Preface of Capital. This perspective is not immediately to be united
with the other ones. The increment of productive
force may, of course, be
interpreted as the backbone of development, but in that case all other
aspects of development must be seen as not only directly or indirectly
caused by the increment of productive force but also as positively progres-
sive. This consequence has, in fact, been drawn by many, friends and foes

alike, i$ interpreting Marx. Evidently, this is the interpretation of Haber-

mas, too.
This interpretation is, however, much more difficult to bring together
with the conception of a dialectical unit of productive force and the re-
lations of production. The productive relations, e.g. the relations typical
of the capitalist system, cannot here be seen just as the dependent
variable, even if Marx's conception of dialectics, unlike Hegel's, admits
one part of a dialectical unit to be more fundamental (or dominant, tiber-
greifend) than the other. 6
More important, this consequence is still more untenable when seen in
relation to the concrete piece of research concerning really existing capital-
ism that Marx presents in Capital. If the development of the productive

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60 Sven-Eric Liedman

relations is just a function of the development (or increment) of produc-

tive force, then class struggle is a function of productive force. In the

famous chapters of Capital where Marx deals with the working-day, with
manufacture and with machinery, class struggle is rather described as an
undecided fight. The end of the chapter on the working-day presents
breathlessly the actual, rapidly shifting results of this fight; the freshest re-
sults have to be added in footnotes. 7

Furthermore, these chapters of Capital describe in a vivid, if not relent-

less way how threatened and damaged, physically and morally, man is by
technological development under capitalism. From official Factory Re-
ports, but alsofrom authors now long forgotten such as the German phy-
sicianEduard Reich and his English colleague Arthur Hill Hassall, Marx
gathers examples of threatening physical degeneration and increasing
morbidity, ignorance and immorality. The development of physical forces
has not helped these people to a better life.

Now, the ordinary interpretation and probably also Marx's interpreta-

tion is damages of the development of productive forces is solely
that the
due to the capitalist system and that a socialist system will turn the da-
mages into benefits. Yet, this consequence does not seem to be a theore-
tical one, its character being rather ideological (a word not used here in an

absolutely negative sense, but meaning that the theory is brought together
with value statements and appeals to action). The theoretical conclusions
to be drawn are twofold: 1. the abstract possibilities of mankind are in-
creased by the increment of productive force and, especially, by the multi-
plication of different productive forces, and 2. the utilization of these pos-
sibilities is due to the outcome of class struggle (and of other social rela-

tion between men).

The Marxian Legacy

There were at least three possible but incompatible consequences to be
drawn from Capital and other central writings by Marx (and Engels). The
first one was to see human history just as a continuation of natural devel-

opment, notwithstanding the stress Marx (as well as Engels) had laid upon
the inner difference between instinctive animal and consciously productive
man. According to this interpretation, natural and human history had a
totally deterministic character and socialism was the inevitable outcome of
development.
In fact, rather few seem to have interpreted the process so simple-min-
dedly: Karl Kautsky, who undeservedly has come to play the role of
simpleton in the history of Marxist thought, had definitely not such an un-
complicated view. In socialist propaganda, however, itplayed — and still

plays — a central part, and to most Marxists it was — and possibly — is

present as a possible interpretation.

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 1

Marxism and Modernization 6

The opposite mode of thought, according to which history must be seen

asan endless class struggle with no definite outcome and where the devel-
opment of productive force(s) is of secondary if any —
importance, —
has not been without advocates. Here I just need to mention the name of
Georges Sorel.
The vast majority of Marxists, at least of Marxist theoreticians, have,
however, propagated some kind of combination, where the development
of productive force means the widening of human possibilities but where
the real outcome of the process to a more or less important degree is due
to the conscious political, cultural and other activities of classes, parties,

etc. Now, this combination is really open-ended, and the importance of

the one factor or the other may vary very much. The proportions of inde-
terminism, activism and voluntarism on the one side, of determinism and
»attentism« on the other differ in such a way that the possible forecastings
to be drawn from the theory seem to be accidental and due to the specific
historical situation, under which they are done. The alternatives of Rosa
Luxemburg, Socialismus oder Barbarei, represent this kind of undeter-
minateness.
To me, a kind of compromise between the traditional positions — or
perhaps synthesis — seems necessary, according to which the growing po-
tential of productive force(s) is acknowledged and appreciated but also
guarantees the possibility of discriminating and choosing between diffe-
rent forces. Consequently, the technological imperative is no longer valid;
technology has an overcapacity and this overcapacity opens the way for
conscious human choice.
In recent years, as the revolutionary wave from the sixties seems to have
faded away, a new trend inside Marxist tradition is at least discernible. I

have in mind that kind of »neo-orthodoxy« that G.A. Cohen's Karl

Marx's Theory of History* represents. To Cohen, the supremacy of pro-
ductive forces is not to be denied. His analysis is brilliant but of that kind
that the great philosopher of science Mario Bunge has qualified as »fore-
word research«; it is namely the Preface to Marx's Critique of Political
Economy with its sweeping phrases on the logic of historical development
that furnishes Cohen with most of his arguments. The success of Cohen's
book is evidently not due only to his brilliance and analytical skill but also
to the moral of his whole work, namely that we have, again, to expect the
revolutionary changes to begin in most advanced capitalism, i.e. where the
productive forces are most developed.
As a subject of a very advanced capitalist society, I am of course in-
clined to welcome Cohen's conclusion; but I am not convinced that he is
right. The abuse, the irrationality in the use of material and technological
capacity in the most advanced capitalism has still now
not evoked that
kind of opposition that may be called »revolutionary« in any reasonable

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
62 Veikko Pietila

sense of the word. —

My starting point was the impressive and dubitable
work on communicative action by Habermas. Till now, I have said no-
thing about a main point in his argument, namely that modernization not
only means technological modernization but also the increasing rationality
and differentiation of human Lebenswelt. Even if modernity has made us
slaves under the technological imperative, it has also freed us from super-
stition and given us the possibility —
at least the abstract possibility of —
a richer social and cultural life.
To this I just want to exclaim: He is right! He is absolutely right, and it
is a shame to us if we do not realize the emancipating force, so highly

esteemed by Marx, of modern critical rationality in all its social and cultu-
ral aspects.

And a great extent in

nevertheless, this cultural possibility, spoiled to
capitalist society, an abstract possibility
is —
just as the possibilities
opened by the development of productive forces are. To free them from
their chains is, as it has been already for a long time, our task.

Notes
1 Habermas, J., 1981: Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Vol. II, Frank-
furt/M.
2 See esp. Vol II, p. 225ff.
3 Habermas, J., 1976: Zur Rekonstruktion des Historischen Materialismus.
Frankfurt/M.
4 Marx-Engels-Werke (MEW), 1964, Vol. 13. Berlin/DDR.
5 MEW, Vol. 25, p. 828.
6 See esp. his Einleitung to Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Okonomie,
Frankfurt/M. 1969, p. 6ff.
7 MEW 23, 1962, esp. p. 313-314.
8 Cohen, G.A., 1978: Karl Marx's theory of history: A defense. Oxford.

Veikko Pietila

The Logical, the Historical

and the Forms of Value — Once Again
The invitation to the conference invites us to a critical new reading of
Marx, of the current problems. Well, I am afraid that what I
in the light
will present is, in regard to the invitation, a bit antiquarian. My starting

point is a theoretical problem, or perhaps a contradiction, in the begjn-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
The Logical, the Historical and the Forms of Value — Once Again 63

ning of Marx's Capital — more precisely, in the particular section dealing

with the forms of value (the third section of the first chapter; Marx 1974a,
54-75). The problem is that Marx fixes these forms historically to the pre-

monetary era despite the fact that he understands the category of value ac-
cording to the labour theory of value.
Now, there would be no problem if the labour theory of value — as
Marx employs it —
were valid in regard to the premonetary era. For in-

stance, there would be no problem if there had been, from the outset of
exchange and throughout the premonetary era, a society of simple com-
modity production (as »old« Engels, for one, supposed; cf. Engels 1977).
Or there would be no problem if one could say that the labour theory of
value applies, at least, as an idealizing theory to the premonetary condi-
tions. Unfortunately both of these conceptions are questionable simply —
because the premonetary exchange does not constitute a market capable
of forcing the exchange to take place on the basis of (labour) value even
approximately —that is, capable of forcing the exchange to conform to
the Marxian law of value even unprecisely.
Things being so it seems that there are no means to keep to the value-
theoretical basis of Marx's theory while at the same time extending the
forms of value to bear upon the premonetary era. Yet Marx himself, as I
mentioned, was led to do so. Must we conclude that he made a clear mis-
take (cf. Backhaus 1981)?
It was Sohn-Rethel (1976, 1978a and 1978b) whose ideas elucidated this

problem for me from a new point of view. He finds the analysis in the be-
ginning of Capital inconsistent because Marx does not distinguish between
the magnitude and the form of value, »at least not consistently and syste-
matical^ (Sohn-Rethel 1978a, 21). Now, despite the fact that the way in
which Sohn-Rethel reads Capital is a problematic one, his idea opens the
following possibility: if a distinction can be made between the magnitude
and form of value, then Marx's labour theory of value would not impede
the retrojection of the forms of value into the premonetary era.
But in what sense could this distinction be made? Sohn-Rethel seems to
be inclined to split the beginning of Capital into two parts, of which the
one would be concerned with the magnitude and the other with the forms
of value. As I see it, this would ruin Marx's theory. The only way seems to
be that we —
instead of splitting Marx's theory into two different parts —
abstract a dimension of pure forms of value, devoid of any determinate
content, out of Marx's total theory.
From this point of view, the section of Capital dealing with the forms of
value can be read as if it were composed of two highly intertwined levels.
The of them would be a »logical« theory aiming to show that money
first

is nothing but »the necessary form of expression of the immanent value-

measure of commodities, viz. the labour time« (Marx 1974a, 97). This

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
64 Veikko Pietila

theory would constitute an integral continuation of the commodity- and

value-theoretical considerations preceding it, and could not as such — no
more than the preceding considerations — be retrojected into the pre-
monetary era. The second level, in turn, would indicate the historical de-
velopment of the structure of exchange relations and the necessities of this
structure —
precisely in the premonetary era.
This interpretation implies that the forms of value have, so to say, a
»double purpose«. At the first level they function as »logical« elements
but at the second as »logico-historical« ones indicating the historical de-
velopment just mentioned.
Let me try to make this a bit clearer. According to my interpretation,
the form of value has two meanings. In the first place it means the form in
and through which private labour in commodity-producing societies is
transformed into social labour, that is, in and through which »the de-
tached, scattered, private economic units« are united »into a relatively co-
herent total economy« (Rubin 1973, 88). In this sense, the form of value is
the »nexus rerum« (Marx 1974b, 134) of commodity-producing societies
(and as such it cannot be retrojected into the premonetary era). This is
what I mean by the form of value as a »logical« element.
In the second place, the form of value is a description of the form-cha-
racteristics of exchange. In this sense it is valid even in regard to the most
primitive exchange (and as such it can be retrojected into the premonetary
era). This is what I mean by the form of value as a »logico-historical« ele-

ment.
As a matter of fact, as a »logico-historical« element and as a »logical«
element the form of value indicates two different types of exchange. I will

them, respectively, the primitive exchange of products and the devel-

call

oped exchange of commodities. These two types of exchange are formally

— that in regard to
is, their form-characteristics — similar but substantial-
— that
ly regard to
is, in their content — dissimilar. By formal similarity I

mean that both types of exchange the exchanged products or commodi-

in
ties are exchange-values to one another. By substantial dissimilarity I
mean that in the primitive exchange of products the exchange-values do
not have the same content as in the developed exchange of commodities,
namely, (labour) value. From this point of view the above mentioned se-
cond, »logico-historical« level in the section dealing with the forms of va-
lue indicates the historical development in which the exchange-value be-
comes the expression of (labour) value —
or in which the (labour) value
becomes the content of exchange-value. As I said before, in the early days
of exchange there was not yet a market in the modern sense a market —
which would have forced the exchange-values to express that common
»third« which Marx called value. On the other hand, to the extent that a
market in the modern sense grew up, the exchange-value became the form

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
The Logical, the Historical and the Forms of Value 65

of expression of (labour) value. — My argument is, then, that the first

chapter of Capital operates, at the same time, at and

two different levels
has, therefore, two beginnings: it operates both at the level of a »logical«
theory starting with commodity and the level of a »logico-historical« pre-
sentation starting with the exchange of simple products. Historically, the
latter leads to the former. That is, the beginning of the latter level — the
exchange of simple products — is the »cell-form« of a historical develop-
ment leading to the economic system, whose »cell-form« no more is a
simple but a very complicated, even »metaphysical« or »transcendent«
(Marx) product, that is, the commodity, the beginning of the former level.

Let me say a few words about Marx's presentation of this historical de-
velopment. — It has been argued, perhaps most categorically by Back-
haus (1978 and 1981), that the section dealing with the forms of value has
nothing to do with the premonetary history. For instance, if it is inter-
preted to be a theory aiming to account for the historical genesis of mon-
ey, it is, Backhaus (1981, 157-158), nothing but a revival of the Aristo-
for
telian theory, according to which money is brought forth as a means of
overcoming the difficulties encountered in exchange. Moreover, pro-
pounds Backhaus (1978, 76-79), this theory does not hold true if con-
fronted with empirical facts, for money has many different historical ori-
gins, of which not all — perhaps none — can be accounted for by a theory
of this kind.

As I see it, Marx did not approach the problem of the historical genesis
of money in general. What interested him was the development of the
structure of exchange relations. This is what the second, »logico-histori-
cal«, level in the beginning ofCapital indicates. Now, as this structure de-
velops, it brings forth its own structural necessities. I think that historically
Marx considered money only in regard to this structure, not in general.
Money may have many different historical origins. Nevertheless, as I see
it, money is in Marx's view born or reborn also within this structure. And

this cannot be explained exclusively by alleging that people brought it

forth intentionally in order to escape the difficulties of exchange. This

would be a misleading explanation since it does not pay attention to the
fact that the birth or rebirth of money within this structure is a »structural
effect« (Luporini 1974, 132; also cf. Schanz 1977, 117-119). As Marx
(1974b, 928) states, money »is not a mere mediating form of commodity
exchange. It is a form of exchange-value, growing out of the process of
circulation. It is a social product, which self-produces itself through the re-
lations in which individuals step in the circulations
As far as I can see, it is this structural determination which Marx tries to
bring forth by employing the theory of the form of value — »logical« at
the — as the skeleton of the second, »logico-historical«
first level level.
There have been — and perhaps are — two competing interpreta-
still

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
66 Veikko Pietila

dons as to the theoretical and methodological nature of the beginning of

Capital. The so-called »logical« interpretation argues that this beginning
contains a »logical« theory which pertains only to full-fledged capitalism
and which, consequently, does not present any historical development
beyond it. The so-called »logico-historical« interpretation argues, on the
contrary, that this beginning must be understood as a logical presentation
of such a historical development. In my opinion, the above idea that there
are, in fact, two highly intertwined levels in the beginning of Capital offers
a solution to this controversy.
What I rests on the assumption that, for Marx,
have presented above
value an economic category applicable only to conditions where
is strictly

society is mediated —
and in fact subordinated by blind economic —
market forces. If value can be understood only in this way, the ideas, for
example, of »old« Engels indicated above are quite problematic. But is
this really the only way to understand the category of value? If not, then

become quite interesting.

Engels' s ideas
As you perhaps remember, Engels' s view was that the value of products
was, from the very outset of exchange, determined on the basis of the la-
bour-time bestowed upon them. He saw this as being due to the fact that
people in those days knew how much time the manufacture of products
required. Now, what does he mean by (labour) value in this context?
Clearly nothing that is actualized by the blind market forces. Perhaps he
means — without being able to formulate it clearly — that in primitive
conditions value is something different to whatcommodity-produc-
it is in
ing societies — that is is not an
to say, that value in primitive conditions
economic but a social category (cf. Godelier 1971)? Perhaps he looks at
the category of value in these conditions from the perspective of primeval
communism, in which society was not as yet organized by economy or in
which economy was still organized by society.
If so, then what Engels put forth concerning the category of value with
respect to the primitive conditions pertains perhaps though at a much —
more developed level —
also to the conditions being realized when the
autonomy of economy becomes abolished and when economy becomes,
once again, organized by society.

Literature

Backhaus, H.G., 1978: Materialien zur Rekonstruktion der Marxschen Wert-

theorie 3. In: Gesellschaft: Beitrage zur Marxschen Theorie 11,
Frankfurt/M.
Backhaus, H.G., 1981: Om forholdet mellem det »logiske« og det »historiske« i

Marx' kritik af den politiskedkonomi. In: Kurasje No. 27/28

Engels, F., 1977: Supplement to Capital, Volume three . In: Marx, K.: Capital,
Vol. III.London
Godelier, M., 1971: Ekonomisk antropologi. Stockholm

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Marx and Hegel 67

Luporini, C, 1974: Karl Marx — Kommunismus und Dialektik. Frankfurt/M.

Marx, K., 1974a: Capital, Vol. I., Moscow
Marx, K., 1974b: Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Okonomie (Rohentwurf).
Berlin/DDR
Rubin, I.I., 1973: Studien zur Marxschen Werttheorie. Frankfurt/M.

Schanz, H.-J., 1977: Til rekonstruktionen af kritikken af den politiskedkono-

mins omfangslogiske status. Aarhus
Sohn-Rethel, A., 1976: Das Geld, die bare Miinze des Apriori. In: Mattik, P., et
al.: Beitrage zur Kritik des Geldes. Frankfurt/M.
Sohn-Rethel, A., 1978a: Gesprach uber »die Genese der Ideen von Warenform
und Denkform«. In: Dombrowski, H.D., et al. (Eds.): Symposium Waren-
form- Denkform. Frankfurt/M.
Sohn-Rethel, A., 1978b: Intellectual and Manual Labour. London.

Solange Merrier- Josa

Marx and Hegel

The relationship between Marx and Hegel has been a problem from the
very beginning. We do not know of any study summing up the passages in
which Marx and Engels evoke Hegel's philosophy and state explicitly their
own position. Such a bibliography would be abundant indeed. We will
here restrict ourselves to the classical references to the postface of the sec-
ond edition of Das Kapital and to Engels' s Ludwig Feuerbach and the
End of Classical German Philosophy.
Doubtless it is by refusing to find an immediate meaning to the
partly
enigmatic metaphor of inversal (a term in parentheses already used by He-
gel himself) —
in so far as there was still something left unsaid by the in-
versal of idealism in materialism —
that the issue of the relationship be-
tween Marx and Hegel was apprehended by Louis Althusser and his
school as a decisive theoretical and political question. Their declared pur-
pose was to further the difference, to eliminate any confusion, to prevent
any show of analogy. Inversal calls for Otherness.
For Althusser, Marx's positive debt to the Hegelian heritage is minimal.
1) for the young Marx, as he dealt mostly not with Hegel himself but with

theoretical humanism of Feuerbach, with Feuerbach' s critique which he

saw as a radical inversal of Hegel, and the catch-all Feuerbach's category
of Man; 2) for the mature Marx, following the epistemological break, as he
had nothing to do with the Hegelian philosophy of history, this being
teleologjcal, nor with Hegelian dialectics, no less teleological since its key

ARGUMENTSONDERBAND AS 109 ©
68 Solange Mercier-Josa

structure is »negation of negation, which is teleology even when equated

with dialectics« Marxist theory subsumes a science, »History«, as well as
.

a philosophy: the »dialectical materialism« which is at work in Das Kapi-

tal.The Marxist conceptions of history, social structure and dialectics are

not Hegelian, and if Althusser concedes a continuum from one discourse
to the other it is on a point that will continue to surprise the naive or ordi-
nary reader of Hegel: »the philosophical category inherited by Marx«, the
positive debt Marx has to Hegel is the concept of »process without sub-
ject Althusser notes —
and leaves it at that, in a parenthetical degression
rapidly ended without further commentary —
that Hegel wrote that
»Spirit was the Subject-being of Substance«. But if Marx inherited from
Hegel the concept of process, by stating that there can be »only process of
relations«, Marx has »given us something without precedents
It is a matter of record that, at least in France over the last twenty years,
research has largely been dominated by Althusser' s problematics: the
Marx- Hegel relationship has been conceived without any immediate or
serious reference to Lenin's Notebooks on Dialectics; nor to Lukacs's-
reading of Hegel, even if the latter did not set out to situate Hegelian dia-
lectics as an element of the transition on which dialectical materialism
might be articulated; nor through the mediation of the philosophy of
praxis developed by Gramsci, who was nonetheless sure of the absolute
necessity of »the incorporation of the vital part of Hegelianism« as a first
step in understanding the historical process by linking politics and econo-
my, including philosophical systems and their contradictions; nor with the
help of Ernst Bloch; nor Adorno's critical theory; nor Horkheimer; nor
Marcuse; nor even the works of Henri Lefebvre. Without crediting
Althusser with the entire responsibility of an original re-opening of the
Marx-Hegel relationship, it seems that his hypothesis did give birth to a se-
ries of studies based on the supposition that Marxist theory in its specifici-

ty (i.e. as a philosophy: dialectical materialism, tied to a science: historical

materialism) could be apprehended only by »de-Hegelizing« Marx. Dia-
lectical materialism, the revolutionary practice of philosophy, since it is a
theory of the history of the production of cognition, would put an end to
the ideological pretense of all philosophy, a pretense which reaches its

height in Hegel: the cognition of cognition, the theory of theories. On the

other hand, as the epistemological break between Hegel's philosophy of
history and the science of historical materialism does not abolish the ideal-
materialism must enter into historical materialism
istic illusion, dialectical

for it to produce, in turn, concrete analyses of concrete contemporary si-

tuations. Finally, Marx's affair with Hegelian dialectics would have been
not an asset but an epistemological handicap to the production of his own
Marxist logic in Das Kapital.
After Althusser, a few researchers have continued the study of the

ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 ©

 .

Marx and Hegel 69

problem of the true relationship existing between Marx and Hegel, study-
ing it in its complex nature, its modalities, its expositions. While they ac-
cept the idea of a decisive epistemological break between the young and
the mature Marx, they have often ended up in a totally paradoxical inter-
pretation of Marx vis-a-vis Marxist tradition, and question in a radical
manner the definition of Marx's discourse either as a »dialectical materia-
lism« or »historical materialisms

Interpretations of the Relationship

Such is the case, for example, of Lucio Colletti in Marxism and Hegel
(1969). He too maintains that it is necessary to redeem Marxism from the
heavy Hegelian mortgage, to restore its efficiency as revolutionary prac-
tice and as a science, but he further engages upon a fundamentally critical

analysis of Engels's concept of »dialectical materialism« which, though it

thinks that it struggles against idealism and metaphysics, is actually strugg-
ling against »materialism and science«.
Michel Henry develops an entirely different perspective in his books
Marx (Une la Realite (I), Une philosphie de Veconomie
philosophie de
(II), which are readings of Marx's Kreuznach Manuscript. They
1976),
have the merit of being based on a detailed analysis of the text without
oversimplifying the Marx-Hegel relationship; they demonstrate that the
manuscript addressed itself to Hegel and that the critique of Hegels's doc-
trine of the State, the attempt to break away from Hegel's ontology, are
party to »hyper-Hegelianism«
Henry's reading of Marx's first attempt to inverse Hegelian logic in A
Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right may be de-
batable, for he affirms that Marx's requirement of a real immanence con-
sists in his affirmation that »the ontological heterogeneity of reality« is de-
fined as the individual, the refusal to conceive the concrete activity of indi-
viduals as the simple objectivation of the Idea, in the refusal to subsume
the particular under the universal, to make of the Idea the measure of rea-
lity, of life.

Henry's conception of young Marx's hyper-Hegelianism is more than

paradoxical when he defines it as Marx's desire to make more effective the

Hegelian supposition that »political essence is the essence and ultimate
reality of Reality« that economics
, — which is neither essence nor reality
— cannot define or determine Henry recognizes that young Marx
politics.
utilizes the Feuerbach concept of genre, but insists
on the persistence of
the Hegelian teleology of Universality in. the discourse of young Marx,
while he affirms that once the break with Hegel was realized, what predo-
minated in Marx's written texts is »a metaphysics of the individual; he
writes: »Marx is one of the first Christian thinkers of the Western world.«
Finally, Guy Haarscher's Ontologie de Marx (1980) confirms and refutes

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70 Solange Mercier-Josa

of the hypothesis of an epistemological break between

different aspects
Marx's young and mature works, and tackles the problem of young
Marx's Feuerbachism, giving to the concept of alienation found in the Pa-
risian Manuscripts a meaning irreducible to the meaning of Feuerbach.
Haarscher gives an even stranger analysis of the Marx-Hegel relationship
than Henry: Marx is said to radicalize Hegelianism into an idealism, even
a wild spiritual rationalism, in opposition to the realism and moderation
of Hegel. Then Marx in the Kreuznach Manuscript, because of his naive
rationalism, is said to carry to the extreme the Hegelian political philoso-
phy, suppressing the difference between politics and economics as distinct
entities, considering that all practical and social life can be conceived in
terms of universality, i.e. For Haarscher, while the
for him, spirituality.
Hegelian totality is always confronted with a foreign nature, an exteriority
that it takes into account, an exteriority it does not theoretically embrace,
mastering it only from the inside, Marxist totality is unlimited, without
any natural restraining borders. The Marxist hypothesis of a civilizing ac-
tion of capitalism appears to him as the continuation of the kindred He-
gelian mystification of reason, an essentially providentialistic hypothesis;
the entire book holds that there is in Marx (including Das Kapitat) a pre-
established comprehension of activity, an anthropology that underscores
his opinion on the positive aspect of the development of capitalism.

Parallel Reading
What is at stake in the question of the Marx- Hegel relationship? What are
we trying to cleanse Marx of when we posit the break? Conversely, what is
the object of his purported guilt when we maintain either that it is as a ra-
dical Hegelian that Marx criticized Hegel, or that Marx's discourse is
haunted by Hegelianism? Is the statement that Marx, in some aspects, did
not inverse Hegel (in the sense that Marx did not contest but thinks that
the idea of a real historical possibility of a concrete universal under the
term of communism is stripped of any mystical wrapping) an ideological
or a theoretical statement? A fantastic one, a reactionary one, a scientific
or revolutionary one?
We have shown that a precise definition of the boundaries between
Marxist theory and Hegelian philosophy (philosophy of history, dialectic
of the science of logic) was thought to be a necessary condition for a (new)
beginning of dialectical materialism and a fruitful historical materialism.
The hypothesis of a break between Marx and Hegel has been used as a
weapon by adversaries of Marxism and defined as »the sum total of the
misconceptions on Marx« (Henry). Personally, we simply wish to state
that Marx's writings can only gain in meaning and forcefulness from a pa-
rallel reading of the two sets of texts —
Hegel's and Marx/Engels's an —
in-depth study without immediate subordination of Hegel's text to that of

ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 ©

Marx and Hegel 71

Marx. Such a reading reopens the texts, permits a different understanding

from the one offered by its affirmation as a totally original and founding
one.
Marx began with a of the Philosophy of
critique of Hegel's Principles
Right.The difference by Hegel between State/Civil society in
established
order to resolve the opposition between the concept of the ancient City
(Plato/ Aristotle) and the political society defined in the modern philoso-
phy of political rights (Hobbes/Rousseau/Kant/Fichte) is a starting point
for the Marxist theorization of the relationship between politics and the
relations of production. There is no reason to claim that this critique of
Hegel stopped there or even with the German Ideology, and that it was
not pursued and polished during the writing of Das Kapital. We think that
more than any other thinker of his generation, Marx understood Hegel's
message and that his efforts to criticize were in step with a perfect under-
standing of the »master«.
We propose that the metaphor of »inversal« be conceived both in terms
of a process of »demetaphorization« (a process by which Marx can say
concretely what Hegel said metaphorically), a process by which Marx
transposes, i.e. clearly posits what was determining for Hegel (for example
in the manner in which the Marxist concept of ideology incorporates the
notions of Volksgeist und Sittlichkeit).

There an unquestionable persistence of Hegelian schemata or terms in

is

Marx's discourse, whether a residue or a deliberate borrowing, remains to

be seen. We will add that it is not without interest to understand how one
goes from the Hegelian concept of History (intelligible, universal muta-
tion, the Spirit's fight against itself) to the Marxist concept of History.
it would be impossible to gain a precise understanding of the
Finally,
meaning of Marx's materialism without knowing what he borrowed from
Hegelian idealism, not reducing it to simple materialism. Without Hegel,
Marx would have found neither the concept of fetishism nor that of reifi-

cation.
Finally it is not enough to close off in brackets the argument that » Spi-
rit is the Subject- being of substance« in order to prove that the same argu-
ment, transposed, does not run through Marx's work.

Literature

Althusser, L., 1970: Sur le rapport de Marx a Hegel. In: Hegel et la pensee
moderne. Paris
Bloch, E., 1951: Subjekt-Objekt. Berlin/DDR; tr. fr. 1978: Paris
Colletti, L., 1976:Le marxisme et Hegel. Tr. fr. Paris
Cottier, G., 1959: L'Atheisme du jeune Marx: les origines hegeliennes. Paris
D'Hondt, J., 1972: De Hegel a Marx. Paris
D'Hondt, J., 1978: L'Ideologie de la rupture. Paris

ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 ©

72 Karen Ruoff

Gramsci, A., 1959: OEuvres choisies. Paris

Gramsci, A., 1974-1977: Ecrits politiques. Paris
Haarscher, G., 1980: L'Ontologie de Marx. Bruxelles
Henry, E, 1976: Marx I, II. Paris
Hyppolite, J., 1955: Etudes sur Marx et Hegel. Paris
Labica, G., 1976: Le statut marxiste de la philosophic Paris
Labriola, A., 1928: Essais sur la conception materialist e de 1'histoire
Lefebvre, H., 1939: Le materialisme dialectique. Paris
Lenine, V., 1967: Cahiers sur la dialectique. Paris
Loewith, K., 1969: De Hegel a Nietzsche. Tr. fr. Paris
Lukacs, G., 1981: Le jeune Hegel. Paris
Mercier-Josa, S., 1980: Pour lire Hegel et Marx. Paris
Plekhanov, G., 1956: Essais sur le developpement de la conception marxiste de
1'histoire. Moscou

Karen Ruoff

Summary of Discussions

The papers, statements and discussions addressed questions of the re-

lationship between rationality and social formations. Jean-Pierre Cot ten
pointed out that the very word »reason« acts as a medium for conscious-
ness of the possibility of transformation of the social order; a critical an-
alysis of the status quo presupposes the historical possibility of radical
change. He criticized as unsatisfactory three modes of thinking the re-
lationship between the presently real and the possible within what claims
to be a »materialist concept of history«: the possible is conceived of in
Kautsky's evolutionist approach as that which is not yet real; a more He-
gelian approach criticizes the presently real in terms of the »distance« be-
tween it and the concept (Begriff), and is teleological; some versions of
Critical Theory conceive of the possible as the totally different, supplying
no conceptual bridge between what is and what ought to be. Is it possible
to conceive of a totally different social order —
of a communist social
order — without one of these three conceptual traps? To think
falling into
it as the absence of bourgeois appropriation is a mere theoretical abstrac-

tion, and says nothing whatsoever about concrete relations under col-
lective appropriation of the social product; the content of the new cannot

be deduced from the form of the old. The theoretical framework within
which Marx discussed the way in which the bourgeois mode of appro-
priation itself creates the conditions for the new mode can, as Cotten as-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Summary of Discussions 73

serts, only be described as »rustic«. Whether there exists the historical

possibility of a qualitatively different form of appropriation, or whether
this is an Utopian projection based on an unsatisfactory status quo, conti-
nues to be an open question.
Sven-Eric Liedman addressed Marx's conception of »modernization«
understood broadly as including technological, economic, political, scien-

and cultural development. He criticized Habermas's assertion that

tific

Marx was an inveterate optimist in the question of technological develop-

ment who failed to perceive the threat which »Systemwelt« (system world
= industrial rationality) poses to »Lebenswelt« (life world = relations of
free interaction). Liedman argued that whereas Marx did sometimes char-
acterize the productive forces as progressive andoppposed
liberating (as
to the relations of production, which tend toward inertia), an attentive
reading of Das Kapital reveals a »seminal ambiguity« in the question of
modernization, the source of which is a shifting conceptual predominance
of technological development and of class struggle. Liedman suggested
that Marx's attribution of the destructive aspects of technological devel-
opment to the capitalist form under which they occur reflected not a theo-
retical but an ideological (if not in a purely negative sense) standpoint.
The technological imperative« has revealed itself to be invalid; Lied-
man called for a synthesis which is able to distinguish between productive
and potentially destructive forces.
Solange Mercier-Josa discussed the strategic significance of interpreta-
tions of the relationship between Marx and Hegel. This relationship was
long considered to be self-evident, even trivial, accepting Marx's own esti-

mation of that relationship as the final word, to wit: Marx »inverted« He-
gel, stood him on his feet. Althusser was the first to significantly break
with this truism — but in as much as he posited the essential separation
between Hegel and Marx, he contributed little to an understanding of
their relationship. Buth what is actually at stake in discussing this rela-
tionship? The assertion that Marx was not able to break with Hegel tends
to place a teleological skeleton in his closet; the assertion that Marx broke
with Hegel an attempt to claim scientific validity for his theory. Mercier-
is

Josa insists that a reflection of Hegel is, however, fundamental to an un-

derstanding of Marx. One can avoid the skeleton and the break by focus-
ing on what one might, curiosly enough, call »Hegelian realism«, particu-
larly as demonstrated in his critique of law and his philosophy of history.

Ernesto Laclau responded to Mercier-Josa by pointing out two aspects

of Hegel which are of interest to us: 1) Hegel's demonstration of the limits
of rationalism in showing that no concept is positive in and of itself, but is
also simultaneously and necessarily negative, is essentially linked to other
concepts; and Derrida showed the limits of Hegel's conception as a purely
logical conception of this movement which failed to recognize it as a signi-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
74 Karen Ruoff

fying practice; 2) of interest to us in Hegel are also the empirical and histo-
ricalelements of the Phenomenology of Mind, a text which demonstrates
a kind of overdetermination, and is susceptible to an Althusserian read-
ing.

Veikko Pietila discussed the logical structure of the forms of value in

Das Kapital and described two tendencies of interpretation: The »logico-
historical« interpretation, which argues that the beginning of Das Kapital
is a »logical presentation of real historical development; and the »logi-

cal« interpretation, which argues that the forms of value are logical cat-
egories, which do not correspond to real history. Pietila pointed out that
Marx at some points appears to have understood the forms of value as
historical, in that he referred to different points in time in which the ele-
mentary and expanded forms of value »occured« or »came into existen-
ces Thus they appear in these cases to be intended as reflections of »real,
practical solutions« which people developed in order to overcome hin-
drances. However, the proponents of the »logical« interpretation argue
that this would be to assert that the law of value was operative already in
the premonetary era. Engels clearly entertained this view, assuming that
the people subjectively assessed »fairly accurately« the time it took to pro-
duce articles because they were acquainted with the process of their manu-
facture. Marx, however, clearly understood the law of value as operative
behind the backs of the producers; exchange is constituted in terms of ob-
jective conditions.
Pietila proposed that the cause of this dilemma is based in a failure to
recognize that there are two coexistent levels of analysis in the beginning
of Das Kapital: The first level of »logical« theory starting with the com-
modity, and the second level of »logico-historical« theory starting with the
exchange of simple products.
Pietila 's paper evoked numerous responses. Pekka Kosonen under-
stood Pietila as trying to defend the logico-historical interpretation, and
asked wether one can claim logico-historical validity for other of Marx's
categories. He problematized the designation of »logical« for Marxian
one should not approach them as a ready theoretical
categories, since
model which one simply has to apply; what, he asked, is the actuality of
this debate?
Wolfgang Fritz Haug suggested that the interpretation of the forms of
value as »logical« in the sense described by Pietila threatens to rob Das
Kapital of its analytical value. He pointed out that Engels introduced this
term (the »logical«) into the discusions in 1859 as propaganda, as a con-
crete intervention against the living Hegelians; in that context, the »logical«
refers to the method of Hegel. Haug pointed out that some Hegelian cate-
gories are employed in the analysis of the forms of value for example —
the concept of Selbstbewegung (auto-movement), but that this concept

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Summary of Discussions 75

mystifies.The things do not move themselves, their motion is the motion

of the people involved in patterns of repeated activity; even the »simple«
form of value is not »simple«, but arises from interaction. One must at-
tempt to remove the Hegelian spectacles; the Hegelian term »logical« veils
more than it reveals. Haug suggested as possible alternative formulations
Holzkamp's terms » functional-historical method« or his own term »gene-
tic reconstructions
Jacques Bidet suggested that one must try to conceive of a logic of a so-
cial system with an expression in a determinate order —
genetics and
structure do meet, but this does not imply a parallelism of order between
history and theory.
Elmar Altvater disagreed with Haug, that the category of the »logical«
ought to be abandoned. The task of all science, he said, is to explain con-
cepts, which means to follow their inner logic. There are rules to which
scientists must adhere in defending and explaining their concepts. Al-

though he agreed with Haug that there is no real auto-movement of

things, he insisted that the activities of men do follow certain and (diffe-
rent) logics; Altvater spoke of a rupture between logics (what is capital, la-
bor, etc.) and long-term cycles of capitalist development which must be
analysed in terms of self-movement to some extent —
the point being that
one must maintain some conceptual schemes if one is to avoid dissolving
everything into historical contingencies.
Frieder Otto Wolf agreed with W.F. Haug that the alternative logi-
cal/logico-historical is not useful, but asserted that the task remains of re-
constructing the conceptual logic of the book, Das Kapital; Haug agreed.
F.O. Wolf stated further that the danger of abandoning »the automatic
subject«, the idea of concepts as agents operating in reality, and replacing
itby the idea of men as their own movers, is that we might fall back into
theoretical humanism.
Georg Lohmann held that the analysis of the forms of value is logical in
the sense that it is to some extent an analysis of the internal logic of bour-
geois consciousness (Vorstellung) in a specific context.
Minoru Kitamura stated that the logical is nothing but the »corrected«
historical, having refined the accidental in the historical; therefore both
are the same in essence. The book, Das Kapital, he added, is logical.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
76

Frigga Haug

Marx and Work

The Immiserization Discourse or
the Logic of Ruptures and Contradictions

Work is a central category within Marxism. It is also central to a range of

problems of great contemporary significance: the implications of automa-

tion, the question of unemployment, the issue of house-work raised by the
women's movement, and so on. In my paper 1
1 propose to discuss several
different and' perhaps even contradictory theories of work and their con-
sequences for a political strategy, one of my purposes being to consider
the extent to which they are influenced or derived from Marx. This in-
volves a consideration of a number of different positions within Marx's
own work and their implications for empirical research.
In the first section of my paper I discuss Marx as a »theorist of polari-
zations In his chapter »Machinery and Modern Industry«, for example,
a chapter which has greatly influenced industrial sociology, especially as
concerns the issue of automation, we experience Marx as articulating what
we can call the »immiserization thesis«, applied to a description of work
in a capitalist society.
Research on automated labour very often uses exactly the same descrip-
tions asMarx when signifying, for example, the worker as merely a pres-
serof buttons. Such a conception of work presents, for Marxists, many
problems: we need a detailed analysis of the specific work process of me-
chanized production and their interrelationships, and an analysis of their
specifically capitalist form. Marx's categories are primarily negative.
Work is described as no longer what it was — hence the use of such con-
cepts as »suppression«, »subordination«, »cancellation«, and so on. We
would expect a Marxist description of work to utilize categories which are
historically suitable, but little attempt has been made to isolate precisely
what the labourer under conditions of mechanized production actually
did. Instead of an analysis of work activities, we find the use of emotive
terms such as perversion, the use of the worker, which may give an im-
pression of appalling working conditions, but they are inadequate as tools
of analysis. I have found, however, only one place where Marx really tries
to describe the difference in the workplace itself. »In one, the collective la-

bourer, or social body of labour, appears as the dominant subject, and the
mechanical automation as the object; in the other, the automation itself is
the subject, and the workmen are merely conscious organs, coordinated
with the unconscious organs of the automation, and together with them,
subordinated to the central moving-power. « (MEW 1968, 442) Since po-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Marx and Work 77

litics in factories depends upon a very precise distinction between the

forces of production and their capitalist use, we need to examine this sen-
tence in more depth.
The Marx underlines lies in the perversion of subject and
difference that
object. This is More importantly, it tells us
not, however, very precise.
nothing about the machines and the actual work activities. The impression
is gained that such activities have to be abolished. There is no way to

transcend this misery in the factories and move towards a socialist position
other than by jumping over these activities.

Critical research of the labour process has widely followed Marx's

example and analyses work activities as being negative to craftsmen's2
work. The consequence has been theories of deskilling and, on the other
hand, polarization (Braverman 1977; Kern and Schumann 1970; there are
many other representatives of this immiserization discourse). In all de-
scriptions we have found general concepts taken from the history of the
species. Let us turn back to them again and reconstruct Marx's explana-
tions on man and hiswork.

The realm of freedom and the realm of necessity

»Man comes to an agreement with nature; man changes nature and there-
by his own nature. « Sentences of this kind have so often been quoted that
certain things have been overlooked.The following reconstructs the main
line of argument. Marx
from the idea of two realms, the realm of
starts
necessity and the realm of freedom, separated from each other by pur-
pose. 3 Freedom begins where purpose ends. Games without purpose and
selfpurposeness belong to the realm of freedom. Purposeful action signi-
fies the realm of necessity. The will belongs to purpose. Within this con-
ceptual frame, work is defined as a subordination of man's many sided
play of his muscles, of arms, legs, head, and hand to the will. Man is seen
as an apparatus that functions, including his head, with an additional will
that subordinates the body. In this subordination man develops his na-
ture, but will and activity are already in a relation full of tension. Sub-
jection is increased, the lesser development lies in the activity itself. Will

and purpose, the children of the realm of necessity, subordinate the free
play of the human body. Because the two realms are alternatives, we must
continue: the more will and purpose work and destroy freedom, the less
they develop man and his potentialities. Because of this polar construc-
tion, we cannot think what is necessary for the perspective of work: pur-
pose and development within work. Following these philosophical sen-
tences, one cannot formulate a demand about human work that allows
development, and even pleasure and learning within work activities.
Marx's own perspectives concentrate on diminishing the necessary im-
portance of work and proposing its generalization. The realm of necessity

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
78 Frigga Haug

remains the basis on which the realm of freedom can increase. But free-
dom has to be gained by shortening necessity. This is what Andre Gorz
(1980) proposes with his two economies for future societies. And Ralf
Dahrendorf (1982a and b) starts from the same assumption when he pro-
poses the end of the working society and the construction of a realm of
free actions. Would it not be more interesting to study the entanglement
of freedom and necessity instead of their separation? The connection of
self-realization and work, fundamental for critical psychology, for in-
stance, is impossible with the opposition of the two realms.
Furthermore, the separation of will and purpose from the subordinate
body allows Marx to outline the division of labour as the separation of
manual and mental labour. This construction has led to two different
theoretical developments. First, a theory of the structure of operations
without society and, second, a long tradition of neglecting processes of
thinking and consciousness within work activities. Man as an appendage
of machines, this is the metaphor which stands for this neglect of work-
ing-consciousness.
There are some difficulties with formulations such as: »the working
process includes human activity, the means of production and its object«.
Man is alluded to in the singular. Would it not be necessary to think of
men and therefore in the plural, and the purposes as so-
in cooperation
cial?The determination by activity, means and object of production pre-
vents us from analysing the battle within the factories and the formation
of the working class in production.
To ask how the relations of production are reproduced within the con-
ditions of the labour process needs the inclusion of the social and coopera-
tive part of work. To analyse politics in production, as well as the latter's
determination by the social relations and productive forces, and to analyse
the workers' activities within this frame, we formulated the following re-
search steps: In analysing the working process, we should look for the de-
mands of the productive forces, the transformation of these demands into
tasks by the employers (in a fight with the organizations of the working
class), and the transformation of these tasks into activities by the workers

themselves. This would allow us to analyse the realities of work and the
possibilities opened up by the productive forces and the starting points for
political interventions.

Marx and the logic of ruptures and contradictions

But Marx's writings are not homogeneous. There is a third order of prob-
lems and concepts in them which I believe is extremely fruitful for our pre-
sent problems. I call this order the logic of crises and ruptures. Let us see
how labour is understood in this third disposition of concepts. Abstract
labour, Marx wrote, is »practically true« only in capitalism. »The indif-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Marx and Work 79

ference to a certain type of labour presupposes a very developed totality of

real types of labour, none of which is completely domineering. Thus the
most general abstractions arise only if there is a very rich and concrete de-
velopment, where the one appears as common to the many, in common to
all of them.» (Marx 1974, 25) Here, abstract labour is not just conceived

of as a physical necessity, but as a process under special conditions, under

conditions which do not enforce domination but enable a horizontal asso-
ciation of the producers. I read here »common« and »common for all« as
allusions to community and communism (see Jager's article in this volu-
me). The optimistic expressions »developed totality«, not being »comple-
tely domineering«, »common«, are embedded in a sentence which begins
with the ambiguous word »indifference« There is a collision of descrip-
.

tions of misery with concepts which elaborate the conditions of a future

community. Such collisions I call an arrangement of crises.
Development is here conceived of as a rupture with old forms. Here
there is no historical necessity and no automatic process. Whether people
grasp the changing conditions and construct new forms, the answer to this
question is practical politics. The forms of the old society are obstacles
and, at the same time, shelters for the individual. It is this entanglement,
the protecting character of the fetters and the fettering character of the
protections which can make liberation a catastrophe. The shattering of the
old forms —
for instance by capital —
engenders tasks of reorganization,
it creates conditions which must be seized. But it does not produce libera-

tion itself.

An understanding of how Marx could draw such optimistic conclusions

from the misery of the working class, as depicted by himself and Engels in
hundreds of pages, can only be reached by reconstructing such a critical
arrangement. This is the only way to understand why Marx praises the
entry of science into production while describing it as the complete »divi-
sion of manual and mental labour«. Science is not only the basis for total
control from above, but also for any division of labour without domina-
tion. Marx arranges his categories in such an order that our feelings and
impulses are on the side of the old forms. To become engaged in the liber-
ation from the old forms requires that we take leave of what we took a lik-
ing to, of traditions, of ourselves.

How can Marx be used in a contemporary theory of labour?

The great challenge is not only to see the vanishing of phenomena but to
regard their transitory character as a starting point of new
movements and
of practical interventions. Which opposed to further development,
fetters,
are destroyed in the process of automation?
I want to fill out this framework with a sketch of some developments in

the automated labour processes:

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 .

80 FriggaHaug

1 The activities in automated processes are predominantly concerned

with data processing. This destroys those conditions which made skilled
industrial labour adomain of the male sex. In reality at least in the Fed- —
eral Republic of Germany —
automation seems ultimately to ban women
from the region of industrial labour. The new conditions of labour must
be seized by the unions, who need a special policy for women's right to
labour. This policy, however, should not be reduced to a general policy
against unemployment.
The change of labour
2. — especially information processing
activities
— breaks the monopoly of mental labour over manual. Science is practi-
cally generalized, within certain limits. One form of this transformation
has resulted in the crisis of the engineers, who are pressed into the realm of
direct production, and experience this as a »devaluation«. These devel-
opments go hand in hand with a dissolution of solidarity among workers.
3. The group which is most severely threatened by the changes in pro-

duction is the group of craftsmen/skilled labourers. This is a group which

is today as much an obstacle to the unity of the working class, as in the

past it was the guarantee for the strength of the labour movement. Being a
craftsman means the appropriation of an identity which articulates men
against women, workers against intellectuals, skilled against unskilled
workers, against immigrant workers. The chaos of the new requirements
of labour (which nobody is exactly clear about) is the area for a Darwin-
istic struggle. There are new possibilities for a general theory-based educa-

tion for all, a labour culture which is not based on sexism, anti-intellec-
tualism, racism —
but these are only possibilities, which must be realized
in struggles.
4. The development of the productive forces is destroying old hier-
archies. Mastersand foremen are becoming extinct. It is difficult even for
engineers to judge what the workers are doing. At the same time, em-
ployers are developing sophisticated strategies to construct new types of
workers.
A policy which tries to defend old positions will not be successful
against the development of the productive forces and capitalists' power. A
new policy which
abandons old positions needs especially a strategy in the
cultural field —
a »cultural revolution« —
and a strategy in the ideological
field, in the very region where the old identities are being called to order.

Notes
1 Published in German, in: Aktualisierung Marx. Argument-Sonderband 100,
1983, 101-120.
2 Here I want to translate the German category »Facharbeiter«. I hesitate to
use the normal translation » skilled worker«, because the expression lacks the
allusion to the specific culture that is expressed in the German »Fach-
arbeiter«.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 1

Capitalism — Dying or Becoming ? 8

3 This is a rather helpless translation of the German »Zweck«. Perhaps it

should be »goal« or »end«.

Literature

Braverman, H., 1977: Die Arbeit im modernen Produktionsprozess. Frank-

furt/M.
Dahrendorf, R., 1982a: Die Arbeitsgesellschaft ist am Ende. In: Die Zeit nr.48,
November 23th.
Dahrendorf, R., 1982b: Wenn aus Arbeit sinnvolles Tun wird. In: Die Zeit nr.49,
December 3rd.
Gorz, A., 1980: Abschied vom Proletariat. Jenseits des Sozialismus. Frank-
furt/M.
Kern, H., and Schumann, M, 1970: Industriearbeit und Arbeiterbewufitsein. Ei-

ne empirische Untersuchung iiber den EinfluB der aktuellen technischen Ent-

wicklung auf die industrielle Arbeit und das Arbeiterbewufksein.Bd. I and II.
Frankfurt/M.
MEW, 1968: Marx Engels Werke, Band 23, Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen
Okonomie. Erster Band, Berlin/DDR.
Marx, K., 1974: Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Okonomie, 2. Auflage.
Berlin/DDR.

Pekka Kosonen

Capitalism — Dying or Becoming?

i

My paper deals with the relationship between the theoretical study of con-
temporary capitalism and the general theory of capitalism, Marx's critique
of political economy. My question is: is capitalism dying or still becom-
ing?
Marx wrote in Grundrisse (544-45): »As long as capital is weak, it still
on the crutches of past modes of production, or of those which
itself relies

will pass with its rise. As soon as it feels strong, it throws away the

crutches, and moves in accordance with its own laws. As soon it begins to
sense itself and become conscious of itself as a barrier to development, it
seeks refuge in forms which, by restricting- free competition, seem to make
the role of capital more perfect but are at the same time the heralds of its
deterioration and of the dissolution of the mode of production resting on
it.« —Such statements have generated two opposite interpretations of the
change of capitalism: on the one hand it is emphasized that the new forms

ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 ©

82 PekkaKosonen

seem to make the role of capital more perfect, on the other that these
forms are the heralds of its deterioration.
The deterioration or dissolution of capitalism is outlined in the theories
of imperialism. Imperialism can be seen as weakening, dying capitalism;
monopolies hinder the development of the forces of production, and the
state becomes reactionary. All these are symptoms of the dissolution of
themode of production resting on capital.
But why has the patient lived so long? Perhaps the diagnosis was
wrong? Perhaps the role of capital is now more perfect than ever? Rainer
Funke (1978) has noted that the theories of »late capitalism« and »state
monopoly capitalism« are wavering. Their conception of capitalism is:
still but less and less. An alternative to this is Funke's programme, »even

today really becoming capitalisms

II

Michel Aglietta's ATheory of Capitalist Regulation (1979) uses the con-

cept »Fordism« in analyzing contemporary capitalism, referring not only
to the new form of production, but essentially to the generalization and
development of the wage relationship.
According to Aglietta, we have to start out from the principle that ca-
pital can never reproduce itself under identical social conditions. On the

one hand, the labour process is transformed under the principles of

Taylorism; on the other hand, a social norm of working-class consump-
tion arises. In Aglietta's view, there is no inevitable stagnation of capital-
ism. On the contrary, Fordism was a crucial precondition for an increase
in the productivity of labour and for long-term stability of the rate of pro-
fit.

Aglietta correctly emphasizes the role of Fordism and the expansion of

capital in the growth process, but the problem is: how does this lead to cri-
sis? The class struggles have intensified at the point of production, as
Aglietta argues, but it is not sure that this caused the decrease in the rate
of surplus-value. The crucial thing is: how can the growing influence of
capital, the capitalization process, explain the present crisis? During the
golden age of Fordism this capitalization created new markets and im-
proved the profitability of capital. But this no longer works.
A recent explanation by Aglietta (1982) runs as follows: The hierarchic
structure of interacting national growth systems has changed. The post-
war American hegemony was largely founded upon the diffusion of mass
production technologies and the expansion of trade between the advanced
capitalist countries. This allowed the emergence of a set of complementary
and self-reinforcing »vicious circles« in Europe. But the stability of this
structure was undermined by its very success in generalizing a high-pro-
ductivity model of production linked to mass consumer-durable con-

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Capitalism — Dying or Becoming ? 83

sumption in the advanced capitalist countries. The complementarity of vi-

cious circles has given way to a coexistence of vicious circles; we may
speak about a cohesion of crisis. Thus, the generalization of Fordist pro-
duction and consumption can be seen as the background of the present
crisis, even if the monetary instability has also deepened the crisis.

Ill

Joachim Hirsch (1980) explains the emergence of the »security state« by

the »trans-capitalization« of society. Capitalist development leads to the
disintegration of social relationships that formerly were founded and
maintained in a quasi-natural way by the market and by traditional ways
of life, which now have to be generated by bureaucratic control and regu-
lation. This is the basis of the »Fordist security state«. It is a security state
in a dual sense: it guarantees both the material survival of its social mem-
bers as well as their functional adjustment and regulation, their social con-
ditioning and surveillance. Inherent in this development is the markedly
extensive central bureaucratic network of regulation, supervision and con-
trol. The penetration of the state into society can thus be seen as the other

side of Fordist disintegration.

To my mind Hirsch' s study represents the concept of »becoming capi-
talism« in contradistinction to the concept of »dying capitalism«. Hirsch
interprets far-reaching social transformations that have taken place during
the last decades as a product of the dynamics of capitalist development.
Inasmuch as capital cannot reproduce itself under unchanging relations of
sozialization, but is forced to overturn and reorganize them constantly on
a world-scale, the result is the permeation of all areas oflife by capitalist

relations, the progressive commodification of all social relations (»trans-

capitalization«). The power of capital is not diminishing but increasing.
One feature in this process is that the state apparatus tends to become in-
creasingly comprehensive and at the same time stronger.
Hirsch' s conceptualization is, however, rather tentative. At least two
points seem problematic.
Firstly: the effects of capitalization. The idea of capitalization as an on-
going process certainly gives a better picture of the dynamic nature of
capital than stagnation theories. Also, it is able to connect the production
process to the reproduction of social relations. Nevertheless, the result of
this conceptualization comes, paradoxically, close to some of the results
of stagnation theories. Both stress the destructive and reactionary tenden-
development of capitalism: the'main tendency is disintegration.
cies in the
For stagnation theories this is inevitable, for the capitalization theory not.
The problem in Hirsch' s interpretation of the capitalization process is
that he sees the destructive consequences of capitalization only. What
about »the great civilizing influence of capitak that Marx saw? 1

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 «

84 Pekka Kosonen

Capitalism and its historical development have, as I see it, a dual na-
ture. Capitalism creates new needs and brings forth the societalization
(Vergesellschaftung) of humanity in a qualitatively new manner, but at the
same time suppresses these very needs; societalization takes place in forms
subordinated to capital. In any case we have these new needs and ways of
life,which are the basis for thoughts of a better society.
The second point I wish to raise is Hirsch's analysis of state regulation.
He seems to derive this regulation from the effects of »trans-capitaliza-
tion«, from social disintegration. He writes: »the more social cohesiveness
disintegrates, the more inevitable becomes bureaucratically-organized reg-
ulation. The growth of regulation is an inevitable part of social disintegra-
tion: the state fills up the gaps caused by this disintegration.
Do bureaucrats, then, always recognize these gaps and know how to re-
act? And even if they do, do not the actors and political movements in-
fluence the formation of the security system? In my opinion, we cannot
explain the state functions only by referring to some needs or require-
ments. We have to specify the actors who and the
create these functions
mechanisms Giddens 1982).
that realize these functions (cf.
In order to avoid functionalist explanations, we have to analyze differ-
ent actors and different levels of the state. One such differentiation is pro-
posed by Sakari Hanninen (1981, 215-220) who separates three levels of
the bourgeois state: the form of publicity, the organizational form, and
the institutional form. These levels have different time structures or differ-
ent histories, from the ideal history of whole capitalism to the changing
histories during capitalism and its cycles.

IV
Finally, I shall tackle the question »is capitalism dying or still becoming«
and try to give some answers. Basically, the thesis of capitalization, of the
real subsumption of not yet capitalistically structured social areas and the
commodification of all social relationships can be accepted; it must, how-
ever, be borne in mind that this development also involves civilizing ef-

fects. This capitalization is also significant in view of the formation and

reshaping of the state activities. In this sense it can be said that capitalism
is even today in the process of becoming.
However, this idea needs some qualifications. The expansion of the
capital relationship does not necessarily mean improved capital accumula-
tion. On the contrary, it has led to difficulties in this respect.
The current international crisis is essentially caused by the change in the
hierarchic structure of interacting national growth systems; today, vicious
circles coexist in the international economy. This change can be analyzed
as a result of the generalization of the high-productivity linked to mass
consumption, i.e., as a result of the expansion of capitalization in all de-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 s

Capitalism — Dying or Becoming ? 85

veloped capitalist countries. Thus, capitalization could, for a while, sup-

port the international economy, but its expansion has in the 70' s and 80'
led to difficulties and crises.

In this situation the state activities that increased along with capitaliza-
tion have become problematic. By hindering the reserve army in the exer-
of its action in the recovery of the accumulation process, full employ-
cise
ment policy weakened the distributional positions of capital. This has un-
favourable consequences for accumulation. As long as the international
conditions were good, this could be managed, but after that the difficul-
ties have become obvious. The previous positive relation between public
expenditure and the success of a nation-state on the world market is also
questionable now. International competition necessitates reductions in
wages and social security expenditure rather than reforms, but the reforms
are not so easily reversed.
In brief, the process of the becoming of capitalism, capitalization, en-
hanced accumulation after World War II, but seems now to have led the
system into a deep crisis. In this sense the role of capital is not strengthen-
ing. But can we say that it is weakening? Not necessarily: the crisis does

not mean a transition away from capitalism, the death of capitalism. It

only shows the necessity to find new solutions; not how new social rela-
tions that are not commodified or subordinated to the state are to be crea-
ted.

Notes
1 Marx wrote in Grundrisse (313) that »capital creates the bourgeois society,
and the universal appropriation of nature as well as of the social bond itself
by the members of society. Hence the great civilizing influence of capital: its
production of a stage of society in comparison to which all earlier ones ap-
pear as mere local developments of humanity and as nature idolatry. « Here,
Marx mentioned both the appropriation of nature and the development of
needs and ways of life. »In accord with this tendency, capital drives beyond
national barriers and prejudices as much as beyond worship, as well as all
traditional, confined, complacent, encrusted satisfactions of present needs,
and reproductions of old ways of life.«

Literature
Aglietta, M., 1979: A Theory of Capitalist Regulation, London
Aglietta, M., 1982: World Capitalism in the Eighties, New Left Review 136
Funke, R., 1978: Sich durchsetzender Kapitalismus. In: Starnberger Studien 2,
Sozialpolitik als soziale Kontrolle, Frankfurt/M.
Giddens, A., 1982: Commentary on the Debate, in Theory and Society, July
Hirsch, J., 1980: Der Sicherheitsstaat, Frankfurt/M.
Hanninen, S., 1981: Aika, paikka, politiikka (Time, place, politics), Oulu
Marx, K.: Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Okonomie, Frankfurt/M.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
86

Georg Lohmann

»Wealth« as an Aspect of the Critique of Capital

At the beginning of Marx makes a distinction between a compre-

Capital,
hensive, indeterminate concept of »social wealth«and the more limited
concept of »bourgeois wealth« (B 49) The first characterization of the
1
.

latter as the »immense accumulation of commodities then launches the

critical presentation of capital (cf. Lohmann 1980, 237ff.). Wealth is seen
as a fundamental aspect of the critique of capital: a). To begin with, the ca-
pitalist production of wealth is critically judged by using the immanently

economic, modern concept of wealth; b) Secondly, by means of an em-

Marx attempts to go beyond the economic
phatic interpretation of wealth,
framework and to criticize the inverted and restricted shape of bourgeois
wealth against a background of a true and universal wealth. In the follow-
ing, the question will be raised as to whether or not the normative implica-
tions of the critique can be adequately explicated by means of the category
of wealth.

The Immanently Economic Aspects

It is the abstractly conceived utilitarian notion of an optimum of use
which is the goal of the capitalist mode of production. Perfection is re-

placed by the unlimited, excessively increasing development of an ab-

stract, universal notion of wealth, and the capitalist »production for pro-
duction's sake« (B 621) is considered to be the most advantageous. This
character of abstraction can be seen in the function of money which is
deemed as the adequate representative of modern, economic wealth.
Marx's immanently economic critique does not measure the capitalist
mode of production in terms of whether or not it attains its goal but rather
in terms of the manner in which it pursues its goal. The critical presenta-
tion of capitalist development shows the crisis-laden, ambivalent develop-
ment of the economic goal which can only develop wealth together with
poverty and scarcity (cf. B 674; MEW
4, 141), and which can not exploit

efficiently enough the resources of the development of wealth, the pro-

ductive forces (cf. B 530ff; MEW 25, 256, 270). The standard used for this
critique is still the modern, economic concept of wealth.

Using and Producing

We light upon a preliminary understanding of the emphatic concept of
wealth by considering that, for Marx (as well as for Aristotle) the mere
presence and possession of wealth is not as highly valued as are the activi-

ties of using wealth (Gr. 387).

ARGUMENTSONDERBAND AS 109 ©
» Wealth« as an Aspect of the Critique of Capital 87

The utility of an object of use is, speaking as an Aristotelian, like a pas-

sive potentiality — the capacity for being changed and used — which is in-

herent in the object (cf. Wolf 1979, 19ff.). In order that this passive poten-
be actualized, a corresponding active potentiality is neccessary
tiality

which can cause the changes as well as bring about the use. The vehicle of
the active potentiality is, in this case, man. Human potentialities are only
then actualized, even in opportune situations, if man wants them to be ac-

tualized. They are learned, are capable of being taught; each time they are
actualized, man avails himself of specific implicit or explicit knowledge.

Man uses an object relative to systems of rules, be they regulative rules, as

in the case of needs, or constitutive rules, as in the case of wants, and he
determines the goal of use in relation to these. By using his explicit or im-
plicit knowledge of causal regularities, man chooses the appropriate re-

sources or procedures so that he attains his goal by actualizing the respec-

tive abilities in opportune situations. Consequently, the actualization of
human abilities is determining for the various modes of use; man first ob-
tains the necessary knowledge of rules by means of social contact. Hence,
by way of the socially fixed rules of use, every purposeful (end-oriented)
use of an object is also a »position-taking« to the social community within
which these rules are valid, and along with that, it is indirectly a »position-
taking« to the normative structures of the community.
Objects of use do not usually have their particular character by nature,
but rather they are produced by means of labour in relation to a particular
character in each case. In the Marxian view (as well as in the Aristotelian),
there is a strong structural analogy (but also differences which I am leav-
ing here to the side) between the use of an object and its production. La-
bour is a purposeful activity that, by actualizing causal abilities, brings
about a particular character as its goal in objects with specific, correlative,
passive potentialities. This is carried out relative to the desired end and to
a knowledge of natural regularities. Again, the actualizing of voluntary
human abilities is determining. The useful characteristics of objects, there-
fore, »spring« out of the producing activity (viewed as the efficient and
moving cause) so that »labor« and »nature« both appear as the »springs
of all wealth« (B 530).
Based on
this, it is clear that a comprehensive concept of wealth can not

be limited to the presence of useful objects; instead, it must also include

the human abilities that are decisive for use and production.

The Wealth of Human Abilities

Universal productivity
To explore this last idea, one has first of all to consider the development of
ends-oriented human abilities that are dependent upon correlative poten-
tialities in objects.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
88 Georg Lohmann

Along with the development of individual abilities that depend upon

the laborer's learning and cultural-developmental processes as well as on
the labor time at his disposal, the development of labor productivity is

heightened by the development of cooperative abilities. These require for

their actualization the joint action of several persons. Marx calls these
cooperative abilities the new »social power potential (B 345). He sub-
sumes this »social productive power of labor or productive power of so-
cial labor«, whose decisive components are the development of science,
technology, and the organization of production, under the problematic
concept of the development of the »species ability« (ibid.). This view is

problematic because it is related to a »paradoxical idea of unity« (cf . Lan-

ge 1980, 86ff.) of individual, species, and nature, and this idea does not
determine to a sufficient extent, in particular, the intersubjective relation-
ships, nor does it sufficiently specify the relation between the »Individuum
und Allgemeinheit« (the individual and the general). Because of this and
with the neglect of the specifically social elements, the rationality of the
ability to dispose of nature — in other words, the mastery over nature —
becomes the dominating criterion for this development of wealth. Produc-
understood emphatically, remains in the »realm of necessity«.
tive wealth,
Marx is well aware of the modern effect of this universal development
of power —
its remaining unfulfilled. In comparison to the ancient view

which seeks to fulfill the cultivation of human abilities in the highest goal
of the »good life«, Marx points out »that the childish old World« appears
»as the highest, whereas the modern [way of development] leaves one un-
satisfied, or, where it appears to be satisfied with itself, is vulgar« (Gr.

387). This »sting of vulgarity« is grounded in the fixing of the ends of the
universal development of productivity —
a fixing of ends which ultimately
is contingent; the »sting« can only then be removed if Marx succeeds in

finding a modern equivalent for the function of the »good life«. Marx
does try to solve this problem by working with the same determination
with which the »childish old world« also characterized the »good life«:
»Selbstzweckhaftigkeit« (the quality of being an end in itself).

Activities that are ends in themselves

Marx comes upon activities that are ends in themselves by considering

human abilities which are not dependent upon corre-
those classes of
sponding passive potentialities in external objects for their actualization
(cf. Wolf 1979, 366ff.) The voluntary decisions which determine their
being actualized, are dependent on the arbitrary freedom and spontaneity
of the agent alone. Marx interprets this circumstance in such a way that
this is the point at which the »development of human power« begins,
» which counts as an end in itself« (MEW 25, 828), and which, as the »true
realm of freedom, must be distinguished from the »realm of necessity«.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
» Wealth« as an Aspect of the Critique of Capital 89

Accordingly, the development of those human abilities that are assigned

to the »realm of freedom« belongs essentially to the emphatic concept of
wealth.
In the »realm of freedom«, where the relation to something external is

excluded, man is solely in relation to himself; hereupon, Marx can even

expect satisfaction from the »end-in-itself« use of abilities. Marx empha-
sizes this aspect (cf. B 193). Hence, if the quality of being an end in itself
in human abilities is at first only negatively characterized but is in itself an
initial determination, since with it the realm of freedom begins, then the
latter characterisation is an attempt to determine positively this quality of
being an end in itself: own powers becomes a form of
giving play to one's
self-enjoyment —
a determination to be traced back to a dictum of Schil-
ler. We can now ask whether or not this determination solves the problem

of the still unsatisfied universality of the development of human powers.

The limits of the emphatic concept of wealth

Schiller had determined the aesthetic enjoyment of the physical (bodily)
and the cognitive (spiritual) powers in such a manner that, as the aesthetic
enjoyment of beauty, it simultaneously socialized individuals. Marx may
very well have intended to include these social implications of enjoyment,
but they are incapable of being conceptually grasped. Precisely because he
talks only of man as a species being in all of our previous contexts, self en-
joyment has obviously to be so understood that it still is »afflicted« with
that paradoxical idea of unity of the species being.
Understood in this manner, the quality of being an end in itself as well
as self-enjoyment in the »realm of freedom« do not provide a solution for
the still unsatisfied universal development of productivity, already deter-
mined in the realm of necessity precisely as something social. Likewise, the
cultivation of the satisfaction of needs, insufficiently determined with the
concept of self-enjoyment, remains undetermined. There is still the dual-
ism of the two realms, and the peculiar characteristics of the one realm do
not provide solutions for the problems of the other.
In his sketch of the emphatic concept of wealth, Marx leaves the social
components of the actualization of human abilities conceptually undeter-
mined and interprets the relationship to nature (otherwise as in his early
writings) solely asa relation of mastery; because of this, he is unable to
find an appropriate equivalent for the functions of the »good life« which
in antiquity had determined and restricted in a social and political-ethical
manner the genuine development of wealth. With this concept of the de-
velopment of human powers that are ends in themselves a development —
leading to self-enjoyment — Marx instead back upon a position of
falls

Max Stirner which sees the highest goal of human development thor- —
oughly modern! —
in individual self-enjoyment. The question is, there-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
90 Georg Lohmann

fore, whether or not we can defend Marx's intention against the individ-
ualistic consequences of his emphatic concept of wealth.
The problem at the starting point is to find the criterion for the develop-
ment of true wealth, that is, for the universal development of human abili-
ties. Since true wealth is related to all human abilities, it becomes identical

to the whole practice of life. Out of the »true wealth/riches of man«, the
»wealthy/rich man« and the »wealthy/rich life« emerge. These are tauto-
logical determinations. The negative sense of the actualization of abilities
as ends in themselves, being the mark of the »realm of freedom«, obtains
a paradigmatic and normative connotation for the whole of life. A genu-
inely rich life should unfold in such a way that it is not used as a means to
other ends but rather counts as an end in itself. With this, a criterion is

provided that can also determine the modern view of the »good life«. It

does not, however, contain a positive specification. A negative sense of

autonomous living is expressed in it, and this, to be sure, is a necessary but
not a sufficient condition, and in itself, need of clari-
the criterion is still in
fication. Nothing is how, namely, this rich life as an end in itself
said as to
is to be lived and, in particular, how the problem of a developed selfdeter-

mination and the problem concerning developed relations in connection

with social, community, and natural relations are to be solved. We are led
merely to tautological determinations with our interpretative characteriza-
tion of the emphatic concept of wealth in conjunction with the previous
conceptual apparatus borrowed from Marx. The emphatic conception of
wealth becomes problematic in those places where it meets with questions
concerning social living and, consequently, concerning problems of justi-
ce, questions about the collective evaluation of the good life as well as
questions of an appropriate relationship to nature. For this reason, the
conceptual framework of the category of wealth has to be given up if the
normative implications of true wealth are to be explicated.
(Translated by Lesli Grega)

Notes
1 For the abbreviations, see »Literature« below. Quotations have been trans-
lated from the German texts, page numbers refer to the German editions.

Literature

Lange, E.M., 1980: Das Prinzip Arbeit. Frankfurt/M., Berlin/W., Wien

Lohmann, G., 1980: Gesellschaftskritik und normativer MaBstab. In: Honneth, A., und
U. Jaeggi (eds.): Arbeit, Handlung, Normativitat, Frankfurt/M.
Marx, K., 1957ff: MEW: Marx-Engels-Werke, 39 vol., Berlin/DDR; referred to as
MEW/number of the volume/page.
Marx, K., 1968: Das Kapital, vol.1, 4th edition, MEW
23; referred to as B/page.
Marx, K., 1953: Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Okonomie, Berlin/DDR; referred to
as Gr./page.
Wolf, U., 1979: Moglichkeit und Notwendigkeit bei Aristoteles und heute. Munchen

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 91

Jacques Bidet

Labour-Value as a Political Category

1 . The greatest challenge that Marxism has faced over the last decade has,
in my opinion, come from neo-Ricardian economics. This challenge di-
vides the present European generation that contests neoclassical orthodo-
xy by returning to Marx through Ricardo and trying to work out a metho-
dology for socialism.
To make my position correctly understood, I must mention that the
specificity of Marxism, defined as historical materialism, consists in my
mind in the double relevance of its categories, both economic and politi-
cal, and that this double relevance always remains highly problematic.

By »the greatest challenge« I mean: a) the neo-Ricardians develop an

inquiry which concerns immediately the basic categories that Marx uses in
Capital, and, first of all, value; b) they work out these categories in an-
other direction, precisely by dissociation, i.e., in the direction of pure eco-
nomism; c) they are able to do that because of the uncertainty of the very
first Marxian theory of capital; d) this critique is quite dif-
principles in the
ferent from the vulgar one; e) it uncovers real problems which remain in
Marxist theory and can help it improve itself.
2. This disturbing trend of thought compels Marxists to study the logi-

cal structure of Capital from a renewed point of view. Although this ques-
tion has been discussed —
mainly in German —
in a large body of litera-
ture, the main points seem not to be clearly established, especially the ar-
ticulation between the first section of Book One and the rest of Capital. In
other words, the logical status of this section.
I think some light could be brought on this question if the Marxian text

would be analyzed from the usual viewpoint of the history of sciences. By

that I mean: a) Each new version, from 1867 to 1875, has to be taken se-
riously as a conscious correction of the preceding one. But most commen-
tators actually choose the opposite approach: they try to provide a better
explanation by using the very means that Marx had judged irrelevant; b) I
think a sure guide for the right direction would be the notion of »episte-
mological support/obstacle«. It would designate these categories which
play at first a positive part (as long as they help new problems emerge),

and then a negative part because of their inadequacy to the logical require-
ments of the system. We will see this is the case with several terms Marx
borrowed from the philosophical tradition.
3 1 will here discuss the example of an anomaly in the plan of Capital, a
.

very symptomatic one, which concerns the present problems of the theo-
ry. If we assume that the first Section has a strictly theoretical function,

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 .

92 Jacques Bidet

we would expect Marx to explain the whole system of categories which be-
long to thatlevel. I mean: the abstract structure of capitalism as a system

of commodity production ruled by the law of labour value.

Actually, Marx does not describe the whole system of these categories:
i.e., value versus individual value, value versus market value, competition
within the branch versus competition between different branches. Yet, all

these notions are logically required for the adequate presentation of this
theoretical object.
On the contrary, Marx develops a fiction: competition would belong to
Book Three. It is a fiction because actually the presentation of the relative
surplus value (in Book One) implies the extra surplus value, which, in
turn, implies competition within the branch.
It is also a fiction because when Book Three comes to the »equalization
of the general rate of profit through competition^ this notion of competi-
tion receives further determinations, which all belong to the simple con-
cept of value: individual value, market value, competition within the
branch and between branches. This system of categories is used here at the
profit level, for the problem of capitals with different organic composi-
tion; but all these categories, among them competition, belong to the
theory of value, i.e. to Book One Section One.
Of course, these categories are present in the first Section: they are im-
plied by notions like »private labours, or »socially necessary labour
time«. But they are only implicit. They are censored. And the idea of
competition particularly so.
4. Why this fiction? I think there are at least two sorts of (interrelated)
reasons: a) Marx claims an excellent principle: proceed from abstract to
concrete. But he encounters serious difficulties in applying this principle to
the articulation of two sorts of regulations on both levels of values and
prices of production. He chooses to explain the competition system of re-
gulation only in Book Three, at least explicitly; b) He could not express
explicitly an abstract commodity system of Book One
in the first section
without expressing it as a functional system, where contradictions are only
virtual. And he was not philosophically prepared for that. More precisely,
Marx discovered only slowly that he had to describe this first abstract
commodity production system and put such an abstraction at the very be-
ginning of his treatise. And the way to this discovery is pegged out by
some philosophical schemata, which work precisely as epistemological
supports/obstacles
5. What are these schemata?
The first one is to be found in Grundrisse. It is the idea that one must
a)
proceed from the surface on to the essence. Grundrisse defines Section
One as the money section or the circulation section, and refers production
to the »section on capital«. In Capital itself, one cannot say it has over-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Labour- Value as a Political Category 93

come this schema: we have already seen that the problem of the abstract
commodity system remains relatively censored.

b) The second schema is the inverse one: the idea of proceeding from
the essence (or internal connection) on to the manifestations (Erschei-
nungsformen), which are in Book Three, where we are supposed to reach
the level of competition as well as the viewpoint of the motivations and re-
presentations of the ordinary conscience.
This schema points out the central place of the surplus connection. But
it also has a negative effect: it relegates the moment of the individual and
of the ideological, which is also the moment of competition, to a lower
position.It dims out the fact that the competition relations, the relations

between individuals, belong to the very principles of the explanation, to

the heart of the system; for this reasonits right place is in Book One and

Without that reference to individual relations, there is

in its first section.
no »internal connections no rational theory of the mode of production.
6. Because of the neo-Ricardian theories, examination of the logical

structure of Capital has acquired a new importance. One generally admits

that the specificity of Marx, compared to Ricardo, is in developing the
surplus value level: Ricardo begins by stating the principle of labour-val-
ue, but modifies it immediately and actually works on the level of the
prices of production. Marx, then, develops the level of surplus value, and
so brings into light the essential capital/labour relation.
If we assume that Sraffa brings to a conclusion the Ricardian system,
the difference between Ricardo and Marx and the novelty of Marx be-
comes more becomes clear that Ricardo has no need for
evident. It

labour-value in his theory, and that Marx is the first thinker who takes
labour-value seriously and actually uses its category.
The first specificity of Marx is thus that he develops the abstract level of
value as a system, as the abstract moment of commodity production as
such. So, in opposition to the neo-Ricardian system, Section One appears
in a new light: it appears as the place where labour is considered without
the question of its »price« . That is, as something impossible in a Sraffa
system, where labour always occurs as a commodity affected by its price.
Such a theoretical moment, in opposition to Ricardo, is not only the
moment before the consideration of the organic composition of capital. It
isan incredible statement: a statement on commodity production before
the question of wages. I call it a statement on the naked labour.
7. I would like to show that for this reason Marx's theory earns the
name of economico-political, in opposition to the Ricardian and the neo-
Ricardian statement, which must be said to be only economic. In Section
One, labour is not present with its remuneration. There is only a logic of a

producers/exchangers system, where these individuals are not the work-

ers, and where what they receive is not wages. Yet, the worker is present in

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
94 Jacques Bidet

the system, but only because his expenditure of labour-power forms value
and gives the measure of its magnitude, an expenditure which is under the
constraint of the market.
Section Two teaches us that the capitalist class exerts this market con-
on the workers. So, the whole concept of labour- value becomes the
straint

concept of »expenditure and constraint of labour«. And we understand

that labour-value is a political category. Value is defined in the quantita-
tive field of labour time. But this labour time is constrained. The necessary
time for production is defined in the political field of the class struggle.
The definition of value by the abstract labour as an expenditure opens
both the homogeneous space of economics, where the quantitative an-
alysis occurs, and the space of class struggle. The value, which is a quanti-
ty, is also (because it is the quantity of an expenditure of labour-power
which is socially regulated) a social, political relation (and it also means:
there is no possible value theory of another social system without a speci-
fic sociopolitical theory of this social system).

8. This is what the beginning of Capital teaches

us, if it is assumed it is
an abstract presentation of capitalist production as commodity produc-
tion. It shows why the wage relationship will belong to a wider relation:
the relation of expenditure/constraint (or consumption) of labour.
This relation must be called political because the constraint of the capi-
talist on the labour- power is not instrumental. It is measured by the suffi-

cient reasons that the worker will find to work, and that will make him
work sufficiently. This means that it is measured by the ability of the capi-
talist class, as a ruling class, to create not only constraint but also reasons
to work.
This is why I want to argue against the many efforts to renew Marxism
on another basis, which rejects labour- value and refers to money or to the
wage relation by itself. I believe the political question must be analyzed on
the basis of labour- value. It is this category of labour- value that enables a
theory to develop on an authentic economico-political level, and hold to-
gether the problems of labour and power.
But this also means a certain conception of the logic of the theory.

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 95

Michael Kratke

Value Theory and Public Finance

Economic and Political Theories

Pure economics is by no means pure, as has been pointed out a long time
ago (Myrdal 1932), but full of hidden notions on the very nature of mod-
ern capitalist societies. In the field of public finance where you are ex-
pected to find the »economics of politics« and the »politics of economics«
as well, any attempt to apply »pure economics« whatsoever depends on a
political theory.

Democracy and Justice of Taxation — The Problem and its Setting

When and neoclassical economists were

tackling public finance, classical
facing the problem how to explain non-market and non-profit actions of
the state by economic laws derived from the study of private profit-mak-
ing actions in a market economy. Apart from the problem of »production
of commodities by means of commodities«, which still remains unsettled,
economists had to come to grips with the still greater problem of the »pro-
duction of commodities by means of non-commodities« and the comple-
mentary problem of »production of non-commodities by means of com-
modities^
Classical economists tried to establish the laws of a market economy
that should not be upset by the taxation, loans or expenditure of any eco-
nomically wise government. Government, in the view of classical econo-
mists, should minimize and legitimize its economic intervention as well.
The best legitimation to be found for any interference of the government
with the economic activities of its citizens was provided by the principles
of »natural justice« which classical economists believed to be found in the
working of an unrestrained market economy.
According to Adam Smith, taxation was fair in so far as the taxes were
levied in agreement with the relative benefits each citizen would derive
from government activities financed by these very taxes. This is the nor-
mative rule all classical economists stick to: Taxation is considered to be
just if everybody gives to the government in proportion to what he
receives from it. There remains but a little and an apparently technical
problem as to how to measure and to compare those costs and benefits
which government activities inevitably enfail for its citizens.
Such a rule could be regarded as valid only when we suppose a sort of
oligarchic or aristocratic rule of the possessing classes in a bourgeois socie-
ty. On the other hand, assuming a parliamentary democracy founded
upon universal suffrage, just taxation according to individual interests as

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
96 Michael Kratke

to benefits provided by the state seems impossible and unjust class-tax-

ation unavoidable. If just taxation means levying taxes according to indi-
vidual valuations of private and public goods, provided that every citizen
can determine his own trade-off between loss of private money and gain
of public goods, it is not difficult to presume that lower rank-and-file citi-

zens of a capitalist society will prefer public goods which they could obtain
by means of taxing away other people's money to money they do not have
anyway. People from the more well-to-do middle and upper classes will in
accordance with this lower class attitude refuse to pay taxes from their pri-
vate purses for public goods that will be claimed and consumed by the
have-nots as well. How could one fancy to prevent the mass of the non-
possessing classes forming the electoral majority in a modern mass demo-
cracy from taxing the minority of the propertied classes to their own ad-
vantage, turning taxation to a means of exploitation and finally expropria-
tion of the rich in favour of the poor? This was the dilemma haunting
classical liberalism and haunting liberal democrats among the classical
economists as well (MacPherson 1977).

Politics as Markets — Solutions to a Classical Problem

Most of the writings of classical economists on public finance is a mixture
of historical and actual descriptions with normative rules and recom-
mendations for financial reform. The later »pure« theorists of taxation —
from Edgeworth to Samuelson —
ponder on the question how a general
price system, once destabilized by the impact of taxation, could regain a
sound state of equilibrium. Only those economists sticking to one sort or
another of a value theory kept trying to expound the normative-analytical
theory of »just taxation in a democratic state«. Conceiving the theory of
taxation and state expenditure in terms of a value analysis, they aimed at
proving that taxation should and could be an economic process as just
and as natural as exchange between private persons, feasible without coer-
cion and to the very benefit of everybody involved in it.
Using a marginal utility theory of value approach in public finance
bears two obvious advantages. First, it allows to link together the revenue
and the spending side of the state economy in the same terms of value and
to compare individual valuations of money paid to the tax state and of
public goods received from the state. Secondly, the very idea of indivi-
duals independently evaluating the use-value of money and of goods fits
with the very base of normative democratic theory in the tradition of clas-
sical liberalism: The idea of free and equal citizens who may decide upon
public affairs just by means of their own individual judgement which has
been trained by the pursuit of their own private affairs. As marginal utility
theories of value are at their very best normative theories about how
people should make rational evaluations as to things, its application to

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Value Theory and Public Finance 97

public finance means an enquiry how people should make up rational

evaluations of the financial bearings of their governments. In democratic
states, this should be a norm of rational political decision.
In fiscal theories derived from a marginal utility theory of value, two
alternative approaches have emerged. A collectivistic one,
represented by
the writings of Sax (1887),von Wieser (1889) and Ritschl (1925) and an in-
dividualistic one, represented by the writings of Wicksell (1896) and his
pupil Lindahl (1919). Their main difference and argument waged is con-
cerning the conception of the state as a special kind of supreme com-
munity alien to the bourgeois society of market agents or as a special ar-
rangement of public decisions moulded in accordance with the model of
market bargain and exchange.

Authoritarian Rule
Emil Sax (1887), in the first attempt to analyze the state economy in the
framework of marginal utility theory of value, established a clear-cut dis-
tributary norm: Taxation should be just, private and state economy
should be in a state of equilibrium whenever the private usages of private
goods that individual give up by paying taxes are of lesser or at least of the
same value to them as the public uses of those public goods which they al-
low to be produced by taxpaying.
Such a work in a state which would be a voluntary asso-
rule could only
ciation of equal citizensand with individuals who are endowed with such
an overwhelmingly strong notion of common welfare that will outweigh
selfish individual or class-bound interest whatsoever, as Sax points out.

Citizens should have the same notion of collective wants and of common
welfare or at least they should share the same altruistic sentiments regar-
ding each other.
Hans Ritschl (1925), in his attack on the Wicksell-Lindahl approach de-
nouncing a typical shopkeepers' and hawkers' ideology, has provided the
most extreme version of this approach. In his view the state is entitled to
implement the communal spirit into the citizens for their own welfare.
State coercion has to help those individuals lacking sufficient altruism to
behave as if they were truly dedicatedmembers of the state community
and the state ought to impose the average norm of dedication to the com-
mon welfare on all its citizens.

The Rule of Consent

Similar to Sax, Erik Lindahl wrote that taxes should be distributed
according to the valuations of the of public goods as expressed by
utilities

each individual taxpaying citizen. Applying this normative rule, the state
would achieve the maximum of satisfaction with its economy for all citi-

zens.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
98 MichaelKratke

In order to render valid such a norm, Wicksell and Lindahl had to

search for institutional arrangements which would enable any citizen to
play his part in the process of budgetary decision-making as he plays it in
the bargaining on the market itself. Citizens ought to enter the process of
public budgeting in just another way as people are entering exchange pro-
cedures, because their individual valuations of public goods should attain
the same weight in budget decision making regardless of their economic
and social inequality.
Wicksell (1896) had exposed universal and equal (manhood) suffrage as
the first precondition to arrive at just taxation in the budgetary process.
Furthermore, he has established the exceptional rule of decision by unani-
mous consent for all budgetary decisions in order to avoid any form of tax
exploitation of minority groups by any majority. In Lindahls's view, the
norm of had already been
equality of political powers between citizens
realized in modern parliamentary democracies. Spreading of economic
knowledge could and in the long run would replace the rule of consent de-
fending minorities.

A Marxist Criticism
The second task with which every normative analysis has to meet — that
is, outlining the conditions required to set to work the elaborated norm of
action — has never been fulfilled by anyone writing in the tradition of a
marginal utility theory of value. The attempts mentioned above are rather
naive, their main achievement remaining the somewhat elaborated asser-
tion that a value analysis in terms of marginal utility could be applied to
the subject of public finance. The collectivistic approach misleads its ad-
herents to deny or to abolish by mere assumption the modern class-state
or the whole pattern of modern state politics by imputing a community to
the modern state and denying it again by resorting to plain coercion as the
last warrant for citizens' s altruism. The individualistic one misleads its

supporters to deny or to abolish by mere assumption the whole class pat-

tern of modern capitalist societies, hence the pattern of unequal distribu-
tion of political power which is very unlike the equality of powers attribu-
ted to the equality of political rights or the neutralizing effects procedural
formulas are accredited with by individualistic authors. As often, pure
economists are not doing too well when entering the of social science, field

resorting to another kind of the well known »communistic fictions« which

form the very counterpart of the »robinsonades« equally popular within
classical and neoclassical economics.

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Value Theory and Public Finance 99

The Labour Theory of Value — An Alternative Approach

to Public Finance?

Marxist economists and political scientists have nearly neglected the field
of public finance for quite a long time. There has never been any serious
effort to develop a coherent analysis of the modern capitalist tax state in

terms of the labour theory of value. Yet, socialists of different breedings

stuck and stick to the notion that modern taxation and public expenditure
are unfair and most likely to be just another supplementary form of ex-
ploitation of the working class, even in the so-called welfare states. As in
the Marxist tradition the very notion of exploitation has been transformed
to a concept by means of the labour theory of value, Marxists will be in-
clined to start any theory of tax exploitation by an analysis of the tax state
in terms of the labour theory of value.
But how could a labour theory of value, derived from the study of capi-
talistmarket economies, be applied to the economy of the capitalist state
without fancying some kind of exchange between the state and the taxpay-
ers or between several groups of taxpayers? Where could one find any
kind and any established social form of social appreciation conferred
upon the labour spent within the public sector on the production and di-

stribution of public goods, as its products are never sold as commodities.

Taxation is different from commodity exchange, though the modern tax
state is always depending on and interferring with commodity exchanges.
Taxes have no value, alone equivalents, though the outputs of the state
let

economy and sometimes even determining the conditions of

are affecting
private production and reproduction of various kinds of commodities,
including labour power itself.
Furthermore, the capitalist tax state has a double regulative impact on
the production and realization of surplus values in a capitalist economy.
Tax exploitation in terms of a Marxian labour theory of value means
something else than mere inequality of the distribution of tax burdens and
tax benefits among citizens. It means a specific relation of non-equival-
ence between the labour spent by people on behalf of the tax state and the
labour spent on behalf of the state on the production and distribution of
public goods. On the one hand the value of commodities will become
greater than the amount of social labour necessary to produce and repro-
duce a specific kind of good or service within a certain branch of private
industry. Due
to tax state interference, productive labour of wage-earners
will include unpaid labour not only for their immediate employers but also
for the tax state, which will even redetermine the composition of their paid
They are exploited not only on behalf of their private
or necessary labour.
employers but by these very employers on behalf of the tax state as well.
They are forced to work for their own reproduction as a social class by the

ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 ©

100 Jozsef Bayer

tax state, restricting the possibility of their private exploitation for private
ends.
On the other hand, the input value of public goods provided by the
capitalist tax state will always be smaller than the amount of labour which
is socially necessary for theirproduction and reproduction. This will be
due to the unpaid labour of state employees and to the hidden unpaid la-
bour of citizens who are exploited by their public employers or by the ad-
ministration of public utilities on behalf of the tax state itself and on be-
half of some groups of consumers of public goods as well.
To put it in a nutshell: In order to survive and to act economically in a
capitalist commodity-world, the bourgeois tax state is bound to establish a
twofold relation of non-equivalence. This means that any kind of econo-
mic equilibrium in terms of values will depend more and more on the nor-
mative power of public regulations determining the everyday life and pro-
duction conditions of private producers. And here we are at the very core
of political theory.

Literature

Edgeworth, F. Y. 1925 The Pure Theory of Taxation.

, : In: Papers Relating to Po-
litical Economy, Vol. 2, London
Lindahl, E., 1919: Die Gerechtigkeit der Besteuerung, Lund
MacPherson, C.B., 1977: The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy. Oxford
Myrdal, G., 1932: Das politische Element in der nationalokonomischen Doktrin-
bildung, Berlin
Ritschl, H., 1925: Theorie der Staatswirtschaft und Besteuerung, Bonn, Leipzig
Sax, E., 1887: Grundlegung der theoretischen Staatswirtschaft, Wien
Wicksell, K., 1896: Finanztheoretische Untersuchungen, nebst Darstellung und
Kritik des Steuerwesens Schwedens, Jena.
Wieser, F.v., 1889: Der naturliche Werth, Wien

Jozsef Bayer

Summary of Discussions

Jacques Bidet's position on the relation of economics and politics in

Marx's Capital was met with a lot of remarks and objections. Michael
Kratke and Thomas Heilmann opened the lively discussion, opposing Bi-
det's presentation on the question of the political meaning of labour val-
ue. As Kratke argued, we must not interpret the first section of Part One
of Capital as a text on politics. To say that there are political problems in-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Summary of Discussions 101

volved already in the first part of Capital and to take it straight as a politi-

cal theory are two different things. We have to make a distinction between
domination through the state and domination through the economy. The
undifferentiated use of the notions of domination and coercion has char-
acterized bourgeois political theory, e.g. that of Carl Schmitt.
Furio Cerutti criticized Bidet's position because of his substitution of
the economic theory of labour value by a political one. He also stressed
that Marx's method was more differentiated than Bidet had
in Capital
presented it. Sakari Hanninen took objection to the same point, asking
why should we interpret the social constraints of labour value as imme-
diate political ones.Wolfgang Fritz Haug agreed with Bidet in the point
Marx's theory were phases of constant learning.
that the different levels of
Even the process from abstract to concrete was later partly corrected by
Marx (in his Wagner-excerpts). Here, Marx said that he had begun Capital
with the most concrete, with the most simple fact, commodities. But
Haug felt that Bidet was creating a problem of his own by regarding the
first section of Part One of Capital as a description of capitalism which —
it obviously is not.
In reply to these objections, Bidet admitted that he himself had created
the problem, but what else is the task of science if not to create problems?
He had only tried to counter the neo-Ricardian challenge, their theory of
exploitation based solely on wages. Of course there were different ele-
ments in Marx's logic, and and analytical inspirations
different ideological
behind his thinking. He moved gradually from an abstract level to a more
concrete one —
that was a kind of »dialectic of reason« (Dialektik des
Verstandes). However, the socially necessary labour, for example, a cate-
gory used from the very beginning, was embedded in the class struggle
which also determined the market. Constraints on the labour power im-
posed by the ruling capitalist class was constitutive in this sense, not
merely instrumental, Bidet asserted.
He did not, however, recur to the question raised on the difference be-
tween the constraints based on economic terms and that based on political
terms, and his reply was here more elegant than convincing.
Georg Lohmann's concept on the normative implications of Marxist
theory was also sharply discussed. His position was first opposed by Erich
Wulff who argued that Lohmann's conclusion that Marx had fallen back
upon Stirner in his concept of »good life« derived only from a misunder-
standing, i.e. from a too narrow interpretation of the notion of »produc-
tive forces«. The latter are —
according-to Marx —
not only individual,
but social, and this would solve the problem, even if there remained a lot
of real contradictions that deserved further study.
Furio Cerutti argued that Marx's concern was far from that of Stirner.
His idea was rational regulation of the production process, something im-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
102 Joszef Bayer

possible within capitalism because of its antagonistic character, something

that would need a long social process during which mankind would learn
to regulate its metabolism with nature. We should examine the historical
status of Marxism related to the historical stand of the mentioned process
and give less attention to the normative implications of Marxist theory.
Baber Johansen objected that seeking a concept of »good life« in
Marx's theory is not adequate to Marx's concern. The concept of good
life was developed as a series of ethical and behavioural rules intended to

prevent the disturbance of socio-economic order. But the aim of Marx's

analysis of the socio-economic formation of capitalism was to help over-
come it. To look for an equivalent of the »good life« in his theory runs the
risk of transforming it into a theory of ethical behaviour within capital-
ism. Concepts ofgood life were mostly ethical or religious ones, while
Marx developed an economic theory.
In reply to these objections, Lohmann asserted that the notion of
wealth was a normative criterion. was true that Marx's theory contained
It

much more than this. He did not claim that Marx's critique of capitalism
was purely moral. But it was beyond purely economic critique as well, and
there was no conceptual framework to solve the tension between science
and critique in the critical sense. Further on, Lohmann insisted that the
notion of self-enjoyment could only be interpreted individualistically.
Frigga Haug's position on Marx as a polarizing thinker, demonstrated
by his theory of labour, was opposed by Karl Hermann Tjaden in the fol-
lowing respects: First, Marx always conceived labour in its social connec-
tion, not as the work of individuals. Further, the two realms (that of ne-
cessity and that of freedom) are already connected in Marx's concept of
socially necessary surplus labour. The absolute separation of the two
realms was not the concern of Marx — even in his future vision the second
realm (that of freedom) penetrated the other one, by revolutionizing the
whole production process.
Frigga Haug stressed that she was concerned about three main points:
First, to examine the sources in Marx's theory which entitle modern theo-
ristsof industrial labour to refer to Marx. Second, that the widespread
separation of the two realms (today mainly in the form of labour-time and
leisure) was responsible for neglecting and
investigations into thinking
feelings within the production process. And
wanted to show
third, she
that politics is already involved in the production process as well, which
demands a new political strategy for reshaping the realm of labour in a
human way. She contradicted Tjaden 's idea about the perspective of a
connection of the two realms in Marx's writings and insisted on their polar
construction with reference to the third volume of Capital.
Pekka Kosonen's position on the new forms and perspectives for fur-
ther development of contemporary capitalism was countered by Chantal

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 «

Marxism and the Myth of an »African IdeoIogy« 1 03

Mouffe. She argued with Kosonen about his concept of Fordism, stressing
that there were different kinds of possible ways for capitalistic develop-
ment. She asserted that several moments of Fordism would not necessarily
come together. There has been widespread resistance against the Fordist
trend in certain countries. We have to create a left-wing counter-project
against Fordism, a far more complicated social and political
which is

problem than only to describe it in terms of the growing Leviathan.

Kosonen replied that he would also stress the existence of different ways
for capitalistic development. He referred to Aglietta who has described
four different routes of possible solutions to growing problems of capital-
istic development.
The position of Michael Krdtke on the tax-state, the public finance, and
the fiscal exploitation as well as on the possible application of labour value
theory on all these problems, as an »open field of Marxist research«, was
not discussed. Although we were running short of time, this may well have
reflected how open this field really is.

Paulin J. Hountondji

Marxism and the Myth of an » African Ideology

A Myth Created by Anti-Marxism

It has been said several times and repeated during this conference that
there aremany Marxisms, not just one. The question has then been raised
how can a particular individual or doctrine be identified as Marxist. In
other words, who, in the last resort, is a Marxist and who is not? I would
suggest an answer to this question by referring to the situation in sub-
Saharan Africa: a Marxist is, to begin with, someone who others suspect is
a Marxist.*
This accusation was earlier directed to anyone found to be radical.
There was nevertheless an additional assumption: radicalism was thought
never to be spontaneous or self-determined, but to be controlled from
outside, from Moscow or, later on, Peking. Now, since radicalism re-
mains something relative, there would always be somebody to treat you as
a Marxist or a Communist —
which, in this context, amounts to the same
thing, provided you were not the absolute incarnation of Reaction or
Conservatism. Everyone, so to speak, was a Marxist to someone else.
In colonial Africa, the accusation of Marxism/communism used to be

ARGUMENTSONDERBAND AS 109 ©
104 Paulin J. Hountondji

directed to native patriots and freedom fighters. The same accusation is

still directed today, under the South African apartheid regime, to black
African nationalists and patriots, as well as to their white supporters.
In post-colonial Africa, the same mechanism is still at work. Accusa-
tions of being Marxist are directed by various political regimes to those
militants who dare to denounce social and economic inequalities, and in-
sist that the achievement of political independence is not the be-all and

end-all of the historical struggle of our people. The accusation of Marxism

is then formulated from the viewpoint of nationalism, in defense of Afri-

can originality or »authenticity«, which, in turn, is based on the presup-

position that Africa does possess her own traditional ideology, and should
endeavour to revive this ideology here and now, instead of adopting alien
philosophies and doctrines.
This assumption of an African ideology is widespread, and can be
found even in some of the most progressive thinkers and political leaders.
Kwame Nkrumah published a book in 1961 with the title I Speak ofFree-
dom: A Statement of African Ideology. The subtitle assumes that there is
an »African ideology« in the singular, i.e. a collective set of ideas which
the whole African community unanimously adheres to. I term this partic-
ular assumption the unanimist prejudice. And I would add that, although
it works well and is largely justified in times of crisis (as was the case in

Ghana during the struggle for independence), it may prove, under other
circumstances, to be rather conservative.
What appears in early Nkrumah as a non-Marxist position — i.e. the
unanimist assumption of one African ideology — has often been ex-
pounded in other contexts,and by other intellectuals and/or political
leaders, over the years and decades, as the leitmotiv of a conscious, delib-
erate critique of Marxism in Africa. The ideology of Negritude, as devel-
oped by Senghor (not by Cesaire) and its correlate, » African socialisms
the ideology of »authenticity«, as propounded by Mobutu Sese Seko and
his »Mouvement Populaire de la Revolution« (MPR) in Zaire, are good il-
lustrations. These ideologies have been given a pseudo-scientific founda-
tion by scholarly works which have been researching, for about forty
years now, a so-called African philosophy, i.e. a collective worldview of
all African communities. This research I have termed ethnophilosophy.

What is important to us here is its implications for our present concern: by

asserting the existence of one or several African value-systems, and calling
on Africans to remain faithful to these systems, ethnophilosophy seeks, in
fact, to discard such ideologies as Marxism from the present ideological
scene in Africa, without even discussing their content. The so-called tradi-
tional value-systems are no more »traditional«, no»imported from
less

outside« and originally »alien« to Africa, than Marxism. Depreciation of

the latter in defense of »authenticity« is therefore a purely rhetorical argu-

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Marxism and the Myth of an » African Ideology« 105

ment, though this is just the kind of argument needed for propaganda
purposes.
Very close to this nationalist critique is what I would call a populist cri-

tique of Marxism. Under the pretext that people themselves have their
own worldview, their own wisdom and ideology, some African intellec-
tuals reproach others with being »elitist« and trying to impose upon the
masses their scholarly views on philosophy, society and politics. Such a re-
proach is often explicitly directed to so-called Marxists. A good illustra-
tion a pamphlet by a colleague from Ivory Coast, Abdou Toure, Le
is

marxisme-leninisme comme ideologic: critique de trois theoriciens afri-

cains (A. A. Dieng, P. Hountondji, M. Towa). Needless to say that the
»spontaneous philosphy of the masses« advocated by such critics in oppo-
sition to Marxism is nothing but their own personal views on philosophy

and politics, which are largely influenced by Western liberalism, and

which they arbitrarily project into the masses. 1

Marxism in the Struggle for Decolonisation

Marxism in Africa, I have argued, is to a large extent a myth created by

anti-Marxism. Nevertheless there have been and still are a number of
people and political organizations who hold Marxist positions.
Marxism was discovered, a certain point of the anti-colonial struggle,
at
as a theoretical/ideological foundation for this struggle, a doctrine which
provided a better understanding of imperialism as historical process. In
other words, usually one did not go from Marxism to anti-imperialism,
but vice versa.
The political development of such militants as Kwame Nkrumah and
Amilcar Cabral attests to this. In his early writings (including Conscienc-
ism) Nkrumah dealt with the issue of colonial liberation and viewed Afri-
can society, both precolonial and colonial, as a classless society propound-
ing one ideology and fighting for one political goal. In his last works, in-
cluding Neo-colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism, Handbook of
Revolutionary Warfare, Class Struggle in Africa, etc., Nkrumah acknow-
ledges not only the existence of class struggle, but also how serious this
struggle is, and how decisive it is contemporary events
for understanding
in Africa. A careful reading of Cabral' s works leads to a similar conclu-
sion, though his initial positions seem to have been, from the very outset,
much nearer to Marxism than Nkrumah' s. These two examples can be
seen in other militants.
This particular approach to Marxism entailed nevertheless a number of
consequences, both positive and negative. I will just mention two of them.
one positive consequence: the special
First sensitivity of African Marxists
toone problem which would have otherwise escaped their attention: the
problem of organizational autonomy and the right to initiate actions inde-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
106 Paulin J. Hountondji

pendent of communist parties and Marxist organizations in the colonizing

countries, and in all other countries. No text is more explicit, on this
point, than Aime Cesaire's Lettre a Maurice Thorez in 1956, in which the
West Indian poet left Communist Party. The following quota-
the French
tion is hope I have said enough to make it clear that I
self-explanatory: »I
am abandoning neither Marxism nor communism but only the use which
some people have made of them, which I deplore. I wish to see Marxism
and communism serving the black peoples, not the black peoples serving
Marxism and communism. The doctrine and the movement should exist
for the sake of the people, not the people for the good of the doctrine and
the movement. And, of course, this principle does not apply only to com-
munists. And if I were a Christian or a Muslim, I would say the same
thing: every doctine is worthless unless it is rethought by and for us and
adapted to our own needs. (...) This is why we must insist upon a veritable
Copernican revolution in order to break with the European habit, which is
deeply rooted in every party and group from extreme right to extreme left,
of acting on our behalf —
of deciding for us, thinking for us and, in short,
denying us the right of initiative which I have already mentioned the —
right, in fact, to personality.«

On the other hand, on the negative

one cannot help noticing the
side,

lack of a real Marxist tradition in Africa, the lack of an original debateby

Africans on African or related issues within the framework of Marx's
theory and concepts. Though African Marxists have proved to be first-
rank fighters and some of them efficient leaders in the struggle against co-
lonialism, they have nevertheless been not very productive, up till now, in
the field of theory. Of course, there have been works like Majhmout
Diop's Contribution a Vetude des problemes politiques en Afrique noire
and Histoire des classes sociales dans VAfrique de VOuest; there have been
overtly Marxist analyses of social classes in Africa, such as the one pub-
lished by »Parti Africain de rindependance« in 1962, or the discussion in
The Spark, a weekly ideological and political newspaper published by
Nkrumah's party. Some of these discussions were and are still important.
But they can hardly be compared with the ideological and theoretical pro-
duction of European or even Asian Marxism. One reason for this may
have been what Yves Benot calls »the impact of Stalinism« on African
first-generation Marxists.
Again, this impact of Stalinism, still prevailing up to the present day,
confirms my hypothesis on the historical way Marxism was encountered in
sub-Saharan Africa: as a possible tool to achieve liberation from foreign
domination, thatis, an alternative language and doctrine. To African rev-

olutionaries, Marxism was, so to speak, a religion of action, even though

the meaning of this particular religion was to question all others by deny-
ing the existence of God, a closed system opposing other closed systems.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Marxism and the Myth of an »African Ideology« 1 07

It should be kept in mind that this perception of Marxism as a religion

of action was shared by followers as well as critics of Marx. In these con-

ditions, no discussion could really take place between both sides. Further-

more, the debate on Marx has tended to become, in some cases, a debate
on the validity or non-validity of a religious faith. The whole variety of
»African socialisms« propounded by such leaders as Senghor, Nyerere,
Sekou Toure and early Nkrumah (under this label are included Ujamaa,
Sekou Toure' s »communocracy« and Nkrumah' s »consciencism«) can be
understood, in a sense, as ideological attempts to reconcile the spirit of
Marx's social doctrine and the possibility of religion, insofar as the latter

appears to these authors as essential to African traditional culture.

Conclusion
Marxism has turned some ten years ago, to be the official
out, beginning
ideology of an increasing number of African states: the People's Republic
of Congo, the People's Republic of Benin, then Ethiopia, Angola, Mo-
zambique. This does not mean, unfortunately, that Marx is now better
known and understood on our continent. We still have no real, consistent,
intellectual Marxist tradition. We still continue to learn and teach our
Marxism out of popular handbooks written elsewhere, especially in the
Soviet Union. We are still prisoners of the idea that Marxism is a »sci-
ence«, and that the only thing left to do now, is to »apply« this science. A
careful analysis is therefore needed in each case, to understand the objec-
tive meaning of this Marxist self-labelling, and especially, to understand
the practical role played by Marxism in each particular context, a role
which can be, and often more or less progressive. Revolutionary dis-
is,

course is not enough to make revolution a reality.

One of Marxism has been, as we have
the strongest arguments against
seen, the claim foran African authenticity. It should simply be noted that
African traditional culture is far more complex than is usually assumed in
a number of ethnographic and anthropological writings, as in the minds
of some proto-nationalists. There is no such thing as one African ideolo-
gy, or philosophy, or religion, or political doctrine. The very phrase
»African traditional culture« is misleading. There are, in fact, quite a
number of African cultural traditions, the internal unity of which should
not be taken for granted. The simplistic view of the African past should
give way, here, to a more complex, definitely pluralistic view. The demand
for authenticity can no longer then be interpreted as a demand for confor-
mity to one given traditional value or set of values, in as much as these va-
lues are pluraland eventually contradictory. Authenticity can only mean,
in these conditions, being faithful to oneself and to the particular norms

one has chosen, as an individual or a group. Authenticity must mean the

endeavour to face new situations here and now with full responsibility, in-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
1 08 Leopoldo Marmora

venting appropriate solutions to new problems by taking advantage both

of ancestral teachings and of all the knowledge and experience gained
from other sources. This new, pluralistic view of African culture could to
a large extent also be a contribution to Marxist methodology by African
social science.
Once this is one can deal more serenity with the question of Euro-
clear,
centrism. Marx, true, knew but little about non-European societies of
it is

his time. He tended quite naturally to consider the mode of development

of Europe as a model for all other societies, and uncritically accepted, to
some extent, the Hegelian notion that Europe was the very centre of uni-
versal history. This limit to Marx's thought, so evident today, is, however,
not a sufficient reason to reject or overlook its enormous historical truth
and special relevance, as a theory and a method, to so many aspects of the
African experience. A colleague from Senegal, Amady Aly Dieng, has ful-
ly dealt with this particular issue in a remarkable book published a few

years ago, Hegel, Marx, Engels et les problemes de I'Afrique noire1 An .

African intellectual who claims to be Marxist today can by no means take

for granted every detail of Marx's theoretical analysis, or every notion
evolved later on in the history of Marxism. He must feel responsible
enough toward his people and himself to entertain a free, critical and crea-
tive relationship to this tradition, with a view to finding out better answers
and solutions to the problems of Africa, and especially, of its exploited
classes, today.

Notes
1 On this particular point see P. Hountondji: »Occidentalisme, elitisme: re-
ponse a deux critiques«, in Recherche, pedagogie et culture, No 56, January-
March 1982.
2 Amady Aly Dieng: Hegel, Marx, Engels et les problemes de I'Afrique noire.
Dakar, 1978.

Leopoldo Marmora

Is There a Marxist Theory of Nation?

Marxist internationalism contains no positive definition of the relation

between nations during the period of transition to socialism. It rather con-
of any such relation and even of its necessity.
tains the theoretical negation
Marxism only knows the theory of the overcoming of nations as the auto-
matic result of the abolition of the capitalist class society.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 s

Is There a Marxist Theory of Nation ? 1 09

By reducing nation andstate to a sphere of economic and social rela-

tions lyingbeyond them, and thus refusing them any space for an own rel-
ative autonomy, the possible and necessary theory of the national state is
— right from the beginning —
reduced to a mere theory of bourgeois so-
ciety.

The revolution of 1848 illustrates in the best manner Marx's and Engels'
conception of nation. They passionately argued for the German, Polish,
Italian and Hungarian aspirations for national unity and independence.
1

But equally determined they fought against the national movements of the
— as Engels called them —
»peoples without history«; the Czechs,
Ukraines, Slovaks, Rumanians etc. 2 Marx and Engels rejected the liberal
principle of nationalities, according to which any nation has a claim on its
own national state. They only recognized the right of the »big historical
nations« for self-determination.
For Marx and Engels the contrast between oppressing and oppressed
nations was no criterion of any importance for analysing and evaluating
national conflicts. Decisive forthem was in the first place, whom these na-
tions would take sides with in the approaching showdown between the
revolutionary West and the counterrevolutionary East. And secondly, the
distinction between big nations on the one hand and small, and, therefore,
neither politically nor economically viable ones on the other hand was of
similar importance. Consequently the Neue Rheinische Zeitung and its
chief editor, Marx, rejected all possible solutions of the federal kind; in-
stead they pleaded for »germanizing, hungarianizing, etc.« the smaller
peoples and nations, that is, for their radical assimilation into the big na-
tions: Italy, Poland, Hungary andfirst of all Germany. According to En-

gels, Germany's southern frontier should even reach down to the Mediter-
ranean. 3 When the Czechs opposed to these plans, Engels resigned: »A
war of extermination, led by Germany against the Czechs remains the on-
ly possible solution now«. 4

When defending his attitude towards the problem of the nationalities,

Engels repeatedly and explicitly referred to the historical experience of the
French Revolution. »The despotism of northern France over southern
France lasted 300 years, ..., the iron fist of the convent was the first to
transform the inhabitants of southern France into French and to give
them democracy as a compensation for the loss of their nationality«. 5
So the expectations of Marx and Engels have to be compared to the
French paradigm. Have they proved true, have they been verified? The
German bourgeoisie and its main allies, the Hungarian and the Polish no-
bility, did not liberate the peasants, did not »give them democracy as a
compensation for their nationality« . The 1848 revolution continued — as
ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
1 1 Leopoldo Marmora

far as the peasants are concerned —

the politics of repression which had
been typical for absolutism. What came out of it was not national assimi-
lation but —
on the contrary: All national conflicts increased.
But then —
why did Marx and Engels hang on to this illusion? Accord-
ing to Marx, the bourgeois revolution in Germany would not tolerate any
form of coexistence with the old powers of absolutism, neither within nor
outside its frontiers. The immediate consequences of the revolution would
therefore have been its social radicalization within the country and its in-

ternationalization, that is, But Marx over-

war against the barbarian East.
estimated the revolutionary character of the bourgeoisie and of the dyna-
mics of capitalist development when he made the French revolutionary
model the one and only valid paradigm, neglecting for example the British
one.
What Marx complained of as impotence or indecision, actually was the
contrary: as a result of the advanced state capitalist conditions had
reached in Germany, part of the nobility had adapted to bourgeois condi-
tions of production. This part of theGerman nobility — and not the pea-
sants — had become the »natural partner« of the bourgeoisie. »Was the it

proof of its cowardice or rather of its political intelligence that the Ger-
man bourgeoisie preferred to seek for an alliance with the bourgeois sec-
tors of the nobility, choosing a non-revolutionary solution of reform and
compromise? Did it therefore betray the peasantry and the people or did it
rather betray their illusion about it?« 6

II

But why did Marx thus push aside from his reflections all the signals and
tendencies which would have been easy to pick off the British experience?
One first answer is contained in the conviction Marx had at that time
according to which the laws of capital accumulation formed a kind of
compulsory mechanism leading to an uninterrupted, linearly rising revolu-
tionary development from feudalism to capitalism to socialism. The para-
digm of the French Revolution of the 18th century corresponded much
more to this scheme than that of the British Revolution of the 17th centu-
ry. Marx thereby presumed the existence of a social sphere which was in-

dependent of all subjective volition and of all political influence, in which

the economic contradictions could fully develop according to their own
inherent rules. From this sphere the dynamics of social development
would then radiate into all the other fields, so to speak »from bottom to
top«. The overthrow of the parliamentary republic in Franceand the es-
tablishment of Bonapartist dictatorship in no way could appear to Marx
as a means of accelerating and stabilizing the bourgeois revolution. For
him they were indications of the weakness of the bourgeoisie, proving that
it was no longer capable of governing, and that the proletarian revolution

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Is There a Marxist Theory of Nation ? Ill

was approaching. 7 Marx and Engels considered all the strategies of com-
promise between the bourgeoisie and non-bourgeois sectors, and all the
models (patterns) of development »from bottom to top« (Engels used this
expression shortly before he died in order to characterize the Prussian and
the Bonapartist models), they considered all these strategies as not being
apt to bring forth the bourgeois revolution, but — on the contrary — as
even being an indication of its decay.
The two fundamental assumptions of Marx were: the revolutionary role
of capitalism in history, and the polarization within society into two main
classes, and — resulting from this — the simplification and universaliza-
tion of the class struggle. In agreement with these convictions Marx and
Engels decidedly interceded for free trade as the only means to establish a
capitalist world market. 8 And where there was no other solution, Marx
and Engels even welcomed open violence as a means of spreading capital-
ist conditions throughout the world. In this sense Engels for example thus

commented the annexation of almost half of the Mexican territory by the

USA: »In America we have observed and welcomed the conquest of
Mexico. It may well be considered as a progress if a country which up till
now exclusively has been busy with itself is integrated violently into the
historical movement. It is in its own development that
the interest of
Mexico is placed under the guardianship of the USA in the future«. 9
By making use of various means says Engels —
the bourgeoisie —
creates »a world according to its own ideas« 10 that is a homogeneously ,

bourgeois world 11 »The industrially developed country only shows the

.

less developed country its own future«. 12

Marx's two fundamental assumptions did not verify in the way he
thought they would. That means that the actual development of capital-
ism points at an unequal development, which — instead of making disap-
pear all national and social particularisms — even on these partic-
relied
ularisms, and constantly created and reproduced them on a larger scale,
thus placing on the agenda a strategy which may be called the strategy of
national hegemony. The bourgeoisie succeeded in consolidating its domi-
nation, not only as the result of a continued evolution of capitalist rela-
tions of production but alsoby means of political and ideological alliances
and compromises with other non-bourgeois national fractions or classes.
This and not primarily the erection of national capitalist markets formed
the basis of all modern national states.

Ill >

Marx and Engels used the term »nation« in a double sense. In many of
Engels' s writings the ethnic-cultural aspect was given the decisive impor-
tance for the formation of nations and for the determination of their des-
tiny; this was the case for example when he applied the category

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 2

1 1 Leopoldo Marmora

»Peoples without history« to the Austrian Slavs, thus deducing the ab-
sense of their own modern bourgeoisie within them from their incapacity
to develop themselves throughout history. Engels refused them any pro-
spect of renewal and demanded that they either be totally assimilated
within the historical nations or »exterminated«. Just the reverse, Marx in
many other writings deduced the deficient capacity of development of
many other peoples from their social structures and their lack of a modern
bourgeoisie of their own. Such, for example, in the case of India.
Since traditional Marxism has underestimated or even completely neg-
lected the influence of politics and superstructure on the process of forma-
tion of the nations, it will hardly be possible to avoid that the authentic
Marxist notion of the nation — based as on the existence of a bour-
it is

geoisie and a national market — changes into a conception which inter-

prets thedevelopment of nations as dependent of the ethnical factor and
thus —
as R. Rosdolsky points out —
enters into open contradiction to
Marxism.
Since subjective and political factors as well as the creation of consensus
etc. are excluded as influencing the formation of nations, since this pro-
cess of formation is rather seen as an objective, almost »natural« move-
ment »from bottom to top«, it is hardly astonishing that the ethnic-
linguistic community becomes the finally decisive, objective and invariable
substance from which the nation is to stem from.
If we can at all speak about a specifically Marxist theory of nation, we
can surely only do so when talking about the first of the two interpreta-
tions mentioned, which is the one that links the modern nations to the
bourgeois capitalist development; whereas the second interpretation al-

ready leads out of the categorial system of Marxism into a theoretical

sphere in which the limits towards non-Marxism become flowing. This
does not imply any opposition between Marx and Engels. The real dilem-
ma consists in the fact that the first of the two interpretations always leads
to such deficiencies that the second interpretation is then needed to com-
plete the first one. In this regard, the thesis that shall be pleaded for here
says that Marxism is phenomena in
incapable of dealing with the national
all its complexity without denying some fundamental principles.
itself in

Marxism can thus either do without such a theory at all or it must open it-
self to other scientific social interpretation. This again can be done con-
sciously and offensively, thus enriching and developing itself without los-
ing its historical continuity, or it is done the way Engels and Kautsky do it,
thus inevitably leading up to a loss of identity and to a rupture within
Marxism and its history.
The source of all ambiguities clearly does not lie in the deviations from
Marxism but in the heart of the Marxist notion of the nation itself. Tradi-
tional Marxism does not consider the nation as being something eternal

ARGUMENTSONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Is There a Marxist Theory of Nation ? 113

and unhistorical, but brings it into connection with the development of

the bourgeoisie. But in spite of this,does not succeed in capturing the
it

complex relationship between bourgeoisie and nation. Instead, it sets up a

mechanical, instrumental, monocausal relation: According to traditional
Marxism, the bourgeoisie creates the nations because it needs an inte-

grated internal market.

This aspect of the relationship between bourgeoisie and nation shall not
be put into question here, but it shall be denied that the whole relationship
can be reduced to it. The real inner content and substance of the relation-
ship are thus neglected; class and nation appear to exist in different

spheres. The bourgeoisie, being the cause of the nation, constitutes itself
outside the nation in a historical and logically preceding sphere.

What consequences does all this have? If the bourgeoisie exists outside

the nation, separatedfrom it, then the bourgeoisie will also be able to do
without the nation some day. This or something very similar is what the
Communist Manifesto says. Besides, the nation seems to be only a passive
product of history and of the bourgeoisie, only a temporary »husk«, a
mere instrument, created and used by the bourgeoisie but socially neutral.
And at this point we find an opening in the structure of Marxist theory
through which traditional Marxist analysis drifts away from Marxist ter-
minology and methodology.
Actually class and nation contain and condition each other. While clas-
ses, in order to become predominant, have to constitute themselves as na-

tional classes, the nation arises from class struggle. Neither class nor na-
tion can exist outside this relation as »a thing of its own«. The logic and
dynamic of the development of classes is inseparably linked to the devel-
opment of the nation. One cannot exist without the other. The bourgeoi-
sie does not constitute itself before/outside the nation but in the nation
and as a nation. The purely economic class may be a legitimate intellectual
abstraction, but in reality it is always inseparably linked to the nation.
There is no monocausal, instrumental relation, reaching from the bour-
geoisie to the national market and the nation and still beyond —
to the —
national state, in the order mentioned. Actually the national state
»creates« the bourgeois society just as much as the bourgeoisie brings
forth the national state. Base and superstructure are never separated but
always form a unity. Neither is the bourgeoisie as a social-economic class
the only real acting subject in the process of national development, nor are
nation and state mere instruments and empty »husks«. In order to have
an effect and ideologically,
historically, the bourgeoisie acts politically
that is an autonomous subject of history, no modern so-
nationally. Being
cial class can act merely in the economic sphere. Such action would always

remain subalternative, unable to establish a firm social rule, not to speak

of a nation.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 1 4

1 1 Leopoldo Marmora

In contrast to these two complementary conceptions one of which is —

founded formed economically and in a
in the conviction that classes are
pre-political sphere, the other stating that nations are formed in an own
sphere, separated from, and outside class struggle we will have to find —
and put into the centre of our attention a level of discussion on which
these mental separations (divisions) can be overcome and on which the
original unity of concrete reality may be theoretically restored. »The big-
gest problem of all« writes O'Donnell in one of his latest articles, »is nei-
ther state nor society, but the articulation of the two ...« 13

Notes
1 Compare F. Engels: Was hat die Arbeiterklasse mit Polen zu tun? (An den
Redakteur der »Commonwealth«), (March 24th, 1866) 16, p. 153. MEW
2 Compare R. Rosdolsky, Friedrich Engels und das Problem der »geschichtslo-
sen V6lker«, (first published in Archiv fur Sozialgeschichte, Vol. IV, Hanno-
ver 1964).
3 F. Engels: Der demokratische Panslawismus, (1849), MEW 6, pp.279 and
277.
4 F. Engels: Der Prager Aufstand, (June 17th, 1848), 5, p.81f. MEW
5 K. Marx/F. Engels: Die Polendebatte in Frankfurt, (Sept. 3rd, 1848), MEW
5, p.354ff.
6 F. Claudin: Marx, Engels y la Revolution de 1848, Madrid 1975, p.270.
7 This has actually been the fundamental conception of Marx when he wrote
the 18. Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte (Dec 1851 - March 1852), in 8. MEW
8 K. Marx: Rede iiber die Frage des Freihandels (Jan. 1st, 1848), 4, MEW
p.457f.
9 F. Engels: Die Bewegungen von 1847, ibid, p.501.
10 K. Marx/F. Engels: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, ibid., p. 467.
1 »By means of the development of capitalist production a similar average level
of bourgeois society and thereby of temperament and disposition develops
within different peoples. This manner of production is essentially cosmopoli-
tan as is Christianity«. K. Marx: Theorien iiber den Mehrwert (1862/63),
MEW 26, III, p.441.
12 K. Marx: Das Kapital I (1867), MEW 23, p.12.
13 G. O'Donnell: Apuntes para una teoria del Estado. In: Revista mexicana de
sociologia 4, Mexico 1978, p. 1157.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 115

Gunter Minnerup

Marxism and the Nation

Some Aspects of Theory and Practice

Since Karl Marx and Frederick Engels proclaimed, nearly a century and a
half ago, that »the workers have no fatherland«, the fatherlands of the
world have mushroomed to a present count of around 160 independent
states. And from Quebec from Euzkadi to Timor, more
to Azania,
peoples — including a fair share of proletarians —
are queuing up to de-
mand a nation state of their own. It is undeniable that, however much the
triumphant march of capitalism around the globe may have fulfilled the
predictions of the Communist Manifesto in eroding and levelling out
economic and cultural differences between nations, nationalism as a poli-
tical ideology and movement has followed in its footsteps from continent

to continent to become the most powerful and ubiquitous political phe-

nomenon in the modern world.
Tom Nairn (1975), in his perceptive essay on the Modern Janus, has
called the theory of nationalism »Marxism's great failure«. Certainly it
has made little progress in this respect since the days of Otto Bauer, Rosa
Luxemburg, the young Stalin and V.I. Lenin. But neither, it could be ar-
gued, has it in any other field since then: the half-century following the
initial years of the great Soviet experiment turning into five decades largely
wasted from the point of view of the theoretical development of Marxism.
As far as the problems posed by the nation and nationalism were con-
cerned, Russian Stalinism suited its answers to fit the exigencies of dealing
with its national minorities at home and its many tactical turnabouts
abroad while democracy came to adopt the bourgeois notion of the
social
Kulturnation in theory and imperialism in practice.
Any assessment of Marxist's theoretical record on nationalism and in
particular of its ability to remedy the weaknesses and plug the gaps, will
therefore have to take Marxist's own history into account. It must not be
forgotten that, in its classical era before Stalinism and the embourgeoise-
ment of social democracy, Marxist writings on nationalism had to be
largely content with European nationalism as their raw material at a time
when the pre-war orgies of imperialist chauvinism tended to highlight the
conflict between national and or — as
class loyalties, the case of the
in
Austromarxists — addressed the problem from the standpoint of socialists
of the dominant nationality seeking to prevent the disintegration of the
empires they were to inherit.
Today it is possible to draw on a broader canvas. The awakening of the
Third World has provided a wealth of material for the study of national-

ARGUMENTSONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 6

1 1 Gtinter Minnerup

ism and .especially of a revolutionary nationalism far removed from the

implacable enemy of working class solidarity and socialism which the
dominant nationalisms of imperialist Europe have been since the late 19th
century. Whatever the shortcomings of Marxist theory on nationalism,
many Asian, African and Latin American revolutions have seen a drawing
together of socialists and revolutionary nationalists against a common
enemy. But even in Europe and North America, a deepening economic
and social crisis has produced an upsurge of popular and often radical na-
tionalist movements in regions where the »national question« had long
seemed the concern of romantic poets and political cranks only. With all
this happening against the background of the irreversible disintegration of

the Stalinist monolith —

itself, ironically, to a large measure the result of

nationalist pressures —
and the resurgence of Marxism as an ideological
influence among the left wings of the old socialist parties, new radical
youth movements and a sector of the academic intelligentsia, conditions
could now be ripe for overcoming the great theoretical failure diagnosed
by Nairn and many others.

The Problem of Conceptualization

Access to the nature of nationalism may be found through an analysis of
its historical function. Whether left or right, conservative or revolution-
ary, nationalism as a politico-ideological force clearly comes into play
whenever the legitimacy of existing political arrangements is called into
question. Thus early European nationalism was a challenge to a feudal or-
der which had its legitimacy fatally eroded by the totality of social, econ-
omic and ideological developments. The nationalism of the established
capitalist nation states is essentially an integrative device to legitimize the
social and political status quo, and assumes particularly virulent forms in
periods of external conflict (jingoism, chauvinism) or internal threats
(Bonapartism, fascism). The revolutionary nationalisms of the Third
World are directed against the intolerable status of economic and cultural
dependence and/or the illegitimacy of pro-imperialist, parasitical and op-
pressive puppet regimes. The resurgence of radical nationalism and se-
paratism in Western Europe is just as clearly linked to the declining legit-
imacy of centralized power structures (collapse of Francoism in Spain,
bankruptcy of oppressive Unionism in Ulster, growing resentment of
»remote control« from Westminster in Scotland and Wales) as the
growing importance of nationalism in the East is to the weakening grip of
Soviet hegemony and the creeping economic and social crisis of bureau-
cratic centralism.
Nationalism can therefore be conceptualized as a political ideology or

political movement with a particular and distinctive notion of the legit-

imacy of political power: that it should be firmly anchored in the common

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 7

Marxism and the Nation 1 1

interests and the solidarity of a national unit, however this unit and these
interests are defined. The national interest and national solidarity can be
identified with the interests of the ruling class or elite and a repressive so-

lidarity against its internal or external subversion, or it can be the ar-

ticulation of popular aspirations to social,economic and political free-

dom. It can serve democracy as well as tyranny, it can be narrowly ex-
clusivist inoutlook and spirit, as well as internationalist.
It is fundamental ambiguity that poses all the problems for socialist
this

theory and practice. As abstract conceptualizations of societal organiza-

tion, »class« and »nation« appear as mutually exclusive and irrecon-
cilable. But not quite as irreconcilable as it would seem: the emancipatory

promise of socialism is, after all, not narrowly restricted to sectional inter-
ests — not even those of the working class — while the social content of
revolutionary nationalism can come very close indeed to socialism. »Self-
determination« has both a national and a social dimension, and, in an age
of unprecendented concentration of industrial, financial, political and
military power in the hands of the few blocking the road to equality and
liberty for the many, these dimensions are increasingly overlapping.

Class and Nation

Class consciousness and national consciousness are never actually found
in tidy separation, but coexist and intermix in the consciousness of both
individuals and collectives. But whereas class consciousness is essentially a
reflection of the objective material reality of the class structure of society
and the individual's place in it, the relationship of national consciousness
to objective material reality is entirely different: social classes exist quite
independent of whether or not their existence is »acknowledged« by class
consciousness — nations, however, have no such objective material exist-
ence. Those aspects of social reality which normally constitute the »raw
materials« of national identity — language, culture, race, territory, re-
ligion, historical experience, economic association, etc — are not »nation-
al« as such, but only become »national« through their subjective percep-
tion as such. It is on this rock that most traditional Marxist analyses of the
nation and nationalism have foundered.
Kautsky, Bauer, and Stalin — the most influential »classical« Marxist
authors on this problem —
attempted to define an objective »essence«
all

of the nation which provided the material foundation of national identity,

consciousness, and nationalism. For Kautsky (1929), this was the common
language as the natural vehicle for the emergence of a capitalist »home
market« and the bourgeois nation state; for Otto Bauer (1924), a com-
munity of fate« bound together by a common language, culture, and his-
torical experience; for Stalin »a historically-grown stable community of
language, territory, economic life and a psychological make-up mani-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 8

1 1 Gtinter Minnerup

fested in a common cultures. The dogmatic narrowness of the latter' s de-

finition, moreover, culminated in the assertion that »if only one of them is

lacking, the nation ceases to be a nation« (Stalin 1913, 10-11; my own

translation).
The common flaw in all these »objectivist« definitions is that they are
They cannot explain the emergence of nations
empirically untenable.
without a common language or the existence of nationalist movements
among peoples lacking even a common territory and/or economic life.

Most importantly, however, by focusing on the supposedly »objective«

character of the nation, they one-sidedly stress its »communal« aspects
and therefore end up with a schematic juxtaposition of »the social« and
»the national« which renders them incapable of understanding the real
dialectic of class and national interests and movements and the mutual in-
terdependence of class and national consciousness.
The solution to the riddle lies in firmly relegating the »objective fac-
tors« to the status of raw material: elements which, in various combina-
tions, are undoubtedly essential prerequisites of national identity, but do
not as such constitute it. The qualitative step that elevates regional, lin-
guistic, cultural, racial, religious, economic and other identities to the level

of »the nationak is their politicisation, the desire to make them the basis
of self-government (which may or may not mean full independence as a
nation state). Insofar as any such national entity comprises different social
classes and national identity and national consciousness cut across class
lines, classand nation are incompatible political principles. On the other
hand, however, the nation is the essential arena of the class struggle and in
this sense the condition sine qua non of the constitution of political class

consciousness. The social relations between individuals of the same class,

as well as those between different and antagonistic classes are tempered
and mediated by national factors, just as the specific social and political
physiognomy of a nation is a product of the class struggle within it. It is
inherently impossible therefore to attempt to separate the social from the
national, to cleanse class consciousness from its »national impurities«.
What needs to be grasped is the specificity of the combination of social
and national factors in each particular case.

Theory and Practice: Self-Determination, Democracy, and Socialism

Whatever the terminology employed, however, a theoretical definition of
the nation and nationalism that does not also provide a guide for action
ceases to be Marxist theory; just as the Marxist theory of class and the
Marxist theory of the state become lifeless sociological abstractions and —
thus also useless as tools of scientific inquiry —
if divorced from the prac-

tical context of the political class struggle. It is surely no coincidence that

Otto Bauer, Joseph Stalin, Rosa Luxemburg and V.I. Lenin to name —
ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 9

Marxism and the Nation 1 1

just the most prominent and influential — were all Eastern European
Marxists confronted with the complex realities of the Romanov and Habs-
burg multi-national empires.
Lenin never developed a systematic theory of the nation and national-
—
ism as such, and appears to have been strongly influenced on this point
as indeed on many others — by Karl Kautsky. His voluminous writings on
the national question are of interest today primarily for their political ap-
proach to the problem, their insistence that the national question »belongs
wholly and exclusively to the sphere of political democracy« (Lenin, Col-
lected Works, Vol. 24, 127). For Lenin, the problem of a definition never
really arose since the most burning practical task was not to identify the
elements uniting a given nationality, but to break away the working mas-
ses from their bourgeois leaderships. Nothing could, however, be more ef-

fective a weapon in the hands of the bourgeois nationalists than the deni-
al, on whatever sound »theoretical« grounds, of the right to national self-
determination by the socialist movement, particularly by the socialist
movement of the oppressor nation in the name of »class unity«: »The
workers of those nations which under capitalism were oppressor nations
must take exceptional care not to hurt the national sentiments of the op-
pressed nations (. .) and must not only promote genuine equality, but also
.

the development of the language and literature of the working people of

the formerly oppressed nations so as to remove all traces of distrust and
alienation inherited from the epoch of capitalism« (Lenin, Collected
Works, Vol.21, 412-414).
»Genuine equality« and the removal of »all traces of distrust and alien-
ation^ however, could only be achieved if the rights of oppressed nations
were not subject to any qualifications, not even those supposedly
grounded in Marxist theory (as was implied by Stalin's edict that if any of
his »objective criteria« were absent in any given case, »the nation ceases to

be a nation« and thus presumably to have a right to self-determination):

»We demand freedom of self-determination, i.e. independence, i.e. free-
dom of secession for the oppressed nations, not because we have dreamt
of splitting up the country economically, or of the ideal of small states,
but, on the contrary, because we want larger states and the closer unity
and even fusion of nations, only on a truly democratic, truly internation-
alist basis, which is inconceivable without the freedom to secede« (cf. Ko-

sing 1976).
Lenin was, of course, never guided by a concept of democracy de-
vorced from the class struggle. Bourgeois democracy could only be limi-
ted, formal democracy; only democracy would be true democra-
socialist
cy. But it was for Lenin never saw a contradic-
precisely this reason that
tion in the counterposition of the democratic right of an oppressed nation
to secede and form its own state and the socialist principles of centraliza-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
1 20 Lauri Mehtonen

tion and internationalism since the only way of proving concretely the su-
periority of socialist over bourgeois democracy was the removal of all re-

strictions on the exercise of democratic rights.

The sharp between respect for the right to form an inde-
distinction
pendent and actual support for secession was to give rise to all sorts
state
of problems after the October Revolution and Lenin never specified the
precise conditions under which Marxists should give such support. His
eventual acceptance of federalism would seem to indicate that his thought
continued to evolve and that it can by no means be considered as the kind
of finished edifice of orthodoxy it became for some of his epigons. One
does not have to ignore these and other limitations of Lenin's writings on
the national question, even less condone the many atrocities committed in
the name of a »leninist nationalities policy«, to acknowledge their impor-
tance as the main reference point in the legacy of »classical Marxism« for
any fresh attempt to construct a systematic Marxist theory of the nation.
The thoughts offered for discussion in this paper can only be prolego-
mena to such an enterprise, seeking to identify the main methodological
and theoretical traps to be avoided in the necessary empirical study of the
great diversity of specific combinations of national and class struggles
which alone can further advance this project.

Literature

Bauer, O., 1924: Die Nationalitatenfrage und die Sozialdemokratie. Wien

Kautsky, K., 1929: Die materialistische Geschichtsauffassung, Bd.2, Berlin
Kosing, A., 1976: Nation in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Berlin/Ost
Lenin, V.I.: Collected Works, Vol.21 and Vol.24
Nairn, T., 1975: The Modern Janus. In: New Left Review 94, p.3-29
Stalin, J., 1913: Der Marxismus und die nationale Frage. Wien

Lauri Mehtonen

The »Human Essence« or the Circle of

»Social Idealism« in Marxism

To begin with, I would like to briefly comment the widely disputed sen-
tence in Marx's sixth thesis on Feuerbach. This sentence is, of course, the
following: »In seiner Wirklichkeit ist es (= das menschliche Wesen —
LM) das ensemble der gesellschaftlichen Verhaltnisse« 1
. This is not the

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
The »Human Essence« or the Circle of»Social Idealism« in Marxism 121

sentence we usually meet in various discussions; more commonly, we find

different and even contradictory interpretations of the reduced form »das
menschliche Wesen = das ensemble der gesellschaftlichen Verhaltnisse«.
This form is not, however, very sensitive to the expression »in seiner
Wirklichkeit«, which in itself is loaded with traditional philosophical
meanings, e.g. such »metaphysical« dimensions as potentiality-actuality,
activity and product, realization and truth. It is also useful to remember
the »double« meaning of the German »Wesen« which Marx used for his
critical and literary intentions. »Das menschliche Wesen« means both a

human being /an individual man and the essence/nature of man.

In this paper I have no intention of trying to give my own interpretation
of the sixth thesis. I would, however, like to mention one problematic
point which I myself see as a general source of different kinds of mistakes:
the tendency to divorce, without any reasons, the interpretation of the
first thesis from that of the sixth thesis and vice versa. The crucial point is,

of course, how to connect the problematics »Wirklichkeit als sinnlich

menschliche Tatigkeit« with the problematics »Wirklichkeit als ensemble
der gesellschaftlichen Verhaltnisse«.

II

Here, am interested in the seemingly paradoxical nature of Marx's mate-

I

rialistic image of man in the sixth thesis. I believe that the paradox I have

in mind illuminates both real problems in Marx's theoretical problematics

and has important practical implications and counterparts. Does not the
thesis that »the essence of man = the ensemble of the social relations«
imply that nature plays no constitutive and essential role in man's real na-
ture, in his essence? This question has its importance in Marx's critique of
political economy. As we remember, Marx characterizes in Das Kapital
the specific capitalistic social relations between men with the problematic
term »sinnlich-ubersinnlich«, as something that has no atoms of material
nature as its constituents.
So it if we were not sure of the positive sense of Marx's
seems that even
term »das menschliche Wesen« we could, at least, state that he puts the
whole of nature out of its topic. The situation would be even more para-
doxical if we wrote (as e.g. Adam Schaff does) »an individual human

being = the ensemble of the social relations«. This way of reading Marx,
which is mostly implicit, would totally put man outside nature and nature
outside man.
But as recent discussions have shown, drawing a distinction between an
individual human being and his »essence« does not help us at all; this only
leads us into »metaphysical labyrinths«.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
122 Lauri Mehtonen

III

To summarize: A spontaneous reading of the sixth thesis constitutes a

tendency of »social idealism« within Marxist discourses. Typical realiza-
tions of this »idealism« are forms of lazy critique of naturalism, or even
so-called vulgar materialism (I have in mind topics such as »Freud«, »clas-
sical materialism« (e.g. Hobbes), or »pollution«).
But this »reading« of Marx's critique of Feuerbach implies that even
Feuerbach has been more or less unknown to Marxists and this again
implies thatMarx himself ...
The costs of this tendency have been paid during the whole history —
of Marxism —
both by the pre-Feuerbachian and by the pre-Marxian ele-
ments in the various articulations of »Marxism«. These »naturalistic«,
»materialistic« elements are just the elements of »materialistic« articula-
tions of the tendency of »social idealism«. So the Stalinist deviation of
Marxist philosophy (e.g. the topic »proletarian science /bourgeois sci-

ence^ and the »young« Lukacs constitute a »unity of contradiction

within »social idealism«.
In this paperI have not a »philologjcal« but a practical interest in the

sixth thesis.Problems of the day are part of its real problematics. It still
shows the paradox of the question. Real questions mean unknowing the
answers with knowing this unknowing. The thesis is not an answer, but a
part of the process of questioning.
The first step forward consists of more than one step backwards (in our
self-understanding). The difficult problems of rethinking Karl Marx do
not concern Marx himself. They are our own vital problems concerning
nature in its different dimensions (including its aesthetic dimension), the
technological alternatives, sexes, races, nationality, culture, ideology, poli-
tics etc. 2

We have always lived in Rhodes and have no need to blame Marx for
our jumps.

Notes
1 In its reality it (the human essence — LM) is the ensemble of the social re-
lations.
2 For rich material on these problems, see the former volumes of the Interna-
tionale Sozialismusdiskussion (Argument- Sonderbande AS 61, AS 78, AS 84
and AS 95).

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 123

Rachel Sharp

Schooling For or Beyond the Crisis?

Some Thoughts on Marxism and Socialist Pedagogy

The crisis of Marxism is essentially a crisis of politics. The neglect by the

left of issues concerning education is itself part of the crisis of left politics.
What is needed is both an educative politics and a politics of education

which can lead us through the crisis towards a better future.

Educational debate in the post war era has centred around alleged defi-
ciencies of the formal schooling system. Central to these debates has been
the question of the widening of access to formal schooling to give oppor-
tunity to those traditionally deemed deprived. Issues of content and con-
trol have not figured prominently. Little consideration has been given to
the fact that State schooling is essentially bourgeois schooling. As a result
little attention has been accorded to the question of how to wrest control
of education away from the bourgeois class and its institutions and relo-

cate it in organizational forms and sites more under working class control.
Moreover, progressive educational discourse has been essentially liberal
rather than socialist, more concerned with enhancing individualism, equa-
lityof opportunity and personal mobility than with the creation of a com-
munal mode of social existence in which the mere advancement of bour-
geois rights would have no place.
This progressive liberal democratic educational discourse is now every-
where on the defensive. In the context of a broader ideological thrust to
reconstitute the crisis in bourgeois society as a crisis of schooling, the
dominant educational discourse replacing liberal egalitarianism is now
that of the new right. Its themes are those of the reassertion of standards,
of discipline, of the performance principal; the stress on vocationalism
and the transmission of skills, the need for accountability, freedom of
choice and the pursuit of excellence. The populism of its rhetoric reson-
ates with felt frustrations, anxieties and aspirations in a way that liberal
democratic discourse does not. It is through this legitimating discourse
that a major restructuring of bourgeois schooling systems is being effec-
ted, leading to a significant retreat from the priorities of expanding oppor-
tunity, democratic participation and decentralization which had such re-

sonance in the previous decade. State schooling systems have been badly
affected by cuts in state expenditure. A decline in the level of funding and
a readjustment of educational priorities towardsmore vocationalism and
skill training have been
accompanied by a reassertion of controls over
teachers and taught, and obsession with the basics, standards and disci-
pline, and a reorganization of curriculi and examinations to facilitate

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
124 Rachel Sharp

competency testing and other forms of centralized control. All of this has
been associated with a growing role of the private corporate sector in pub-
lic schooling, in teaching and research priorities, in the trend towards pri-
vate schooling and in the massive growth of educational technology.

New Right Discourse

The analysis of new right discourse about education has to begin against
the background of rising levels of youth unemployment which potentially
undermines the main legitimating ideology of bourgeois schooling sys-
tems, viz. that schooling provides access to the workforce at levels appro-
priate to the individual's »ability«, »effort« and »motivation«, that it is
the means of individual improvement and selfadvancement. However,
the resonance of the new rights' s educational discourse has also to be con-
sidered as, at least in part, a reaction to the lack of resonance of even this
legitimating ideology for many under late capitalism, even before the re-
cent growth in youth unemployment. High levels of mass consumption, a
developed welfare state, permissive, person-centred modes of childrear-

ing, and the fetishization of leisure and enjoyment through the mass me-
dia have combined in their effects to undermine a commitment to »ef-
fort«, »motivation« and mobility aspirations which bourgeois schooling
has sought to foster and reward. New modes of subjectivity have been
constituted which are more immune to traditional bonds of social cohe-
sion which can be drawn upon to safeguard social and political stability in
times of crisis.

My argument is that the new right's educational discourse is concerning

itself with the social constitution of these new forms of subjectivity and
consciousness and attempting to intervene to reconstruct them in a way
compatible with the continuation of capitalist relations of exploitation. In-
deed, many aspects of the reconstruction of bourgeois schooling systems
currently being orchestrated have little to do with the production of a
more adequately skilled work force and far more to do with a mode of in-
tervention in the sphere of subjectivity designed to counteract the normal
production of one form of the bourgeois subject, i.e. that which emerges
in a context where market relations are now the sole mediating relations
between people and things, and people and people. Ironically both social-
ist discourse and conservative discourse depend, at least in part, on ap-

peals to non market principles of social cohesion. However, the extension

of market forms throughout every area of social existence in advanced
capitalism progressively undermines the possibility of an emancipatory
project of transcendence based on traditional socialist appeals. On the
other hand, generalized market forms allow for the possibility of penetrat-
ing the ideological veil to reveal a Hobbsean war of all against all, thus
subverting the idealization built into bourgeois ideology — viz. that the

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Schooling For or Beyond the Crisis ? 1 25

pursuit of self interest leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest num-
ber.
Neither the socialist left, nor liberal democracy has realized that its post
war educational ideals were premised on models of bourgeois subjectivity
which bear little resemblance to the subjectivities actually being produced
in market society of late capitalism. Despite the fetishism of freedom, lei-

sure and consumption and the non salience of work, the production of
these subjectivities has been profoundly structured by the process of sur-
plus value production and valorization and the ideological forms of ad-
vanced capitalism. Simultaneously fragmented, depoliticised and indivi-
dualized, encapsulated in commodity fetishism, these subjectivities have
been deprived of access to any means of critical self reflection or historical
reflexivity. As a result and in spite of the celebration of anti-authoritarian-

ism, they are unwittingly submissive and self identified with the status
quo. Central to their identity is the fetishism of money. Only money
speaks and has power. The language of counterhegemony is thus thereby
rendered non-credible.
The stabilityand political quiescence of these subjectivities depends, at
least in part, on the continued access to the commodity, either through the
wage relationship or through welfare payments. To the extent that this ac-
cess is threatened through rising levels of unemployment or through social
wage cutbacks, a spontaneous reconstitution of these subjectivities could
occur, and thus pose a severe threat to social order, given that the commit-
ment to old values —
respect for property, authority and discipline is —
so little in evidence. It is thus fairly easy to see why the bourgeois state has
moved so quickly to effect a reconstitution of bourgeois schooling systems
and why the educational discourse of the new right has had such popular
appeal.

Computerized Learning
One aspect of this restructuring of bourgeois schooling deserves particular
attention, in that it heralds the most dramatic shift in the nature of bour-
mass schooling itself, namely, the general-
geois schooling since the rise of
ized application of computers to the learning process. Both the need to
economise on the social wage and the cheapening of the cost of computer
hardware and software has put access to computerized information sys-
tems with very large memories within the next decade within the reach of
most schools and colleges.
The computerized learning systems currently being used on any large
scale are in the main mechanistic and prescriptive, employing heavily
structured, tightly controlled programmes with clearly specified syntaxes
of knowledge hierarchically arranged and where the content of »know-
ledge« transmitted involves the acquisition of facts or skills which foster

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
126 Rachel Sharp

little creative imagination. Such programmes may permit regular dia-

gnostic and achievement tests but given their neglect of the psychological
and cultural complexities involved in individual learning differences, pro-
vide little more than an illusion of objectivity and individualization.

The technology and techniques for designing computer assisted learning

which allow for a degree of learner control are not nearly so advanced.
Moreover, the shift in research funding in computer science away from
pure research towards the question of commercial application will rein-

force the preference for more mechanistic teaching systems. In addition,

there an acute shortage of decent software which is very expensive to de-
is

velop, given the time and expertise necessary to produce the software
components. Combined expertise in educational technology, instructional
design and educational theory tends to be concentrated in multinational
companies, leading to a centralization of control over information and
dissemination. Whilst in theory anyone can produce their own programs,
in practice individual teachers and educational bureaucracies will rely on
the cheaper availability of commercially produced and disseminated soft-
ware.
The rituals of instruction, the language of the programs, the fetishism
of the machine, together provide support for the technocratic, means/
ends rationality so necessary for the reproduction and legitimation of ad-
vanced capitalism. The monitoring which the machine permits of both pu-
pil and teacher performance, (and their political and moral conformity)
the centralization of record systems, and of the management of knowl-
edge all tie in with the structural imperatives of cost effectiveness and con-
trol, to which the state willingly responds.
The discourse of the information and communications revolution,
whilst resonating with popular aspirations for knowledge and communi-
cation to offset the fragmentation, atomization and powerlessness which
characterizes many people's lives, needs to be activated with another dis-

course, that of participation, democratic control and social need. Without

such a transformation, so far little in evidence, the consequence is merely
profit and control. The educational computer merely furthers the func-
tionalization of the schooling system for capital.
But could be otherwise, given that most progressive teachers are not
it

socialists but liberal social democrats whose liberalism has proved singu-
larly impotent in the face of the thrust of the educational new right?

Whilst embodying some progressive ideals, liberal democratic educational

theory is inherently contradictory in that its goals are ongoingly undermi-
ned by the very structure that produced them. Liberal democratic educa-
tional theory lacks any materialist theory of the social constitution of sub-
jectivities. The identities that it claimed to release were essentially »bour-

geois« subjectivities, and these now need to be reconstructed.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Schooling For or Beyond the Crisis? 1 27

Do We Need to Be Luddites?
That reconstruction, as we have seen, is legitimated by the educational dis-
course of the new right. Whilst it has so far produced reactionary out-
comes, there is little inherently reactionary in many of its discursive
themes. It is the manner of their articulation and use which is conserva-
tive. The themes of standards, discipline, accountability, for example, are
not incapable of a transubstantiation. Socialist pedagogy is not in-

compatible with effort, hard work and competency in the basics of litera-

cy and numeracy. Computerized teaching may teach certain kinds of skills

and disciplines better than the methods which have been used in the past.
Socialists do not have to be luddites. Whilst the analytic skills which com-
puter use fosters have so far been appropriated by capital, they could
equally well serve socialist goals which require analysis, co-ordination and
planning, and a new language.
The question of language is fundamental for a socialist pedagogy. The
language which pervades the language of capitalist society is the language
of individualization. This language claims an affirmation of the individual
whilst simultaneously blind to the structural logics of commodification,
which ruthlessly sweep away the foundations for a human sociality. So-
cialistpedagogy has to strive to disentangle the confused and contradic-
tory meanings which words reveal, grounded in commonsense and every-
day discourse, and rework them into other linguistic systems. Socialist pe-
dagogy has to teach a language of social analysis, a language which can
identify what it is to be human, our dependence on nature and social rela-
tionships. —
The socialist pedagogy is related to what Gramsci meant by
reaching out to and extending the »good sense« in commonsense, a good
sense which is subsequently arrested by its reconstitution through hegemo-
nic discourse. The release of that good sense depends upon the subversion
of bourgeois meaning systems and the re-presentation of accurate and
progressive cognitions to expose another repressed reality which lacks a
language to articulate it.

The challenge for Marxists is to articulate a language which can speak

to people about the conditions in which they live and offer real alterna-
tives to the spurious solutions which capitalism, through the new right, re-
gurgitates.Marx's heritage is that the challenge to the lie of the market
place that he so brilliantly exposed has never ceased. Even now, in the
peace movement, in the ecology movement, in feminism, in anti-imperial-
ist and anti-racist struggles, within trade unionism, the yearnings of the
people for an unalienated sociality and a genuine democracy are being on-
goingly expressed. It is within these struggles, through forging on educa-
tive politics, that socialist pedagogy can be developed. For pedagogy is not
theory but practice.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 .

128

Rolf Nemitz

What Can be Learned from Marx on Education? 1

1. Marx did not develop a theory of education. What, then, can we learn
from him on the subject? The main thing, as I see it, is to refuse two ques-
tions, (1) how should children be educated? and (2) should children be
educated at The second question (Holzkamp's question) is just as
all?

wrong as the first one —

I think that this is what we can learn from Marx.

2. A new starting point for questions on education is clearly articulated

in the third thesis on Feuerbach. Marx refers here to the educational pro-
grammes of Utopian socialists such as Robert Owen. He writes: »The ma-
terialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbring-
ing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential
to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide so-
ciety into two parts, one of which is superior to society«. According to
this, the question as to how education should be organized in order to
come closer to socialism is not the right question. The mistake lies in a
concept of society where one part of society is beyond it. Marx criticises

here a relation we have called »ideological societalization« as »societaliza-

tion from above«. Marx does not answer the question of how to educate.
Instead, he formulates a new problem. The well-known sentence runs:
»The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity
or self-changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as revo-
lutionary practices The new starting point —
from where questions of
education should be articulated — is revolutionary practice«. And the
new problematic is: how can we go on beginning with this starting point?
How do the questions of education change if we take this as a starting
point? How can we prevent revolutionary practice from becoming merely
a revolutionary phrase?
3 What is Marx doing when he tries to develop a theory of revolution-
ary practice«? We all know the outcome of his attempts. His main contri-
bution was not a theory of politics, but of production and of capital circu-
lation. He analyzed some fundamental social forms within which revolu-
tionary practices takes place, trying to transform them. The same should,
in my mind,
be done with the questions of education. Understanding edu-
cation cannot begin with the problem: How should one educate? but
with: Within which social forms does education take place? How are these
forms constituted and reproduced? How is domination reproduced
through these forms? What are their internal contradictions?
4. Marx did not conclude Capital with answers to the question: How
shall I exchange commodities? Or: Shall I stop exchanging commodities?

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
What Can be Learnedfrom Marx on Education ? 1 29

We cannot learn very much from Marx if we divide the analysis of educa-
tion into two steps: First, an analysis of the institutional framework, se-

How to educate? Or: How not to educate? (as

cond, back to the question:
Holzkamp does). Instead of this we have to transform the question »How
to educate« into »How to transform the forms of educations Education
isa process of reproduction and transformation of these social forms.
Taking revolutionary practice« as a starting point, there is no education
beyond the reproduction and transformation of those social forms within
which education is situated.
5. One might ask is there not a relation between children and grown-ups

which allows us to take the question »How to educate?« as a beginning.

But this relation between generations is socially constructed, too. There is
not only a mechanism which transforms means of production into capital
and a mechanism which transforms sex relations into gender relations, but
also a system which transforms the procreative relations between human
beings into relations between generations — a »procreation-generation
system«. This system pervades nearly all regions of society.
6. Much of education does not qualify people for production or for cir-

culation (as Holzkamp seems to presuppose when he considers the only

aim of bourgeois education to be to prepare people for the production of
surplus value). To give one example: Important institutions, such as the
German »Gymnasium« of the 19th century, primarily produced members
of the state apparatuses. In capitalist societies we have to consider at least
the regions of production/circulation, state, family, and science as spheres
within which education takes place or for which education prepares. That
is, we have to relate education not only to the economy but to the social
formation as an articulation of such regions. Furthermore, education is

not only related to class relations but to other forms of domination, too:
gender relations, relations between intellectuals and non-intellectuals, be-
tween people and the power block. The relations of domination cannot be
identified with certain regions. These regions and relations of domination
can have contradictory effects, their combination cannot be understood in
a functionalist way. We have to take into account the effects of such an
ensemble of relations of domination. We should not discuss questions
such as »How should children be educated in the family?« or even ques-
tions such as »Should children be educated in families at all?«, but replace
them by »Howis the family (or any other region) going to be trans-

formed?«, »Which relations of domination pervade the specific region?«,

» Which alternatives are possible?«, and »What role do children play in
these processes of transformation?«
7. Starting with the point of departure given in Thesis on Feuerbach,

with revolutionary practice«, means starting with those practices which

are directed at the transformation of the social forms within which dif-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
130 Bozidar Sekulic

ferent forms of domination are reproduced. I think it is incorrect to speak

of education in the family without speaking of the attempts to transform
or even to dissolve and without speaking about the relation of do-
it,

mination between men and women.

Learning from Marx here means try-
ing to prevent mistakes that have been made or are going to be made. It
would replace the question »Should children be educated?« by questions
like: What mistakes must be avoided in the ongoing attempts of transfor-

ming the different social forms within which education takes place? What
articulations between these forms exist and which alternatives are being
developed? What interventions into these forms and their constellations
are feasible?

Note
1 This is an indirect polemic. It refers to two articles by Klaus Holzkamp: We
don't need no education, Forum Kritische Psychologie 11, Berlin/ West
in:

1983; and Was kann man von Marx iiber Erziehung lernen? in: Demokrati-
sche Erziehung 1/1983.

Bozidar Sekulic

»Critique of Ideology« and »Class Consciousness

of the Proletariat in Contemporary Marxism

The research into the complex interrelationships between ideology and the
class consciousness can be an important contribution to the contemporary
Marxist discussion. This contribution aims at two directions: the critical

revaluation of the Marxist tradition in this case, and the concrete-histori-

cal liberation of the ideological from the reified political reductionisms.
The proletarians are everywhere — as Karl Marx well noticed some 150
years ago. In this sense, any partial, reductive and traditional treatment of
ideology and class consciousness, and especially of their interrelationships,
will support the ideological and cultural colonization and subjugation of
the people. A clearer and more precise view of the open questions of the
struggle for an intellectual, cultural and integral hegemony of the proletar-
iat istoday more necessary than ever. Any form of sectarianism and com-
petition for a so-called »leadership« as the revolutionary initiative will do
damage and will demonstrate nothing but the immaturity of some mem-
bers of the emancipatory movements. The productive discussion on the

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 1

»Critique ofIdeology« and »Class Consciousness of the Proletariate 13

»new social movements« will, however, help in bringing an end to the vain
competition.
There aicfour well-known interpretations of Marx's »critique of ideol-
ogy^ (1) The first and most primitive one tries to decipher ideology in
terms of a »subjective picture of objective reality«, (2) the second one has
a negative and only partially productive nature, interpreting ideology as a
form of false consciousness (»notwendig falsches BewuBtsein«), (3) the
third one interprets ideology descriptively in a concrete-historical sense as
a reality emerging from the dialectics of social existence which determines
social consciousness, and (4) the fourth one is an intepretation of Marx's
critique of ideology. This intepretation is settled within the range of the
questions concerning the struggle for an integral hegemony of the prole-
tariat.

The first intepretation of ideology follows the traditional metaphysical

philosophy. Trying to build on one revolutionary strategy, it underesti-
mates the ideological potentials of the revolution.
The second interpretation of ideology comprises the negative side of the
ideological. I think that important parts of Marxist philosophy and socio-
logy are still deeply affected by this Napoleonic transformation of Marx's
conception of ideology.It has actually played an important part in the

damaging underestimation of the ideological problem in the strategy of

revolutionary transformation.
The third interpretation of ideology, in terms of a dialectical description
of the relation between social existence and social consciousness, has been
manifested as one of the most widespread illusions, an illusion about the
»final dissolution of the ideologicak . Marx's critique of ideology did e-

volve as a natural and integral part of his materialistic conception of his-

tory. At the very core of this conception lies a historical interpretation of
economy and not an economic interpretation of history. It follows that
the third interpretation will provide us with nothing more than a correct
description of the ideological within bourgeois society. One will be misled
if one takes this correct description of the ideological within bourgeois so-
ciety for an eternal Marxist truth about the relation between social exis-
tence and social consciousness. This mystification will inevitably lead one
to a partial and biased conception of proletarian class consciousness which
conceives neither forms nor instruments of proletarian hegemony.
The fourth interpretation of ideology is the most important one. The
productive power of ideology is here set free and the proletariat gets suffi-
cient space for its struggle for intellectual supremacy. Within this horizon
it is necessary to overcome sectarianism, intolerance and prophecy of any

kind. Gramsci has pointed out that the political is not a sector apart; the
same is true about the ideological in the sense of Marx's critique of ideolo-
gy. This is precisely the question about the intellectual hegemony of the

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
1 32 Volker Gransow

proletariat. The
ideological in this sense is something rather evident within
a which believed in miracles, prophets and leaders: ideologies
civilization
arise from the position of consciousness within the simple process of la-
bour as a teleological activity. The teleology of labour tells us not to neg-
lect the appetite of proletarians in criticizing and changing class civiliza-

tions.

Volker Gransow

Worktime? Leisure Time? Disposable Time!

The importance of leisure research and leisure politics is indisputable, at

least as far as practical phenomena are concerned. Mass unemployment
provides the impetus for a dramatic reduction in working time, whereas
the phenomenon of »value change« gives grounds for a reconsideration of
the contents of both working time and leisure time. Taking this for gran-
ted, there is nevertheless a great deal of ambiguity and doubt surrounding
the subject. The main difficulties of leisure research have their reasons in
conceptual problems, which are the basis for an empirical landscape char-
acterized by »data mountains«, »data islands« or, in short, »data chaos«.
In my view the main conceptional problems are threefold: Firstly, there
isa confusion of the division of time, the use of time and the »contents«
of time; secondly, there is a polarization of labor and leisure, giving the
quantitative term »leisure time« a qualitative meaning, the character of an
activity; thirdly, there is a reduction of leisure to time for reproduction of
resources only. This position is widely held among Marxist writers.

In this situation, a retrospective look at Marx's notion of »disposable

time« seems to be quite useful. As I am only interested in the factual de-
ficiencies of leisure research, I shall try to give an outline of Marx's no-
tion. I shall not go into detail, concerning contradictions within the oeuvre
of Marx, or the differences between young Marx and old Marx.
According to Marx, all societies need labor; the labor-process can be
considered dependently of the particular form it assumes under given so-
cial conditions. Labor is a process in which man regulates and controls the
material reactions between himself and nature in order to appropriate na-
ture' s production in a form adapted to his own desires. This exchange
with nature defines the working time necessary for subsistence. Apart
from this necessary working time, there is disposable time which can be

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Worktime ? Leisure Time ? Disposable Time! 1 33

used for surplus-labor pleasure, or free activity. The situation is differ- —

ent in the capitalist mode of production. Capital is a social relationship
which has its impact on social time structure as well. Labor-power is a spe-

cific commodity with the quality of producing more value. The con-
sumption of this commodity is the production of capital. The value of
labor-power is determined by the working time necessary for its produc-
tion. The sum of necessary working time and surplus working time consti-
tutes the working day. The working day is a variable quantity, but only
within certain limits. The minimum limit necessary working time— is —
not possible within capitalism, whereas the maximum limit is conditioned
by physical and cultural bounds. This means that the time during which
the laborer works is the time during which the capitalist consumes the
labor-power he has purchased of the laborer. If the worker consumes his
disposable time for himself, he robs the capitalist. From the viewpoint of
capital it is self-evident that all the worker's disposable time is by nature
and law labor-time to be devoted to the self-expansion of capital. Exploi-
tation does not only mean to extract the greatest possible amount of sur-
plus-value, it means also that spare time for one class is acquired by con-
verting the whole life-time of the masses into labor-time. Disposable time-
of the working class could be time for education, for intellectual develop-
ment, for the fulfilling of social functions, for the free play of bodily and
mental activity — if not capital would dispose of this time. The term »dis-
posable time« does not say anything about the concrete use of this time.
Disposable time can be time for art, politics, etc. , for the ruling class, where-
as disposable time of the working class means essentially working time.

A Social Time Structure

A social time structure becomes visible , which is not only imprinted by
class antagonism, but which creates class antagonism: without disposable
time for the worker, no surplus labor; without surplus labor, no capitalist.
Nevertheless it would be a mistake to understand this class antagonism as
meaning that all disposable time of the working class would be surplus la-

bor time and all disposable time of capital leisure time. Technological ad-
vancement leads to reductions in the necessary working time and to an
increase in relative surplus working time which makes shorter working
days possible. Thus, the suppressed class has the limited possibility to en-
gage in politics, arts, etc., too. The further reduction of working time is —
as Agnes Heller put— a »radical need«, the
it dialectics »necessary work-
ing time — surplus working time — disposable time« is both means and
goal in the process of overcoming capitalism.
An abridged illustration of Marx's understanding of social time struc-
ture under capitalism is shown in the following diagram:

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
134 Volker Gransow

Marx's Understanding of Social Time Structure under Capitalism

worker working time non-working time

necessary surplus disposable necessary

working time time time for
time (rel./abs.) reproduction

Capital necessary disposable time necessary

time for time for
control etc. reproduction

Socially necessary working time will not wither away after capitalism. The
associated producers will rationally regulate their interchange with nature
under more favorable conditions, but the sphere of material production
still remains the realm of necessity. Beyond it begins the realm of freedom,

which is based on the realm of necessity. The shortening of the working

day is its basic prerequisite.
To sum up the rough outline of Marx's thoughts on disposable time:
firstly, disposable time is the time all societies have at their disposition, af-
ter the working time is subtracted, which is necessary for mere subsistence.
Secondly, disposable time is time in capitalism, which is restricted to social
classes. Under capitalist rule disposable time of the working class is predo-
minantly surplus working time, disposable time of the capitalist class is
predominantly time for politics, science, arts, etc. Thirdly, disposable ti-

me is a measure of social wealth in a postcapitalist association of free indi-

viduals.
In respect to the problems mentioned before, this concept has certain
advantages: firstly, a confusion of the division of time and the »contents«
of time is impossible, because time is basically regarded in its social func-
tion. Secondly, a polarization of labor and leisure is avoidable, because
disposable time can measure both work and other activities. Thirdly, a
concentration on reproduction is excluded, because the socially transcend-
ing meaning of working time reduction beyond securing reproduction is

stressed.
Nevertheless, the heuristic value of the term »disposable time« is restric-

ted, because it is mainly an instrument for the description of the various

distributions of time. It should be integrated into a holistic concept of cul-
ture, which between conditions of
investigates the various relationships
life. As for leisure politics, Marx's notion of »disposable time« does not

give too much support to the demand for a »right to work«, which is at
best a »clumsy formula«, if not a »cowardly step backward«. As Marx's

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
The »18th Brumaire«: Comedy or Trauerspiel? 1 35

son-in-law so nicely put it, the »right to be lazy« is much more important,

forging a »brazen law forbidding any man to work more than three hours
a day^ 1

Note
1 Lafargue, P., 1975: The Right to be Lazy. Chicago, p.66.

Marc Sagnol

The »18th Brumaire«: Comedy or Trauerspiel?

Benjamin's Re-interpretation
of the Marxian Conception of the Hero

In his »18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte« Marx elaborates a surprising

theory of the repetition of history: »Hegel observes somewhere that the
great events and persons of universal history appear twice so to speak. He
forgets to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.« 1
commentary on the 18th Brumaire Herbert Marcuse asserts that
In his
»the farceis more terrible than the tragedy«
2 This interpretation depends,
.

in my opinion, on a misconstruction of Marx's conception of the tragic. I

would like to submit another interpretation, basing myself upon Benja-
min's understanding of the 18th Brumaire, and suggest that the 18th Bru-
maire is a Trauerspiel in the Benjaminian sense of untragic drama. We
shall see that Benjamin's interpretation itself is a re-interpretation of
Marx's notion of heroism.
If we consider Marx's text, we see that there are two forms of repetition
in history: either the tragedy reoccurs as tragedy, or it reoccurs as farce (or
comedy). Indeed, when the French Revolution »quotes« Rome, draping
itself in Roman dress, this disguise is quite justified in so far as it accom-
plishes a great historical task, that only »heroes« can accomplish: the birth
of modern bourgeois society.
Marx compares players of this tragedy to »heroes«, »ante-diluvian co-
losses or »gladiators«. Marx, more generally, is constantly referring to
Danton, Robespierre, Marat, Napoleon as »heroes«.
As soon as modern society has been brought into the world, heroism
disappears and gives place to an »unheroical« reality. This is the great
contradiction that Marx has to take into account: »Unheroical as bour-
geois society may be, heroism, civil wars etc. were necessary to give birth

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
136 MarcSagnol

to it.« 3 Marx notes, after Hegel, that the heroism of the citoyen has mere-
ly given birth to the prosaic bourgeois.
Once born, bourgeois society no longer has any heroes. Thus the 1848
revolution in France cannot be a repetition of the revolution of 1789, as
the latter was a repetition of Rome: the situation being quite different, it

can only be a parody. Which is why Marx refers to it as a comedy or a

farce. Louis Bonaparte consciously parodies events which, during the
French Revolution, led to the coup d'Etat of the 18th Brumaire.
Louis Bonaparte's act is a real masquerade: imposing costumes and ele-
gant masks move on the stage, but in fact they are Bonaparte's puppets
recruited in the slums of Paris. Marx describes this class of marginalized
people, this Lumpenproletariat in thoroughly negative terms. 4
This where Benjamin's inversion of the Marxian conception of hero-
is

ism appears. Benjamin sees these people who have lost all social status,
people described in negative terms by Marx, as new heroes and gives them
the name of »heroes of modernity« (die Heroen der Moderne). All the
»boheme«, the ragmen, the »Lumpenproletariat«, all this class of men
who, in Marx's view, cannot be seen to represent any form of heroism,
are raised by Benjamin to a heroic rank and made the agents of a new
heroism.
Thus Marx, in the 18th Brumaire, shows very well that the small pea-
santry, who, under Napoleon, were the heroes of social order that they
were to spread all across Europe were disposseded by this very same social
order. In this way they lost all heroism and became Ersatz heroes. For
Benjamin on the contrary, it is precisely these disposseded country people
and not the peasantry of Napoleonian armies who are the new heroes of
modernity.

»Heroism of Modernity«
What is this »heroism of modernity« in Benjamin's view? In the modern
world, in capitalist society, heroism is necessary, not in order to foster the
birthof a new world, as at the time of the French Revolution, but on the
contrary to escape production rhythm,, to avoid enrollment in a society
characterized by rationalization, automation and hence standardization.
Benjamin shows that workers in the factories learn to copy the regular and
invarying movements of the machine, which accounts for the »absurd
uniformities« typical of big city crowds.
This is the background against which Benjamin's hero figure stands
out: the hero is the man who refuses to be drawn into the movement; he
remains on the borders of society. Among Benjamin's »heroes of mo
dernity« are the suicide candidate, the apache, the dandy, the flaneur (id-
ler), the conspirator, the man of letters, the prostitute and last but not
least, the lesbian.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
The »18th Brumaire«: Comedy or Trauerspiel? 1 37

The relevance of Benjamin's reflections is obvious when one sees the

importance here, in Berlin, of the »alternative« scene, chiefly composed
of heroes of modernity in the Benjaminian sense. The Benjaminian —
view of modernity is then, first and foremost that of a scene, which is de-
fined in terms of a dialectical tension between, on one hand the »multi-
tudes maladives«, that is to say the proletarian masses reduced to uni-
formity in the factories, and on the other hand the asocial hero, the bo-
hemian who escapes enrollment. —
What performance is given on this
stage of modernity? It is neither a comedy nor a tragedy but a Trauerspiel
which presents the eternal reoccurrence of the same situation. The concept
of »hero of modernity« is inseparable from that of the »Trauerspiel of
modernity« in which the heroe's tragic part is played by a comic character.
The Benjaminian distinction between Trauerspiel and tragedy is essentially
marked by: a) tragic heroism as against the absence of real heroism in the
Trauerspiel; b) the uniqueness of tragic events as against the law of repeti-
tionand eternal return which is the law of the Trauerspiel; c) the tragic
dead reappear as ghosts in the Trauerspiel.
We see that the Benjaminian definition of Trauerspiel applies very
exactly to the 18th Brumaire which we can consider as the canon of the
»Trauerspiel of modernity«. In Marx's 18th Brumaire there are all the
themes of Trauerspiel: heroes without any real heroism; time, whose driv-
ing force seems to be the calendar but which is in fact ruled by the law of
repetition; and dead of the French Revolution haunt the actors
finally, the

of the 1848 revolution, like ghosts. Marx, speaking about the period of
1848-1851, writes: »If ever a historical period were painted grey on grey,
this is the one.« 5
The heroes of this Trauerspiel merely play a part which has been already
played by others: »the modern hero«, says Benjamin, »is not a hero, he
merely represents a hero« (der moderne Hews ist nicht Held, er ist Hel-
dendarsteller). 6 The heroes of modernity are no longer Brutus, Gracchus
and Caesars, they are Don Quichottes: Louis Bonaparte is merely an Er-
satz of Napoleon. The events of 1848-1851, that Marx painted grey on
grey, events depictingan eternal repetition, in front of which heroes with-
out any real heroism merely play a part, such events are neither a comedy
nor a tragedy, they are, on the contrary, the very canon of this untragic
drama which Benjamin calls the »Trauerspiel of modernity«.
(Translated by Michael Gibson and Selona Boulbina)

Notes
1 MEW 8, p.115.
2 H. Marcuse, Nachwort. In: K. Marx: Der achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte, Frankfurt/M.
1965, p.143.
3 MEW 8, p.116.
4 Cf. MEW 8, p. 160-161.
5 MEW 8, p. 136; tit.Benjamin,Passagenwerk, p.451.
6 Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften I, 2, p.600.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
138

Michael Kratke

Summary of Discussions

During this session we were confronted with a disequilibrium in terms of

time between the presentation of papers and discussion, which covered
We had six position pa-
but a small part of the issues raised by the papers.
pers and two statements; and an additional paper by Thomas Metscher
was available, but could not be presented by the author himself.
The session was opened by Paulin Hountondji's lecture on »Marxism
in Africa«. Leopoldo Marmora and Gtinter Minnerup presented two pa-
pers dealing with the question of nations and the Marxist contributions to
come to grips with it in the 19th and 20th century. Lauri Mehtonen fol-
lowed by presenting a position paper on the different meanings of the
concept of »nature« in Marx's Theses on Feuerbach. Volker Gransow de-
livered a paper dealing with the conceptual approaches to the social struc-
Marx. Rachel Sharp outlined some recent
ture of time within capitalism in
developments within the US
and Australian education systems, focusing
on the theoretical problems which have to be met by Marxists engaged in
socialist pedagogics in order to cope with neo-conservative trends. Rolf

Nemitz added a statement on Marx and education referring to recent con-

troversies around the contribution of Marx to socialist pedagogics. Marc
Sagnol gave a lecture on Walter Benjamin's reinterpretation of Marx's
conception of the hero and the heroic in the modern world. The presenta-
tion round was closed by Bozidar Sekulic who gave a statement on several
interpretations of Marx's critique of ideology, pleading for a reappraisal
of this critique in terms of the hegemonical capacity of the proletariat.
There was a short intervention by Frigga Haug and Rolf Nemitz refer-
ring to possible contradictions between the three strands of development
in capitalist education systems as pointed out in Rachel Sharp's paper. In
spite of some allusions, there was no agreement as to the socialist poten-
tials embedded between the main strands of capitalist
in the contradictions
restructuring of schooling systems in times of crisis.
The discussion evoked by the papers focused on the question of Marx-
ism as defined by anti-Marxists, which was put into the formula: One is
always the Marxist of somebody else, that is to say, of some anti-Marxist
or other. Several participants in the discussion argued that the historical
identity of Marxism in Europe as well as in Africa has been shaped by the
polemic concepts which its very opponents have coined in order to label
and to combat it. So we are confronted with the question why many social
movements and even state regimes have claimed and still today claim to
be Marxist, or Marxist of a special kind at any rate. Besides a lot of scien-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Towards a Theoretical Interpretation of»New Social Movements« 1 39

tific thought claiming to be Marxist in some way or another, we have to

consider a lot of »Marxisms« that exist in the form of political phraseolo-
gy that legitimizes the actions of and provides collective identity for social
movements and political regimes.
The theory of nation in Marx and within Marxism was the second focus
of the discussion. The phenomenon of nation was and is a challenge to
Marxism to come to grips with collective identities which actually go far
beyond collectivities of social class, while nonetheless shaping the collec-
tive identities of classes in different capitalist countries. According to most

participants in the discussion, any serious Marxist theory of nation must

nowadays begin with and try to go beyond the only comprehensive ap-
proach to this question within the European Marxist tradition, i.e. the one
developed by Otto Bauer in 1906. Such a reassessment and improvement
of Otto Bauer's theory has to focus upon the interlinked historical tenden-
cies of the emergence of the modern bourgeois state and of the appear-

ance of popular masses in politics, which in Europe led to the establish-

ment of national states. A rethinking of Otto Bauer must not limit itself to
the level of the consolidated national state, but has to come to grips with
recent nationalist and regionalist movements within the framework of
centralized national states, the social movements which have recently risen
up against the national state in the name of nationality in many places in
Europe.

Chantal Mouffe

Towards a Theoretical Interpretation of

»New Social Movements«

The emergence of »new social movements« poses a challenge to Marxism

both at the theoretical and political level. What is the nature of these
struggles? What What should be
kinds of antagonisms do they express?
their place in a Those are the main questions that Marx-
socialist strategy?
ists need urgently to answer if they do not want to miss the significance of

this political feature of advanced capitalist societies.

In this paper I will argue that new social movements are the expression
of antagonisms which have emerged as a consequence of the new hege-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
140 ChantalMouffe

monic formation that was definitively consolidated after the Second

World War in western capitalist societies. That hegemonic formation can
be characterized as the articulation between a new type of labour process
with a predominance of the semi-automatic assembly line, a new type of
state generally designed as the »Keynesian welfare state« and new cultural
forms dominated by the mass media.
The consequences of that new hegemonic formation have been a pro-
found transformation of the existing social organization and our whole
way of life. We have witnessed the extension of capitalist relations of pro-
duction into more and more spheres of individual and collective life. Wes-
tern societies have been transformed into big market-places where all the
products of human labour have become commoditites and where almost
all »needs« depend on the market to be satisfied. Such a »commodifica-

tion« of social life, which has been the result of its subordination to the lo-
gic of production for profit, has been accompanied by a joint phenome-
non of »bureaucratization« due to the increasing intervention of the state
at all levels of social reproduction. We can also distinguish a third process
of »cultural massification« resulting from the all-embracing influence of
the mass media.
Most of the existing social relations and collective identities have been
destroyed or profoundly challenged by the effects of these three combined
processes, and new forms of subordination have been created. It is as
resistances against those new forms of subordination that »new social mo-
vements should be interpreted. It is important to note that in many cases
the processes of »commodification«, »bureaucratization« and »cultural
massification« are tightly articulated and that it might be difficult to dis-
tinguish them. Nevertheless, it is important to analyze them as different
systems of domination in order to grasp their full implications. Otherwise
one can miss the fact that the state, even when it is acting as a source of
»decommodification«, can be at the origin of new forms of subordination
because of the bureaucratic character of its intervention.
But all the »new antagonisms« which have emerged in the sixties do not
have their source in the imposition of new forms of subordination. In-
deed, one of the consequences of the development of capitalism —
and
especially of the hegemonic formation analyzed here —
is a tendency to

dissolve anterior social relations that were already relations of subordina-

tion as in the case of the patriarchal family. Women's subordination did
exist before capitalism, and if feminism only begins with capitalism it is
because its development has created the conditions for such a subordina-
tion to be put into question. The same could be argued concerning older
forms of subordination such as those based on race.
Whether there are antagonisms caused by the »commodification« of
society, by its »bureaucratization«, its »massification« or by the emer-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Towards a Theoretical Interpretation of»New Social Movements« 141

gence of struggles against older forms of subordination, what all these

»new« antagonisms have in common is that they do not affect the social
agent in so far as s/he occupies a place in the relations of production and
therefore they are not »class antagonisms« . I do not mean, of course, that
classantagonism has been eliminated. In fact, since more and more goods
are now produced under capitalist relations of production, the number of
people submitted to capitalist relations in the sphere of production has
increased enormously. But that does not constitute a new antagonism, but
an extension of an already existing one. What is new is the diffusion of so-
cial conflict into other areas and the politicization of more and more social
relations.
Once we have recognized that »new social movements« are the expres-
sion of resistances against new forms of subordination resulting from the
implementation of the post-war hegemonic formation, we can understand
the vast potential represented by those struggles. Their challenge to a pro-
ductivist mode of development and to a bureaucratic state should be an
important part of socialist strategy today.
I believe that it is a serious mistake to affirm, as some do, that those
movements have emerged as a consequence of the crisis of the welfare
state. No doubt, the crisis has exacerbated those antagonisms but it has
not provoked their birth. One could even say that the crisis has in part
been the result of the growing resistance to the increasing domination of
society by and the state. The neo-conservatives do see it clearly
capital
when they on the »ungovernability« of western societies and the
insist

need to put a brake on the »democratic upsurges. By presenting the crisis

as being at the origin of new movements one runs the risk of seeing them
as a phenomenon of social pathology and irrationality and to miss their
important lessons for a reformulation of the socialist project.

New Antagonisms and the New Right

Ihave very consciously referred only to the potential of those new move-
ments because there is another danger one should try to avoid. Against the
view that tends to minimize the importance of these new types of demands
and to reassert the centrality of the working class, another one has consis-
ted in attributing to the new movements the revolutionary privilege that
the working class is declared to have lost.However, both views share the
same mistaken problematic because no no demands, whatever
struggles,
they are, have a necessarily socialist character. There are no paradigmatic
forms in which resistances against subordination are automatically expres-
sed. depends on the existing discourses and their capacity to articulate
It

those demands through the construction of a given type of »subject«.

Those resistances can be perfectly articulated to right-wing discourses as

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
142 Chantal Mouffe

well as to left ones. They can be neutralized by the dominant system or

even used for its modernization.
What we need to abandon is the very idea of a »privileged
definitively
revolutionary subject«. We must realize that since there is no one source
of all social antagonisms, the »socialist subject« can only be the result of a
political construction which articulates all the struggles against the various

forms of subordination existing in our societies. It is urgent to overcome

the sterile dichotomy between the working class and new movements —
which, by the way, cannot even correspond to a sociologcal separation,
since workers cannot be reduced to their »class« position but are also in-
serted into a multiplicity of other social relations —
and to recognize that
the development of capitalism has led to a hitherto unknown widening of
the field of political struggle. The possibility exists today for a »war of po-
sition at all levels of society that could allow a radical transformation of
all social relations.

But such a war of position is up till now, in a

already taking place and,
more successful way by by the left. The hegemonic forma-
the right than
tion that I have described is today in crisis and we are in the midst of a
profound reorganization. New economic, political and cultural conditions
must be created to restore the centrality of capitalist relations of produc-
tion. The right has got a very specific project that implies the dismantling
of the Keynesian welfare state. The success of Reagan and Thatcher
brands of right-wing populism shows how they have been able to mobilize
for such a project the anti-state potential created by resistances to the
bureaucratic intervention of the state. What is really »new« in the »new
right« is indeed that utilization of potential resistance against the existing
hegemonic formation, and their attempt to articulate it to a reactionary
discourse that reasserts the traditional values and proposes the re-creation
of a so-called »golden age« anterior to the existing system.

New Antagonisms and Socialism

The »new right« will depend on the
success of such an offensive of the
capacity shown by the Left to offer a real counter-hegemonic project
which manages to articulate the different struggles taking place today in a
socialist alternative. That can only be done through a redefinition of the

very mode of development of the produc-

socialist project itself. It is the

tive forcesunder capitalism and not only the structure of capitalist rela-
tions of production that needs to be challenged. For it is capitalism as a
»way of life« which is at the source of many new forms of subordination
put in question today by new social movements. The traditional model of
socialism with its »Fordist« and »productivist« characteristics cannot
therefore offer a real alternative to the present crisis.

A socialist project, if it does not take account of the struggles of the

ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 ©

Towards a Theoretical Interpretation of»New Social Movements« 1 43

ecological and anti-nuclear movement, will not provide a solution for the
future. The same must be said of a socialist alternative that would not de-
velop a serious critique of the role generally attributed to the state in the
organization of society. The socialist tradition has presented the state as a
necessary instrument to remedy capitalist anarchy. However, since the im-
plementation of the Keynesian welfare state, the increasing intervention of
the state has provoked, as I have just shown, a series of new struggles
which are the expression of resistances against the growing bureaucratiza-
tion of sociallife. In order to articulate »to the left« such a potential it is

important to stop proposing, as is often the case in left-wing programmes,

»more state intervention and more nationalizations It does not mean that
we should accept the arguments of the new right in favour of reprivatiza-
tion. The objective must be the creation of more and more spheres of self-

management for individuals and citizens. The state should control the key
sectors of the economy and should not abandon its welfare functions. But
all those activities should be organized and managed by the workers them-

selves and all the people concerned and not through bureaucratic mechan-
isms.
What is really at stake in the articulation of the multiplicity of struggles
against all social relations of subordination into a new radical project of
transformation of society is, in fact, a redefinition of socialism as the ex-
tension of democracy to all fields of social existence. What we are witnes-
sing today is a new stage of the democratic revolution which has come to
challenge relations of power in a multiplicity of social relations. It is not
only as citizens and producers that individuals are fighting today, but as
subjects inscribed in many other social relations: sex, race, neighbour-
hood, etc. Such a plurality of »subject positions« entails a wide range of
possible antagonisms that cannot be resolved through a single mechanism.
To articulate all those struggles, the goal of a socialist transformation
must be the implementation of a radical, libertarian and pluralistic type of
democracy.
A society where everyone, whatever his/her sex, race, economic posi-
tion, sexual orientation, will be in an effective situation of equality and
participation, where no basis of discrimination will remain and where self-
management will exist in all fields — this is what the ideal of socialism
should mean for us today.

ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 :

144

Thomas Heilmann

New Social Movements and the

Transformation of Politics

What the new social movements have put into question, with regard to the
theoretical foundations of revolutionary politics, is the thesis that the la-

bour movement is the motor and centre of social change or that it should
be such a centre in order to achieve real changes.
What we today call the new social movements are perhaps not all that
new; even the history of capitalism has always known important struggles
not led by the labour movement. The relevance of these movements was
probably depreciated from the Marxist point of view, and it is quite likely
that this depreciation was necessary for the creation of an autonomous
labour movement. However, the new social movements define them-
selves, first and foremost, by reference to the fact that they organize them-

selves in a progressive perspective which is not centred on the labour ques-

tion, as well as by reference to the fact that the organization principle does
not rest on a class basis; that they are interclassist, or — more precisely —
a-classist.

One of the questions most likely to be raised in a conference on the cen-

tenary of the death of Marx is: What becomes of the Marxist analysis of
capitalism, if we are to give these new social movements a particular politi-
cal relevance? Does the assignment of a more modest role to the labour
movement — always from the point of view of basic changes in capitalist
society, not with regard to the general significance of the labour move-
ment within this society — mean, at the same time, a diminishing role of
the Marxist analysis of capitalism?
This is not to say that the new social movements as a phenomenon of
highly developed capitalist countries are not moving within the captalist
formation; this clearly shows in itself the importance of the analysis of
capitalism for these movements as well. But this is only half of the answer.
It is just as clearly not to be denied that the political practice of the new so-
cial movements is a kind of theoretical practice which cannot
calling for
content itself with further »derivations« and »concretizations« of basic
»Marxist truths«. The most common reply that Marxism has to incorpo-
rate the questions raised by the new movements is derived from a dubious
hierarchisation of the areas of knowledge. New practice in struggles needs
new concepts for its theoretical treatment. The field of theory is enlarged,
perhaps to an extent that it is no longer possible to survey the whole field

from one point of view.

At the theoretical level the new social movements raise the problem of

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
New Social Movements and the Transformation of Politics 1 45

the mutual respect for the diversity of the various starting points (all basic-
allyof the same value), as well as the recognition of fundamental differ-
ences which cannot be bridged. A Marxist analysis of the contradiction
between capital and labour should not be substituted by something else —
such an operation would only be an attempt to found a new Rome
through a new totalizing theory. This is precisely what has to be avoided:
we need neither exorcism nor apology, but an exit out of ecclesiastical his-
tory.
These postulates necessarily correspond to a concept of political organi-
zation breaking both with the notion of the Leninist vanguard party and
with Gramsci's idea of »nuovo principe«. A revolutionary party can no
longer defineitself as »the expression« of the working class, in the sense of

the »highest form of proletarian organization Such a party, a specific

.

but integrating part of the social movements, today has to define itself
with regard to the state and its institutions, providing for the presence of
these movements (including the labour movement) and their demands
within the state apparatuses (without indeed substituting the self-activity
of those movements beyond the limits of the state). However, the relation
thus summarized is by no means a harmonic one, because a number of
contradictions are inevitable.
With reference to new social movements, a specific task of a revolution-
ary party consists in struggling within the state institutions not only for the
concrete demands of these movements (not all the demands can or should
be fulfilled through state action) but also in struggling for a free realm for
social and cultural changes brought forward by new social movements
outside the state framework.
A number of new social movements are organizing themselves against
the actual policy of the state because of the ever greater sphere of respon-
sibility the state has come to hold in the post-war period. This enlargement
is a result of the integration of corporatist interest-representation of la-

bour. Social democracy and/or the official trade union movement are for
that reason particularly bound to the development of the post-war state.
This arrangement of forces is bringing about a special field of contradic-
tions between a labour movement persisting in traditional forms of poli-
ticsand the new social movements.
The question is not whether the new social movements have to rely on
:he masses of wage earners or not, but whether these masses are politically
moved by their wage-earner status or by other factors such as womens's
emancipation, ecology, the peace question*, etc. At least in those countries
where the labour movement is dominated by a state-supporting social de-
mocracy (either as a government force or in opposition), the question has
to be answered in terms of the second factors.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
146

Y. Michael Bodemann

The Naked Proletarian and the Organicity of Classes

A Re-appraisal of the Marxian Conception*

The bulk of the Marxist literature — with some notable exceptions — ig-

nores the primordial relations, the particular ways of life and culture, the
common outlook and the interpersonal ties into which individuals-in-clas-
ses are embedded; in short: it tends to ignore what I will call the organicity
of given classes. It is my contention in this paper that this neglect, especial-
ly in terms of theoretical conceptions (for there are of course numerous
Marxist-oriented historical studies on the subject), has a long tradition, all
the way back to Marx and his almost exclusive attention to the sphere of
production and his peculiar view of classes under capitalism, notably the
proletariat. This lack of a full conception of the reproductive sphere must
have serious consequences for a proper understanding of the political mo-
bilisation of a given class and the politics of this class.

The Marxist Conception of Class

The virtual absence of an organic conception of classes in Marxism is ap-

parent in its language, and even in some of its central terminology: »prole-
tariat«, »lumpenproletariat« and the term »class« itself.
The term was used only rarely in the liter-
»proletariat«, or »proletary«
ature from the 16th century onwards, and slowly emerged in the wake of
the French Revolution and then with the French worker's clubs such as
the League of the Just. Sismondi adopted the term in 1837. Lorenz von
Stein introduces the term into German only in 1842. Ferdinand von Frei-
ligrath, a revolutionary poet admired by Marx and Engels, uses the term

around that same year, and Engels brings the term into currency with his
book, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1 844, published
in 1845. By that time, Marx had begun to use the term in his own work, in
his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1844).
Why did Marx and Engels adopt this particular term? Other terms were
obviously more prevalent at the time — in English for example, »working
classes«, » working men«, »labouring class« and others. I would argue
that, as excellent linguists,Marx and Engels made use of the term proleta-
riat in full awareness of its origins. The proletarius was a member of the

bottom section of the population of Ancient Rome. It is derived from

* This paper is dedicated to the men and women of the United Jewish Peoples Or-
der in Toronto who have taught me much about the dialectics of class struggle
and ethnic-cultural identity.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
The Naked Proletarian and the Organicity of Classes 147

pro-olescere »growing out of«, in the sense of coming out of the ground,
or »shooting up« . In other words, the term did then —
and also did for
Marx — hint at the derivative, synthetic nature of that class of the popula-
tion. Thus, in the Manifesto (1848), the word »proletarian« is introduced
as follows: »The Bourgeoisie ... has ... begotten ... the men who are to
wield those weapons —
the modern workers the proletarians.« (MEW —
4,468)
Since the bourgeoisie begets the proletariat, they are not naturwuchsig,
not primordial. They are the new individuals who lack traditional bonds
and culture. What pro-olescere thus also conveys is the amorphousness of
the proletariat. As Marx and Engels characterize it in the Manifesto: The
bourgeoisie has put an end to »all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations«;
»it has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his
natural (naturlichen) superiors, and has no other nexus between man
left

and man than naked self-interest, than callous cash payment« (MEW 4,
465).
These conceptions also throw a new light on the remarkable change in
the slogan of the working class movement — from »A11 people are broth-
ers« of the Communist League, to the call of the Manifesto »Proletarians
of all Countries, Unite! « Natural ties between people are replaced by the
conscious will of the individual.
An analysis of a second class, the Lumpenproletariat, reveals similar
features. According to Marx, the lumpenproletariat is the negation of the
proletariat, and yet, there is a peculiar semantic identity. Marx and Engels
use the term rather early in 1845, only shortly after they had introduced
the term proletariat (in 1845). In the German Ideology, they write: »The
Roman plebeians, midway between freedmen and slaves, never suc-
ceeded in becoming more than a lumpenproletariat.« (MEW 3, 23)

The lumpenproletariat and at the time its antonym. This is

is proletariat
brought out into full work in which this class is the key drama-
force in the
tis persona —
in the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: »People forget
Sismondi's significant saying: The Roman proletariat lived at the expense
of society, while modern society lives at the expense of the proletariate
(MEW 15, 359.)
De Cassagnac, in an influential contemporary book, distinguished four
groups that constituted the proletariat: workers, beggars, thieves and
prostitutes. It is in this very sense that Hegel uses the word Pobel. In con-
trast to these conceptions, Marx reduces the range of the term proletariat
to the remaining three categories. While the proletarians are productive,
working, the lumpenproletarians are non-productive. And yet, both are
»free«, and both are bought: the proletarians in the labour power which
they represent, by the capitalist, and the lumpenproletarians are bought,
or bribed, as a »tool of reactionary intrigue«. However, in direct contrast

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
148 Y. Michael Bodemann

to the proletariat, the lumpenproletariat are declasses — they cannot have

class interests of their own.
The term lumpenproletariat is clearly formed after Lumpengesindel, a
term which Grimm's Worterbuch circumscribes as follows: »slovenly
mob, pack of scoundrels, vagabonds, colluvies vagabundorum, godless
pack« (Grimm 1887). Gesindel thus only reinforces the notion of amor-
phousness already inherent in the conception of the proletariat. I would
therefore argue that lumpenproletariat is the scientificized version of
Lumpengesindel, and its characterization in the Manifesto fits perfectly
for both these terms, as a »passively ... rotting mass thrown off by the
lowest layers of the old society« ... »whose conditions of life tend to pre-
pare it for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue« (MEW 4,
472). This same amorphousness and rootlessness of the lumpenproletariat
is brought out by the French circumscription used by Marx in Class Strug-

gles in France, where this class is described as, »gens sans feu et sans aveu«
— people without home and traditional (i.e., feudal) ties.
Finally, let us look at the term »class« which Marx and Engels have
brought into more common use. Class, from lat. classis, related to gr. kleo
or lat. calo, »to summon«, dates form Servius Tullius' division of the Ro-
man people into demographic classes for military purposes. In its etymo-
logical sense, therefore, theterm approximates the military terms »divi-
sion«, or »recruitment«: the connotation here is that of people pulled out
of their natural context. And indeed, the military metaphor is not un-
familiar to the Manifesto for example, where Marx and Engels speak of
the proletarians as being »organized like soldiers« (MEW 4, 469). Class,
then, replaces the older conception of orders or estates with their implicit
internal structures, organic ties, characteristic culture and social esteem.
Marx and Engels define classes of course in terms of their relationship to
the means of production: capitalists own means of production; proleta-
rians sell labour power. In contrast to orders and estates, Marx's thinking
here is dominated by the classificatory approach of Linnean botany. In
short, Marx and Engels propagated a conception of classes which treats
classes as amorphous entities, and its individual members as »naked« —
without traditions, particular ways of life, ties of family and kinship. This
astructuralness is transcendend only in its collective-political form by a
class which is Klasse fur sich, when it has found class consciousness and
mobilizes itself in political terms.
Moreover, it is important to stress that (1) this atomized conception of
proletariat and lumpenproletariat is extended to other classes as well, spe-
cifically the peasantry and the bourgeoisie, and (2) that the astructural
view of classes tends to be applied to the class structure as a whole; classes
are seen as tied to one another by no other means than the »radical
chains« which are constituted by immediate material necessity.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 The Naked Proletarian and the Organicity of Classes 149

This astructural conception of classes is apparent not only in Marx's

terminology, but also in the substance of his class analysis. It is extremely
rare indeed to find, in Marx's work, or for that matter in that of Engels,
any reference to the social-reproductive relations —
kinship, friendship,
neighbourhood, and the moral-cultural expression that structure classes in
class-specific ways. Of the 100 questions of Marx's Enquete Ouvriere, on-
ly the very last question touches on these issues, and that only very barely.
The questionnaire focusses entirely on the productive sphere and not a
single question touches on issues of family life, leisure, friendships, house-
work, cultural activities and the like (Bottomore 1956, 203ff.; MEW
19,

230-237).

After Marx
I would argue that Marx's ways of life and
failure to address class-specific
the reproductive sphere as a whole reverberates not only through most of
the classical Marxist literature — with the one noteworthy exception of
Antonio Gramsci — but also through virtually all approaches to class
structure or stratification in later sociology, from Weber onward with the
exception of Joseph Schumpeter. 1 In sociology, this inability is closely
linked to its chief research instrument, the survey, which is largely unable
to come to grips with these structural dimensions and deals with indivi-
duals in atomized terms.
Weber's own conceptualization of »class« and »estate« (Stand) 2 ap-
pears to be developed directly from its conceptions in the Communist Ma-
nifesto: his estates are characterized by prestige of descent or profession,
traditions, particular upbringing, conduct of life and specific prerogatives
(Weber 1968, 305 f.) —
qualities which in the Manifesto are stripped away
by capitalist class relations (see MEW
4, 464-465).
For both Weber and Marx, classes in contrast to estates, are economic
categories (see Weber 1968, 937-938). Although estates are characterized
organically, by traditional ways of life, honour, »connubium and com-
mensality« Weber concurs with Marx at least insofar as classes are first
and foremost categories of people of common (economic) interest: »Class
shall be called any group of people in the same class position ... class posi-
tion and class by itself describe only the factual evidence of situations of
identical interest in which the individual finds himself just as do numerous
others.« (Weber 1968, 302; modified translation)
In sum, Weber was indeed sensitive to questions of organicity: primor-
dial relations, tradition, forms of consumption expressed, e.g., in specific
lifestyles (ibid., 932) etc. However, by relegating these characteristics to
traditionalism of the estates who on top of that seem somehow exemp-
ted from antagonisms, and on the other hand by ignoring the organi-
Lthe
city
class
of modern classes, Weber perpetuated Marx's rationalistic bias and

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 «

150 Y. Michael Bodemann

the latter's conception of amorphous classes of »individuated individuals«

(vereinzelte Einzelne) tied to each other only in the sphere of production.
In the tradition of Marx and Weber, both modern sociology and Marxist
theory have failed to provide a coherent theory of the organicity of classes
and the class-specific forms of reproduction as a whole. Moreover, by dis-
torting Weber's estate into »status« and thus reducing the internal struc-
ture, institutionsand ways of life of the estates into gradations of »socio-
economic status« inherent in »positions«, »roles« and »values« of disso-
ciated individuals, modern sociology not only abandoned a class con-
ception, but lost Weber's structural insight as well.
This cannot be the place to attempt a full-fledged theory of the organi-
city of class. Such a theory must start from a number of premises. First,

that the parallel, isomorphic activity of individual class members unites

these class members, and that their common class-specific activities create
bonds between them; second, that, with Gramsci, all human beings are
philosophers, and that therefore all individuals can create, and indeed do
create, culture; third, that such a theory will bring together the »chaotic«
range of phenomena into the reproductive sphere, from structures of kin-
ship and forms of communication to forms of primordial (e.g. ethnic) re-
lations and the organization of leisure. The point is, to see these phenome-
na in their totality and interrelation, their internal contradictions and the
ways in which they are conjugated by the class antagonisms.
In the 18th Brumaire, dominated by a highly questionable view of a dis-
organic lumpenproletariat and a similarly atomized peasantry, Marx
wrote, »The small-holding peasants form a vast mass ... but without
entering into manifold relations with one another ... their field of produc-
tion, the small holding, admits no division of labour in its cultivation ...
no variety of talent, no wealth of social relationships ... In so far as mil-
lions of families live under economic conditions of existence that separate
their mode of life, their interests and their culture from those of other clas-
ses, and put them in hostile opposition to one another, they form a class.

(Jordan 1971, 1959; my emphasis)

Our coming years must be to leave aside this negation of
project in the
organicity and follow Marx's explicit recogniton here otherwise so rare —
in his work —
of the crucial importance of these elements in the analysis
of any society and the determination of its politics.

Notes
1 The notable exceptionin this regard is a rarely cited early essay by Joseph
Schumpeter, »Social Classes in an ethnically homogenous environment,
first published in 1927.
2 In the Parsons translation misleadingly translated as »status«; by Roth/Wit-
tich as »status group«. It must be stressed, however, that Stand, an histori-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 1

Summary of Discussions 15

cally concreteform, is the direct equivalent of »estate« and that the rendition
of »status group« still attempts to accommodate Weber's conception to that
popularized by structural functionalism. See Kreckel (1976, 340) and Giddens
(1973, passim).
3 But note the substantial inconsistencies: both in »Class, Estates and Parties«
and in the later »Estates and Classes«, Weber implies —
in part through the
examples used — that estates are an earlier, classes a later form of inequality:
»Commercial classes (Erwerbsklassen) arise in a market-oriented economy,
but estates arise or exist primarily on the basis of organizations which satisfy
their wants through monopolistic public service (leiturgisch), or in feudal or
estate-type patrimonial fashion« (Weber 1968, 306; modified translation).
On the other hand again, classes and estates are not historically bound: clas-
ses are prevalent in times and regions of technological change in general,
whereas times of relative stability bring about the formation of estates (ibid.,
938).

Literature

Bottomore, T.B., 1956: Karl Marx. Selected Writings in Sociology and Social
Philosophy, New York.
Giddens, A., 1973: The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies. London.
Grimm, J. and W., 1887: Deutsches Worterbuch. Leipzig
Jordan, Z.A. (transl., and ed.), 1971: Karl Marx: Economy, Class and Social
Revolution. London
Kreckel, R., 1976: Dimensions of Social Inequality —
Conceptual Analysis and
Theory of Society, Sociologische Gids 23, p.338-362.
Marx-Engels-Werke, (MEW), Berlin/Ost
Schumpeter, J., 1928: Die sozialen Klassen im Ethnisch homogenen Milieu. In:
Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaften und Sozialpolitik (57), p. 1-67
Weber, M., 1968: Economy and Society. Roth and Wittich (eds.). New York

Frieder O. Wolf

Summary of Discussions

The following does not, of course, pretend to be an objective mirroring of

what was said and maintained. It is rather an »active refraction« of it.
Frigga Haug raised the question as to whether a socialist project could
not (and should not) — as against Chantal Mouffe's thesis that there was
no be accorded to any existing kind of societal subjec-
rational privilege to
tivity, to any kind of social movement —
stick to the Marxist thesis of the
centrality of the class concept (based on the elementary human necessity

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
152 Frieder O, Wolf

to eat; not as an existing empirical fact, but as a necessary, unavoidable

project)which in Marx had been much more a task than a mere given.
Frieder O. Wolf followed by taking up the question of the specific mode
of symbolic articulation; if all articulations were »contingent«, because
none were »necessary«, or if it were necessary (on a theoretical level) to
work out different degrees of e.g. material adequacy/aptness of articula-
tions. Fromhere, the discussion centred around understanding (and criti-
cizing) Chantal Mouffe's thesis of an —
unsurmountable polysemie of —
social movements, which allows for no more »discourse of the master« to
amalgamate them (repressively) into a homogeneous type of societal, col-
lective subjectivity.
Against this thesis Rachel Sharp reminded the audience of the historical
analogy of the transition from the era of societal experimentations the
1920s had been, with its variegated social movements, to the era of the 30s
where the classical preoccupations of the labour movement had again
come to be central issues of class struggle. It would be erroneous, how-
ever, in this perspective, to overemphasize the novelty of the »new social
movements« as against the »old« labour movement. The theoretical prob-
lem to be solved should rather be conceived of as that of »thinking« their
adequate, and effective, articulations.
Ernesto Laclau took up the thesis in insisting upon the specific concept
of articulation it implies, which is not exhausted by the simplistic alterna-
tive of »necessary« and »contingent« relations, as e.g. Hindess and Hirst
have considered it. The polysemie of social movements does not exclude
— it rather explicitly includes —
»hegemonic articulations« which
transcend a mere symbolic contingency, although all articulation is to be
conceived of as a symbolic process.
On my, Frieder O. Wolfs, part, I have tried to clarify my question by
asking whether it is sufficient to say that all articulation is to be conceived
of as a symbolic process, allowing, within this sphere, for a variety of dif-
ferent types. While it is certainly true that any articulation must be repre-
sented by a symbolic process (which is more than a mere »mirroring«, be-
cause it includes an active, and creative, process of »signifying«), it seems
to make sense to maintain at the same time that there are some articula-
tions in which representation and articulation are one and the same as —
in the performative speech that turns the excited crowd into a revolution-
ary agent —
and other articulations, where there is an objective articula-
tion which precedes its representation. Such »objective articulations« may
themselves be »ideological«, i.e. imaginary or symbolic, as is the case with
relations of gender, of »race« or of »nationality« Or they
. may be »caus-
al« relations, as e.g. the effect of being exploited by capital that objec-
tively articulates« the various categories of salaried workers. In such a per-
spective it would be the task of Marxist theory (and, eventually, of other

ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 ©

Summary ofDiscussions 153

types/branches of revolutionary/subversive theory, such as feminist theo-

ry) to discover such »objective articulations«, whereas political practice
(and a political practice of philosophy as well) would largely consist in
»finding« adequate symbolic representations for such objective connec-
tions, turning them into effective ideological agents.
Wolfgang Fritz Haug, then, took up and enlarged Rachel Sharp's point
in developing the problem that one may easily, in rejecting »economism«
and »objectivism«, make the mistake of jumping from the frying pan into
the fire, i.e. give up the disastrous politics of »class against class« of the
communist tradition of the late 20s, only to get into a kind of »politics of
articulation« which is losing all capacity of making certain distinctions
within an ocean of differences. To underline this important point, W.F.
Haug reminded the audience of the fact that Adolf Hitler's political pro-
ject had also been one of articulation of various new social movements
(except feminism), and that this project was successful in forging Hitler's
power base, a certain type of revolutionary populism« (to be seen at
work e.g. in Jud Suss) being digested in fascism's large ideological sto-
mach. He therefore proposed to hold fast to the problematics of the speci-
ficity of a socialist articulation, which takes into account that there are
long waves in historical development, »hard cores« within the changing
realm of societal differences.
In such a perspective W.F. Haug underlined Frigga Haug's point that
we have to maintain the concept of a »working class« as an analytical con-
cept, as an overall orientation guiding us in working out new empirical
concepts — not in the sense of something »gjven«, but rather as a task to
be taken up (in a Blochean perspective). Likewise, W.F. Haug critizised
the absence of such an orientation, of such a »difference of differences
from Heilmann's political project of an »anti-imperialist populism«.
According to W.F. Haug, there are certain differences the making of
which is constitutive of our identity »as socialists« —
and, even if there is
no »nuovo principe« (or unitarian hegemonical subject) in sight, we must,
as socialists, continue to look for a »structure of hegemony« on the side
of socialist politics as opposed to the existing »structure of hegemony« of
capitalist domination (cf. Hirsch's point).
In their replies, Chantal Mouffe and Thomas Heilmann took to the of-
fensive:
Chantal Mouffe made it clear that any serious re-thinking of Marx
must pass through an adequate understanding of the symbolic that is ab-
sent from Marx's thought (and, therefore, from the Marxist tradition,
with the exception of some allusive hints in Gramsci). From this position
she argued specifically that W.F. Haug's proposal to use a reference to the
objective primacy of the organization of social production as a justifica-
tion of maintaining some central role of the working class was based on a

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
154 FriederO. Wolf

misunderstanding of what kind of a relation other social movements had

to this organization of social productions Ecological or feministmove-
ments were no less about the material organization of social production
than the workers' movement —
and, today, they were much more radical
demands and struggles, having to lose far less »acquired
in their respective
rights«! As to F. Haug's notion of the working class as a project, not as
an empirical concept, Chantal Mouffe objected that it seemed to share the
shortcomings of Negri's attempt to operate a theoretical extension of the
notion of the proletariat to all some way and
social struggles that were, in
in the last analysis, anti-capitalist.Such an extension would lead Marxist
theory to a neglect of the specificity of specific societal struggles and so-—
cialist political practice to a repression of the necesssary autonomy of such
specific societal struggles. To avoid it would be better to distinguish
this
specifically anti-capitalist struggles from »democratic struggles« which
have their common denominator in being somehow directed against the
existing structures) of societal domination.
Thomas Heilmann argued from his practical experience as a party poli-
tician (within POCH) that nothing much is to be gained from talking
about a »socialist project« in general,which would not be able to orien-
same time mamtaining the illu-
tate concrete political practice, while at the
sory/imaginary impression of being (vaguely, at least) »political«. His po-
litical project of an »anti-imperialist populism« was, on the contrary, a

middle-range political project capable of orientating political practice here

and now — and, therefore, helping to prepare the ground for an eventual
concrete re-articulation of a more far-reaching socialist project. Such an
abstract approach seemed to be rather dangerous to Heilmann for still an-
other reason — thatit would tend to an imaginary minimization of the

nocuous effects of leftwing statism that was the big danger of the present
moment. By propagating the idea of an »enlargement of politics« (Buci-
Glucksmann and Therborn) or even of an »extension of political responsi-
bility/capacity« (as some social-democratic Marxists) they were paving the
way for the new right which would take over in the end —
as the really ef-
ficient, competent articulator of popular statism.

With these concluding remarks by Heilmann, a topic was drawn into

the discussion which had beenlhe non-articulated enjeu of much that had
been said before: the double-edged danger of recuperation by the ideolo-
gical power structures, apparatuses and mechanisms of the existing socie-
tal structure of domination which is, however, quite pertinent and real

for both extremes, for both imaginary ways out of the present crisis of
Marxism, for the blindness of »traditionalism«, in its refusal to look at
fields of research beyond its own, limited (and often obsolete) sphere, as

well as the amnesia of theoretical »opportunism«, in its eagerness to learn-

about something else, forgetting its own theoretical substance. Both may

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Notes Towards a Reformulation of State Theory 1 55

be »recuperated« by existing strategies of domination, as a theoretical ali-

bi for effective political quietism, or as a camouflage for retreating to cor-

porativist politics — or even for letting oneself be caught by right-wing
strategies of articulation. Such a reference to the underlying political reali-
ty cannot, however, provide us with an answer to the theoretical problems
raised. It will provide us, at least, with a keener sense of urgency for find-
ing out what is the theoretical substance of Marx's historical discovery »of
the continent of history«, and what must be gained (or lost) by understan-
ding the specific historical substance as well that has remained absent
from the Marxist tradition: the symbolic — i.e. by taking account of
Freud's and Saussure's discovery of the (imaginary and symbolic) process
of signification.

Joachim Hirsch

Notes Towards a Reformulation of State Theory

This short outline is based on my article Nach der »Staatsableitung«. Be-

merkungen zur Reformulierung einer materialistischen Staatstheorie in
Argument-Sonderband 100. In this article, I criticized the so-called West
German state derivation debate, which came to a dead-end in the mid-
1970' s (a pity, because discussion of, and learning from, its theoretical de-
ficiencies also stopped). My main critique was that the state derivation ap-
proach failed because of its structuralist, ahistorical character. What the
theory failed to grasp was that, in spite of the continuity of the fundamen-
tal laws of accumulation and of the structural determinants of capitalist
development of capitalist societes is character-
society, the actual historical
izedby fundamental changes in »societalization«, that is, in the forms of
production and reproduction, of social and class structures, and of social
life altogether.
So, within this double context of »structure« and of »history«, I argued
that we should seriously discuss the question of what we mean by the his-
torical transformation of an entire social formation within a distinctively
capitalist mode of production. Such a discussion would include an exami-
nation of the relationships between the so-called objective laws of capital-
ist accumulation, and class struggle and social conflict. What we need, in
other words, is a theory of capitalist development, and not simply descrip-
tion or historical generalization.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
156 Joachim Hirsch

Such a theory would have to recognize that capitalist development is

not determined simply by »objective laws«, but also by class struggles
which are expressed in determinate forms, by natural conditions, by the
world market, and by relations of social forces. In view of concrete future
development, such a theory of capitalist development implies at its centre
a theory of crisis and of the crisis-determined transformations of specific
capitalist social formations. It further implies the understanding that the
results of this process of development-through-crisis and crisis-through-
development are in general open: there is never one »law-determined«

path of capitalist development. Up to now, such a theory has not been

available.

II

The notion of »state« depends upon these historical changes in the process
of capitalist »societalization«, as do the forms and characteristics of social
conflict and class struggle. The location of the state within the reproduc-
tion context of capitalist society does not remain static; nor do the rela-
tionships between classes and the state. The central weakness of most
Marxist state theories has been their inability to see the state as a histori-
cally peculiar —
and above all changing —
social relation.
For instance, theoretically the problem has been marked by the con-
tinuing use of the concept of base and superstructure by Marxist theory to
explain bourgeois society. We know that the state has at all times been a
constituent of the economic »base« of society: social relations within the
sphere of production would otherwise be impossible. We also know, how-
ever, that each »superstructure« is capable of taking on a »life of its

own«, and can be discussed and analyzed in its own right. The question
which has never been answered (quite possibly because it cannot be within
the constraints of this category) is what the relationship is between these
two aspects.
This theoretical approach is rendered even more problematic if we re-
cognize the fact that through the historical development of capitalist so-
ciety, the relation of the state to the »base« has fundamentally changed.
The state has more and more become an organic element of social and
economic reproduction. In order to understand this relation more clearly
in terms of a historically-oriented theory, I have found it convenient to re-
fer to Bob Jessop's concepts of accumulation strategy« and »hegemonic
project« —or, as I would put it, 'hegemonic structure'. Let me briefly
sketch out this approach.
Driven by the laws of capitalist accumulation and crisis, and within the
existing relations of class forces, capital has historically needed to enforce
different modes of accumulation. This refers not only to the technical
conditions of production, but also to the social prerequisites of surplus

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Notes Towards a Reformulation of State Theory 1 57

value in the broadest sense — workers' qualifications and skills, life styles,

forms of reproduction, family structure, and so on. These accumulation

and between nations, but they are not dis-
strategies differ historically
cretionary. Roughly speaking, they are determined both by the general
laws of accumulation and by the peculiar class forces of a given society.
However, in order that an accumulation strategy can be both opera-
tional and stable during a given time period, it must be accompanied by a
corresponding hegemonic structure. This refers to the forms of regulation
of capitalist reproduction and of class conflict, forms of dominant ideolo-
gies and 'world-views', all of which cannot simply be 'derived' from an
accumulation strategy. Rather, a hegemonic structure has its own determi-
nations, developments and crises. The question which remains open here
is how a given accumulation strategy and a given hegemonic structure are

articulated and, in the last instance, determined.

What can be said at this point is that the enforcement of an accumula-
tion strategy and of a corresponding hegemonic structure is always the re-
sult of quite complex economic, political and ideological struggles. The

end result will always be the production of a peculiar, more or less long-
lasting phase or stage of capitalist development, that is, a historically dis-
tinct form of the capitalist social formation. The crises and transforma-
tions of these formations are fundamentally due to the so-called long
waves of capitalist development, which should be understood in terms of
Marx's law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. At the same time,
it must be pointed out that these crises and transformations are in no sense
purely economic phenomena; the tendency of the rate of profit to fall can
hardly be understood except in complex economic, political, and ideologi-
cal terms. In this respect, perhaps, we will be able to grasp more precisely
Gramsci's notion of the »historical bloc« as a unity of a distinct accumu-
lation strategy, of a peculiar ensemble of class relations and social forms,
and of a particular hegemonic structure.

Ill

Following Michel Aglietta, I characterize the current (and perhaps cur-

rently ending) phase of capitalist development as »Fordism«. This term
refers not only to a peculiar mode of surplus value production (Taylorism,
extended mass production of durable consumer goods, division of labour
at the level of the world market, and so on), but also a distinct form of the
state (Keynesian, social-democratic, and corporatist welfare state) as well
as of ideology (progress, equality, bureaucracy, unlimited exploitation of
nature). This »Fordist« form of »societalization« is marked by a far-
reaching capital penetration (»Durchkapitalisierung«) of society and by
the disintegration of traditional social structures, including class cultures.
The counterpart to this social disintegration is a growing »statification«

ARGUMENTSONDERBAND AS 109 ©
158 Joachim Hirsch

(»Durchstaatlichung«) of society, the emergence of which I have called

the »Security State«.
This form of the bourgeois state has become an essential moment in the
operation, and central component in the structure, of social reproduction,
penetrating society in all its ramifications. No longer may the state be re-
garded as a purely repressive or ideological »superstructure«. Rather, it
has become a key constituent of the »base« itself. It follows that traditio-
nal political and state institutions have experienced profound changes in
their character as well as in their social meanings. These shifts cannot be
explained in detail here, nor can I go into the striking national differences
within the general tendencies of the »Security State«. At this point, let me
simply sketch out some of the main tendencies of the Fordist state in
crisis:

— the bureaucratization and centralization of mass parties and of trade

unions, transforming them into quasi-state apparatuses;
— the transformation of group representation
interest the into a in state
form of mass-integrative steering, control and administration of life

chances by the state;

— the shift in relations between state apparatuses and capital fractions un-
der the increasing pressure towards deeper integration into the world
market;
— related to the
last: the change in conditions under which a »power-bloc

compromise« can be achieved, and a change in the status of the relative

autonomy of the state;
— a growing contradiction between economic and social »steering« con-
ditions on the one hand, and on the other, producing
political legitimation
severe conflicts both within the mass-integrative apparatuses and between
the entire system of these integrative apparatuses and the »people«. Such
conflicts, moreover, cannot be described in pure class terms;
— the emergence and development of a politically organized, although
economically based splitting and fragmentation of society, in part crossing
class lines and assisted by the so-called workers' parties and unions;
— the emergence of new form of surveillance, social control and of the
sanctioning of unconventional forms of social and political action.
I argue that it is form of »societalization« and
precisely this »Fordist«
of political organizationwhich leads to new forms of social and political
conflict. These new forms of conflict are in part expressed by the so-called
new social movements, which, in their decentralized organizational form,
and localized targets and goals,
their social heterogeneity, their fluctuating
and in their anti-state, anti-bureaucratic and populist character bear new
forms of subjectivity and contain tendencies towards new modes of »so-
cietalization«. This, in turn, has certain implications for the »old« capital-
ist class struggle. I think that the key social conflicts in contemporary capi-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Notes Towards a Reformulation of State Theory 1 59

talist societies still are products of the context of capitalist exploitation;

however, these conflicts no longer manifest themselves along traditional
»sociological« class lines. The traditional form of the workers' s move-
ment, including its typical political form (hierarchic state-like organiza-

tion)and its strategic orientations (»capturing the state«) has vanished for
the most part within the most developed capitalist countries. Compared
with former phases of capitalist development, we are witnessing a decisive
— and I believe irreversible — break between economic class determina-
tion, political action, and social conflict. To a is due to
great extent, this
the new forms of capitalist »societalization« and the corresponding state-
form of social reproduction.
Precisely because the terrain has shifted, producing new forms of social
conflict and new socialmovements, the »Fordist Security State« is not as
strong as it seems. At the same time, however, these new movements are
themselves quite ambivalent: socially heterogenous, ideologically diffuse,
and their political character difficult to assess. One cannot refute the sug-
gestion, therefore, that these movements might function as moments in
the integrative stabilization of a new Fordist division of society and prove
to be a functional correlate to corporatist regulation. One can also argue
that the movements' tendencies towards destatification, self-help and di-

rect representation constitute a stabilizing counterbalance to a state which

otherwise might be overloaded by administrative, fiscal and interest repre-
sentation demands following in the wake of the continuing »statification«
of society.
The problems contained and facing the new social movements are
in
exacerbated by the actual of the »Fordist« form of capitalist devel-
crisis

opment. The question is if and under what conditions the new movements
could lose their current progressive, anti-capitalist and egalitarian tenden-
cies, and come to be the social, political and ideological supporters of the

ongoing process of capitalist restructuring, leading towards the enforce-

ment of a new — and one could say »neo-« or »post-Fordist« -capitalist
formation. This one decisive point of struggle around and within the
is

new social movements.

Let me make one concluding remark, referring again to the question of
state theory. It is time, given the circumstances which confront us, not on-
ly to rethink Marx, but also Max Weber. Given the fact that social repro-

duction is increasingly state regulated (the »statification of society«), that

class relations are extensivelymediated by an expanding bureaucracy
(mass integrative apparatuses, neocorporatist political structures), and
that social conflicts are more and more located between »movements«
and »apparatuses« (the »populist« character of the new
social move-
ments), it may well be that a re-evaluation of Weber's theory would pro-
vide us with new insights. This, of course, does not mean simply »combin-

ARGUMENTSONDERBAND AS 109 ©
160 Michael Jager

ing« Marx and Weber, but rather means a reformulation of a theory of

the whole society which goes beyond these approaches.

Literature

Aglietta, M, 1976: Regulation et Crises du Capitalisme. L'Experience des Etats-

Unis. Paris
Hirsch, J., 1980: Der Sicherheitsstaat. Das »Modell Deutschland«, seine Krisen
und die neuen sozialen Bewegungen. Frankfurt/M.
Hirsch, J., 1983: The Fordist »Security State« and »New Social Movements«, in:
Capitalistate
Jessop, B., 1982: The Capitalist State, Oxford
Jessop, B., 1983: State Forms, Social Bases and Hegemonic Projects
Poulantzas, N., 1978: L'Etat, le Pouvoir, le Socialisme. Paris

Michael Jager

On the Concept of Power within Marxian Theory

There are three questions discussed in this paper 1 what is the concept of :

power upon which the Marxian argument is based; what are the conse-
quences of this concept as regards the Marxian perspective of the »dic-
tatorship of the proletariat; and what conclusions can we draw today,
under political conditions Marx could not foresee, i.e. in a state character-
ized by mass parties?
My first point is that there are some contexts where Marx seems to sug-
more powerful« means »to be less split than the op-
gest that »to be
ponent, which would imply that »power« without the comparative — —
has to be seen as a structure of For instance, Marx claims in a
splits.

famous passage in the Communist Manifesto

that the rule of the bour-
geois class is based on the economic system of capital and labour, but that
this system, however, is based on the rivalry of the workers, that is, on the

split of the working class. This implies that workers shall be victorious if

they cease to be the more split party —

and of course it further implies
that such a development depends on certain economic conditions. In an-
other passage Marx brings this view of power almost to a paradox when
he writes on the short-lived French Republic of 1848. This Republic would
have been without weapons at the moment it no longer found resistance.
The removal of a constellation of splits is here identified with the removal
of power. This view approximates that of Michel Foucault, who writes

ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 ©

On the Concept of Power within Marxian Theory 161

»Where power is, there is resistances This view, on the other

categorially:
hand, from the idea that power comes from a gun barrel, as well as
is far
from the idea that it is based on consent.
My second point is that Engels' definition of the state can be given
wholly in terms of power as a structure of splits (which is, by the way, an
alternative to a definition in terms of »above« and »below«). Engels de-
scribes the state as a power which »casts a damper on the conflict« that
occurs in class society with struggling economic interests, in order to pre-
vent it falling into pieces. This proposition can also be formulated as fol-

lows: »state« means that in relation to the division of society into rival
camps there exists a reaction to further split the differences. This means
the state, which a »separate formation of armed people«, is the condi-
is

tion of a split society that remains split but does not go on to self-
destruction because each group of fighters is again split by the destructive
versus non-destructive means of struggle. Thus, in such a »split in the se-

cond degree« the opposition of factions is overlaid with an opposition be-

tween a domain of order and a domain of non-order, or more precisely,
of reduced non-order »a damper on the conflict«— and of reduced —
order.
My third point. This reduced order of the state, which is only the reverse
of non-order, is identified by Marx as the order of centralization; and
since Marx fights against class society, he also fights against this power
mechanism in its political reproduction, i.e., the centralized state. At this
point it is, as I see it, necessary to argue against a wrong interpretation of
the Marxian conception of the state by Lenin and to underline the present
value of the Marxian commentary concerning the Paris Commune — the
paradigm of the »dictatorship of the proletariate The Commune is by no
means, as Lenin suggests, an imperfect example of an attempt to smash a
»bourgeois« state power and to replace it by an equally centralistic »prole-
tarian« state power. Instead, Marx argues that a state which presents itself
as a relation of power centre and power periphery, is per se a bourgeois
state, whereas he sees the proletarian state of transition which ceases to be

a state as a radical decentralized power organization, an association of

autonomous communes. Such communes could in his eyes as in the —
eyes of the Communards of 1871 —
prove by their existence and behav-
iour that order and national coherence is possible even without the coer-
cion of a centre. This association is a form of the »dictatorship of the pro-
letariat because it puts rule into the living world of each worker, and
therefore abolishes the separation of politics and economy upon which
bourgeois rule stands or falls. It seems necessary to recall this Marxian
conception, because usually the understanding of the Marxian com-
mentary on the Commune is reduced to the internal ruling relations within
one commune in which this one commune becomes the model for a whole

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
162 MichaelJager

state which is, by chance, a centralized one. But the essential of the com-
munal constitution is, although Lenin claims the contrary, its decentrali-

zation.
My last point. The Marxian ideas concerning communal
fourth and
constitution must be developed so that they acquire a meaning in a politi-
cal .landscape in which power is regulated by a party system. But such a
development is understandable only if we start from the concept of power
outlined above. This means by following Engels' definition of the state as
a site of split of the »second degree« we cannot only understand coercion
by the state, hegemony. The kernel of state hegemony today is
but also its

its parliamentary existence, i.e., its existence as a party state. System theo-

ry has continually shown, without Marxism, that the function of the well-
known party system is to anathematize certain possible subjects of poli-
tical struggle, more or less like the way the monopoly of state coercion ex-
cludes certain forms of societal coercion.
This theory has in this area given such concepts as selection, reduction
of complexity, filtration of political articulation, and so on. The mechan-
isms of the party system and the party competition can be seen as mechan-
isms of modern societal macro-divisions and its »damper«. Formerly
states were established The party state, however, is
in resisting civil wars.
an open, but »dampered« civil war, which is going on permanently on
wrong fronts and with substitute objects, and its main functions to with-
draw the capital relation from politics. This party state is a centralistic
state not only because of the centralized apparatuses of coercion, but also
because the well-known parties always group themselves around a central
dividing line, so that any number of parties is always concentrated in a
contradiction of two party blocs, one of which leads the government. This
very centralization of party struggle implies the effect of integration, be-
cause it leads all citizens to the theory of »lesser-evilism«. To be sure, this
integration does not happen a period of
inevitably, as one can see in
economic crisis, as today. The party system suggests, just like formal lo-
gic, a tertium non datur. But it does make political sense for a third party

bloc to step out and to fight against the centralized order of struggling; a
third party bloc that does not represent the »lesser evil« for individuals but
is neither related to an
the individuals as they are; a third party bloc that
outside centre, nor is would be the communal consti-
centralized itself. It

tution en miniature, the communal region which extends step by step

throughout society. At a time when society as a whole is not yet ripe for a
pure decentered order, the third bloc would be the most important lever
for the liberation of labour, too.

Note
1 See also my article »Kommunismus kommt von kommunal«, in: Aktualisierung Marx' , Argument-
Sonderband 100, Berlin/West 1983, pp.124-144.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 163

Sakari Hanninen

Rethinking Marx's Discourse on Democracy

Democracy, as it is used, is a neologism, a concept with many

ordinarily
have also usually used the concept in this way, attaching
prefixes. Marxists
prefixes and forming neologisms: people's democracy, alternative de-
mocracy, participatory democracy, direct democracy, a new kind of de-
mocracy.
It is easy to ask if we — Marxists — should then avoid using the con-
cept »democracy«? I think that we should not and cannot. »Democracy«
is a real-abstraction (Realabstraktion), an objective thought-form which is

used on social discourses. We just have to specify the intension and exten-
sion of the concept. It is easy to name five domains where the concept

»democracy« has to be specified: (1) what is the conceptual and historical

level of analysis; (2) what is the temporal point of view (past, present,

future); (3) what is the spatial context of the phenomenon (local, national,
global); (4) what are the principles concerned (formal or substantive cri-
teria); (5) what is the referred practice (the way of governing, the mode of

political organizing, the form of political institutions, the rules of political

behaviour, the substance of political practices).

Marx as a Theoretician of Democracy

»...today a new de-semanticization of the word democracy appears to be
proposed. It is no longer a question even of pure political democracy but
rather that this is being replaced by a 'democracy of consumption' and by
the 'democracy of information'. « (Roncagliolo 1982, 17) This interpreta-
tion implies that the »political consumer« is replacing the »political citi-

zen« as an agent of modern bourgeois democracy. This happens, today,

in the third stage of capitalist democracies. (See Ewen 1976, 19)
The constitution of modern bourgeois publicity (the negative political
of democracy; the second stage is the constitution
rights) is the first stage
of the modern bourgeois representative principle. The institutional form
of the bourgeois state is the gravity point of change in the third stage. It is
the »last instance« which confronts capitalization as a process. The result
is the »commodification of politics« and the bureaucratization of so-
ciety^ the crisis of pluralist democracy. It is here, in today's reality, that
we meet Marx's actuality.
Marx is a theoretician of democracy whose argumentation is based on

Marx's (most) political writings (Critique of Hegel's

rebellious practice.
Doctrine of the State, Manifesto of the Communist Party, The Class
Struggles in France 1848 to 1850, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
1 64 Sakari Hdnninen

Bonaparte, The Civil War in France) have always been written imme-
diately after a period of intense political activity. There are three such
periods in Marx's life: (1) the years as editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, (2)
the years as an activist in the Communist League, (3) the years as an activ-
ist Each of these periods of political activity pro-
in the First International.
duced a change Marx's orientation.
in
The Critique of Hegel's Doctrine of the State is the first theoretical con-
text where Marx systematically examines the question of democracy.
Marx participates critically in a philosophical discourse in which democra-
cy as an actuality is projected into the future. Marx considers the state (re-
presenting the coercive power from the above) as determined by societal
structures. He can, thus, appreciate the historical advances, i.e. political
emancipation, that had been made in England and France
comparison in
to Germany. It may, then, seem peculiar that Marx did not want to pro-
ceed into a more detailed analysis of the bourgeois representative de-
mocracy. The motive for this neglect is simple enough: Marx was also, like

Hegel, a critic of bourgeois democracy. Marx's critique is, in fact, directed

to the same elements that Hegel took up against Locke's contractualist
and natural-right theory (Colletti 1975, 31): the contradictions emanating
from the separation of the state from civil society. Marx's solution to this
dilemma is the opposite of Hegel's because he does not want to proceed
from the state towards society, he does not want to sanctify the state, he
wants to do away with the state.
The merging of the state and civil society, the merging of citoyen and
homme via the disappearance of the state, is the context where Marx's
comments on democracy in the Critique of Hegel's Doctrine of the State
become meaningful and are constituent for his later writings.
For Marx, the true democracy is the organic community that is not split
into civil society and political society. It would, however, be too simplified
to argue —as e.g. Lucio Colletti does —
that this organic community, in
Marx's sense, is best typified by the city-states of Antiquity (Colletti 1975,
41). Hegel wanted to transfer the ancient morals of the polis to the mo-
dern state. But Marx is we have to think
too conscious of the fact that
about democracy and even global terms also. Marx cannot just
in national
look for a past ideal, he must look for the future. This fact partially ex-
plains the generality of Marx's discourse. Marx does not want to design
models for democracy because they can only be results of concrete social
and political movements.

Social Emancipation and Political Emancipation

Marx calls the establishment of bourgeois representative democracy politi-

cal emancipation. He writes: » Political emancipation is certainly a big step

forward. It may not be the last form of general human emancipation, but

ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 ©

Rethinking Marx 's Discourse on Democracy 1 65

it is the last form of human emancipation within the prevailing scheme of

things. Needless to say, we are here speaking of real, practical emancipa-
tions (Marx 1975, 221).
Two conclusions can be drawn from Marx's reasoning: (1) Marx values
bourgeois political emancipation because it annuls many political inequali-
ties due to birth, status, education, profession, while explaining them to
be nonpolitical inequalities; (2) Marx is truly interested in practical or so-
cial emancipation because it alone can annul real inequalities, which the
bourgeois political emancipation masks.
Two questions remain. (1) Does social or practical emancipation
demand such political forms which exceed the limits of bourgeois political

emancipation and (2) if so, forms be actualized already

can such political
inside this state of affairs (innerhalb der bisherigen Weltordnung)!
Marx does not take up the latter question at the end of his first or even
at the end of his second period of political activity. But the practical expe-
riences in the Communist League forced Marx to reflect self-critically
upon the prospects of true political emancipation. In The Communist
Manifesto, Marx had still argued that the proletarian revolution in Ger-
many would follow »naturally« the bourgeois revolution so that the —
communists' strategy was to support the bourgeoisie in its struggle against
absolutism and refrain from its own specific struggle. In this manner En-
gels could exclaim: »Democracy, it is today communism ... In the year
1846 all European democrats are more or less clear communists.« It just
so happened that the bourgeois revolution was deserted by the bour-
geoisie. It is at this point that Marx changed his strategy towards social

and political emancipation. This can be read from his Adresses of the
Central Committee to the Communist League of March and June 1850.
It is clear from Marx's Addresses of March and June 1850 that, by

now, he considers social emancipation demanding political forms —

counter-state power —
which exceed the limits of bourgeois political
emancipation. The question remains //and how and when these can be ac-
tualized already inside this state of affairs?
In The Civil War
France we can find an answer to the above ques-
in
tion: »Such is the Commune —
the political form of the social emancipa-
tion, of the liberation of labour from the usurpations (slave-holding) of

the monopolists of the means of labour, created by the labourers them-

selves or forming the gift of nature«. (Marx 1974, 252) In other words —
as the French Civil War experience temporarily made clear — the com-
munal organization can be actualized, in principle, already inside this state
of affairs. But »... the Commune is not the social movement of the work-
ing classand therefore of a general regeneration of mankind, but the or-
ganized means of action.« (Marx 1974, 253) It is not until the Communal
organization is firmly established on a national scale that it can put the

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
1 66 Sakari Hanninen

sword into the hand of the social revolution. Marx concludes that the
Commune as the political form of social emancipation presents the ration-
al stage in which the class struggle can run through its different phases in

the most rational and humane way. (Marx 1974, 253)

It is, now, clear that Marx's conception of a (true) democracy as an or-

ganic community presented in The Critique of Hegel's Doctrine of the

State cannot be immediately identified with the conception of the Com-
mune presented in TTie Civil War in France. This is why e.g. Lucio Colletti
is mistaken in arguing that »what is really understood by democracy here

[in 7726- Critique of Hegel's Doctrine of the State SH] is the same as, —
many years later, Marx was to rediscover in the actions of the Paris Com-
mune of 1871. « (Colletti 1975, 42)
This Commune is not yet an organic community where the separation
of civil society and political society, homme and
would be over- citoyen,
come. It is the political form of social emancipation, the organized
means
of action which puts the sword into the hand of social revolution; it is a
necessary transition stage before the social revolution. It would be possi-
ble, and I think legitimate, to call the Commune a democratic form which

exceeds bourgeois political emancipation, but which is not yet (true) de-
mocracy. In this way Marx would have two conceptions of democracy
which both exceed bourgeois democracy. The Communal organization
preceeds —
as a necessary political condition the social revolution and —
the organic community succeeds it, at the same time announcing the ten-
dency of the disappearance of the state.

There is continuity and discontinuity in Marx's discourse on democra-

cy. It is important to re-emphazise that after the rupture of 1850, Marx
started to lay stress on the necessity to build up counter-state powers in or-
der to make social revolution politically possible. I think that in today's
crisis of democracy there is a concrete political demand to actua-
pluralist
lize power alternatives, which are not centralist but decen-
counter-state
tralist. Social revolution, and new/progressive social movements need

their organized means of action. Here lies a great deal of the actuality of
Marx's specifically political writings. They are concretely actual. In The
Civil War in France, where Marx describes the basic structural features of
the Commune, we can easily pick up concrete political demands to further
social revolution and to avoid political integration and marginalization.

Literature

Colletti, L., 1975: Introduction. In: KarlMarx, Early Writings. London

Ewen, St., 1976: Captains of Consciousness, New York
Marx, K., 1974: First Draft of »The Civil War in France«. In: K. Marx: The First International and Af-
ter. London
Marx, K., 1975: On the Jewish Question. In: K. Marx, Early Writings. London
Roncagliolo, R., 1982: Communication and democracy in the international debate. Paper presented at

the IAMCR/AIERI 13th General Assembly and Scientific Conference. Paris, Sept. 6th to 10th 1982

ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 ©

 167

Minoru Kitamura

Marxism and Revolution by Majority

In Foundation of Leninism, which Stalin wrote just after Lenin's death in

1924, he called Lenin's theoreticaland practical achievements »Leninism«
and described them as the further development of Marxism. According to
Stalin, Leninism is »Marxism of the time of imperialism and proletarian
revolutions In fact Stalin asserted several times the need to overcome the
outdated views of Marx and Engels concerning world revolution and the
political form of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Today we know that some of Lenin's views, which Stalin appraised as

the development of Marxism, indeed reflected the special conditions of
Russian revolution. Lenin himself was very well aware of that and he ad-
mitted that the Russian revolutionary way would not be applicable to
Western Europe and North America.
Marxism has not been developed in a straight line from Marx and En-
gels to Lenin. In order to be able to develop a Marxism for today, we have
to return to the starting-point, i.e. we have to rethink Marx' original ideas.
First of all, Marx and Engels based their theory on the analysis of the
political, economic and social reality of the advanced capitalist countries
in Western Europe.
Secondly, they analysed revolutionary movements in a large number of
countries all over the world. Thirdly, Marx and Engels were hesitant to
generalize. When the young German theoretician Konrad Schmidt wanted
to write a general theory of »the transitional stage to communist society«,
Engels recommended him to postpone his plan indefinitely, because this
would be the most difficult task. —
It is for these reasons that we can find

in the works by Marx and Engels many hints to the new type of revo-
lution, which some Japanese Marxists would describe as »the revolution
by majority«.
This type of socialist revolution means the establishment of political
power through the majority in Parliament. Some dogmatists distort the
meaning of »majority«, understood as a »political« majority as opposed
to an »arithmetic« majority, which would not always be necessary for so-
cialist revolution. To our great surprise, here dogmatists strangely coincide
with anti-communists who blame Marxists for aiming at revolution by
»minority«. But it is quite obvious that Marx and Engels insisted on so-
cialist revolution by majority. In one of his last writings, the Foreword to
the 1895 edition of The Class Struggle in France, Engels asserted that any
socialist revolution could not be successful without support of the majori-
ty of the people.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
168 Minoru Kitamura

Talking about the revolution by majority, Marx and Engels presup-

posed that in democratic states the majority of the people would surely
vote socialist one day. Their idea of revolution by majority is inseperable
from the existence of parliamentarism and universal suffrage. It is, on the
other hand, quite understandable that Marx and Engels did not write very
much about how the majority could be achieved by parliamentary means,
because there simply was no parliamentary democracy in the modern sen-
se. Nevertheless, Marx and Engels regarded as one of the most important
tasks of the proletariat to acquire democracy, namely universal suffrage
and democratic government. We find this line of thinking already in the
Communist Manifesto (1848) and in Engels' Principles of Communism
(1847).
Marx and Engels supposed that, in Britain, universal suffrage was the
way to socialism, and they supported Chartist's claim for universal suf-
frage. In 1865 Marx advocated the establishment of an organisation for
the promotion of universal suffrage and in 1867 he welcomed the fact that
upper workers obtained by the third reform of the Electoral Act.
this right
In reality, the process of leading the majority of workers to socialism was
much more difficult than Marx and Engels had expected. Even in Britain
there was no straight road from parliamentary representation of the wor-
kers to socialism.
Marx and Engels never considered parliament and universal suffrage to
be revolutionary per se; they were necessary preconditions to people's sov-
ereignty and democratic government. In his Prussian Military Problems
and German Worker's Party (1865) Engels pointed out, 1) that a parlia-
ment can not only be a powerless body to support a monarchy but a
means of control over government, and 2) that the liberties of the press,
opinion, association and assembly have to be assured.
Nowadays parliaments in highly developed capitalist countries are
based on people's sovereignty and the way to socialism through parlia-
ment has become the main current. We Japanese Marxists think that so-
cialism is in accordance with the existence of a plurality of parties and the
access to power or retreat from power through general elections.

ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 ©

 169

Donald Sassoon

Marxism and the British Labour Tradition

The British labour movement has always Marxism a

represented for
»special case«; even a deviation from For Marx, of
established patterns.
course, Britain was the classical locus of capitalist development and the
fundamental source of his examples of the workings of capitalism. For
mainstream historians and economists too the development of the British
economy constituted the model of industrialization. It represented the
fundamental case of »spontaneous« industrialization, i.e. of economic de-
velopment based on laissez-faire, or, more realistically, of economic devel-
opment coupled with a very low level of state intervention (essentially an
intervention aimed at removing obstacles to industrialization). Yet it is

precisely the fact of »being first« which constituted the exceptionalism of

Britain: all other countries had — necessarily — to be late-comers.
What for Marx was a »model« quickly became an obvious source of
»deviation« when Marx's followers examined the »British case«:
1. In the first place Britain had a highly developed working class,

powerful trade unions but no working class political party, throughout the
period of dominance of the SPD Second International, that is
in the
throughout the period of the creation of Europe (there
socialist parties in

is of course the whole history of USA »exceptionalism« which was also a

»problem« for the Marxism of the Second International).

2. When, in 1918, the Labour Party was formally constituted as a »so-

cialist party« it owed virtually nothing to Marxist theory, and whatever so-

cialism it had owed its constitutional status (its »presence« in the Party's
Statutes and its definition: »collective ownership«) to a very special breed
of intellectuals, the Webbs, who had virtually excluded themselves not just
from European socialist culture but from contemporary European culture
as well.
3. The third crucial »exceptionalism« was that whilst the formation of
communist parties in Europe was due, in virtually all instances, to splits in
the then-dominant socialist parties, in Britain the creation of the CP was
totally external to the Labour Party: it came about through the merging
together of four small groups who were at the margins of political life.
During the whole of this century Marxism has been marginal to the cul-
ture of the British labour movement. The disinterest for Marxism on the
part of Labour intellectuals can be counterposed to the constant attention
given by European socialists — at the turn of the century — to the British
case, for instance Kautsky's and Bernstein's Webbs' works
analysis of the
(Industrial Democracy and their History of Trade Unionism).

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
1 70 Donald Sassoon

An examination of this (and a lot of work remains to be done) leads us

to an examination of the extent to which Britain thus constituted a »prob-
lem« for Marxist theory. But why was Marxist theory not a problem for
the British labour tradition and why was it that whenever Marxism and
the British Labour Tradition »met« (as in the thirties) the latter did not see
»Marxism« as a problem but as a system of thought which could be incor-
porated without effort in the existing corpus of British labourism?
To advance on this terrain it will be necessary to establish at least some
fundamental parameters for research.
In the first place we have to ask ourselves what did Marxism contribute
to the European labour movement. I am not here talking of Marx's Marx-
ism but rather of the kind of Marxism which provided the European la-
bour movement with its central coordinates. These coordinates are:
1. A »theory of history« (historical materialism). Stripped down to its

essentials this was a theory which asserted the impermanence of the exis-

ting social order, for capitalism too, like its historical predecessors (slav-
ery, feudalism)would not last forever. The establishment of socialism was
therefore sanctioned by »history«. Belief in the possibility (if not the inevi-
tability) of a different social order is a necessary ideological condition for
a struggle possessing the characteristics of the socialist struggle. This
»promise of a better tomorrow« does not have to depend on theory, but
on any set of semi-religious beliefs; however in the cultural conditions of
Europe at the turn of the century (progress, positivism, science etc.) re-

ligious utopianism was not match for historical materialism.

2. A theory of exploitation. At the ideological level this theory »func-
tions« as the explanation for the unfairness of the existing social order. It

can be reduced to the simple »fact« that the wage relation by itself is a re-
sult of a structural inferiority in the relation between wage earners and

owners of capital and that it is the wage-relation itself which must be re-
moved. To have simply established a moral critique of the unfairness of
present conditions of the working class (e.g. inequality of incomes, bad
working conditions, etc.) would have been perfectly compatible with
bourgeois reformism which could have asserted (also on the basis of
ample historical evidence) that the conditions of the working class were
destined to improve constantly with growth of the economy.
3. A theory of transition. This asserted that the elimination of capital-
ism and exploitation required a particular form of political activity on the
part of the working class. In other words that whether or not the crisis of
capitalism was inevitable it was necessary for the working class to organize

its own instruments of rule, that form being the political party.
These three »theories« are not symmetric. They do not have the same
functions.The theory of history and the theory of exploitation (which
were the fundamental terrains of Marx's own investigation) provide a

ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 ©

 1

Marxism and the British Labour Tradition 1 7

critique of the existing social order, offer a rationale for a struggle to

change it,and focus on a specific subject (the working class) as the prin-
cipal agent in this struggle for change. The theory of transition is in the fi-
nal analysis a matter of strategy. It is the least dependent on Marx's own
work and, unlike the first two, it is a necessary part of the discussions of
any movement. It is not surprising that an old and relati-
socialist political

vely insulated working class such as the British one had already provided
itself with theories of the impermanency of capitalism and of exploitation

which owe little to Marxism. A simplified reading of Marx could be super-

imposed on existing primitive doctrines based on ethical and religious
principles concerning exploitation and social inevitability.
As for political strategy this could be developed and debated without
any reference (or little reference) to the body of Marxism: first of all be-
cause Marx had not developed a political strategy, secondly, because post-
Marx Marxism had not developed a unified and coherent doctrine in this
field and, thirdly, because political strategies do not depend on a theory of

capitalism in general but on the structure of specific capitalist societies.

The British Labour tradition, particularly after 1929, examined the
thematic of the conquest of power always in terms of the electoral victory
of a Socialist government. The real problem which had to be resolved was
what that Government was supposed to do and how it could maintain it-
self in power (Laski). After the war the only available examples were so-

vietism and Weimar. Sovietism could be read either as the self-government

of the producers and therefore re-interpreted in the light of the whole
tradition of the anti-statist and decentralist tradition of British labourism
or as planning.
Planning was given pride of place in the considerations of British social-
ists from the planning was much admired by the Webbs
late 1920s. Soviet

and GDH Cole. theme of planning could be incorporated in

Besides, the
the tradition of fabianism without great ideological upheaval and received
further encouragement from the »Keynesian revolution« In other words .

it could be adapted to Britain.

As for the Weimar experiment, although it did receive some attention,
particularly by Laski, its failure in 1930-1933 caused it to be dismissed un-
til the post-war reconstruction of the British state provided a new terrain
on which to think the question of the triangular relation between State,
employers and trade unions.
The present crisis of Marxism involves all three fundamental parame-
ters which have constituted the cornerstone of political Marxism. Yet Brit-

immune from Marxism, is itself in crisis. The working-class-

ish socialism,

subjectwhose main function was to provide the electoral and political

backing for an electoral victory is rapidly disintegrating. The nation-state
ujton whose sovereignty the whole structure of fabian-technocratic re-

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
172 KarlH. Tjaden

formism was erected no longer represents a possible terrain for autono-

mous socialist development. To the crisis of Marxism thus corresponds the
crisis of labourism. If, as I am convinced, they are both the products of
the massive reorganization of the world's productive system, then it is

possible to rethink and re-cast the histories of political Marxism and of

European socialism as the single history of the political ideology of the la-
bour movement, a single framework which permits the specification of
national particularities. In a crucial period, such as 1956-1968, this scheme
would have to account for the concurrence of the crisis of Soviet Com-
munism (the Twentieth Congress and the schism with China), the expan-
sion of Marxism, the revision of the political ideology of European social-
democracy (not only Bad Godesberg, but also the debate over Clause
Four in the UK, the collapse of French socialism, the SPD-influenced
changes in the Dutch, Swiss, Austrian and Swedish working class parties,
the break-up of the alliance between the Italian socialists and communists),
the first symptoms of a eurocommunist problematic and the beginnings of
the break-up of bipolarism.
It can thus be readily agreed that there is little point in discussing a

»crisis of Marxism« and a »crisis of labourism« as if these are to be con-

sidered as two phenomena (I am here talking of »Marxism« as a political

doctrine not a theory in the strong sense, which has its own specificity).
What this terminology represents is an effect of the crisis of the political
ideology of the working class movement. The determinants of the crisis
are not so much to be found in the internal contradictions of this political
ideology, as the bulk of the critique of political Marxism and political la-
bourism would assert, but in the crisis in the forms of organization of mo-
dern capitalism.

Karl Hermann Tjaden

What Does »The Productive Forces Will Burst

the Capitalist Relations of Production« Mean?

An Approach to Anticapitalist Political Strategy 1

Various statements by Marx and Engels suggest that the capitalist develop-
ment of societal productive forces will at some time reach the point at
which capitalist relations of production become »chains« for those forces.
At that stage the »capitalist hull« will be »burst« asunder, and an »epoch

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Productive Forces Will Burst the Capitalist Relations of Production 1 73

of social revolution will begin. Such remarks have often been interpreted to
signify a breakdown of the capitalist mode of production in conformance
with a natural law.
The non-arrival of that breakdown as well as the failure of the October
Revolution to expand into world revolution brought about the surmounting
of such ideas in the labour movement. This was true especially with respect
to the United Front politics practiced in the Third International, above all

from 1921 on. These politics were concerned to focus working-class struggle
on economic and political interim goals on the way towards superseding the
capitalist mode of production. Control of societal production in the interests

of the working class was to begin with the most important of these goals.
Later conceptions of socialist political strategy adopted this notion of the
gradual supersession of the capitalist mode of production, but without mak-
ing proletarian control of the development of production and, accordingly,
of productive forces, the central issue. This may be why ideas of antimono-

polistic politicsand anticapitalistic structural reforms have been so anemic in

their effect. In any event, the point has long since been reached in which ca-

pitalist relations of production were transformed from a developmental

form of into fetters for societal productive forces. It is therefore high time
that an anticapitalist political strategy takes as its theme the further devel-
opment of the productive forces in this mode of production.

II

Different conceptions of political strategy for a step-by-step supersession of

the capitalist mode of production put forward during the last ten years in
the Federal Republic and in Berlin (West) offer useful points of departure
for incorporating the development of productive forces into the framework
of anticapitalist politics. This is true insofar as these conceptions (a) are pre-
mised upon an antagonistic relationship between socialist partial demands
and the profit-directed control of production and (b) are intended to lay
bare this antagonism from the perspective of societal needs. The latter have
mostly been understood as use-value requirements of the working class, and
more recently, of the natural basis of production.
Indeed it is true that capitalist organization of production, as a profit-
controlled exchange of materials and energy between man and nature,
manifests itself as the systematic violation of the reproductive preconditions

of the working population and of the ecological system. This factor must
therefore be drawn into the concept of the step-by-step negation of the capi-
talist mode of production. And this type of negation, which aims at the
given content of the capitalist mode of production, entails an anticapitalist
development of the forces of production.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
174 KarlH. Tjaden

III

Naturally, all this necessitates taking leave of the notion that the capitalist
development of productive forces to date provides an optimal precondi-
mode of production. Departing from this notion will be
tion of a socialist
made easier if one understands that the capitalist development of pro-
ductive forces has inflicted damage on both the subjective and the objec-
tive conditions and bases of societal production from the very beginning
up to the present. The present world crisis of capitalism therefore finds its

proper expression in squandering and pauperization: in the super-expan-

sion of arms production and in the manufacture of other superfluous and
frivolous goods; in mass-unemployment and plant closings; in starvation
and wretched housing conditions; in the plundering of natural resources
and poisoning of the environment —
all this combined with an unimagin-

able waste of raw materials and energy. This is precisely what is meant by
the fettering of productive forces in »late capitalism«, which is due to the
overdevelopment of the productive power of labour (Produktivkraft der
Arbeit).

IV
The most important transitional demand of an anticapitalist political
must be the curtailment of exploitation and profit-domination by
strategy
means of restructuring and gaining control of the development of produc-
This will amount to the dismantling of capitalist restrictions
tive forces.

upon the unfolding of those forces. It entails, therefore, the rebuilding

and improvement of societal labour-capacity (Arbeitsvermogen), i.e., the
ensemble of societal productive forces, in conformance with those societal
needs that stem from the reproductive preconditions of the working po-
pulation and the ecological system. Moreover, this formula must be ap-
plied to differing conditions in the various groups of countries in the capi-
talistworld and be converted into designs for their further development.
For the resolution of these problems, the efforts made during the last
ten years in the ecology and peace movements relating to alternative pro-
duction projects have born more fruit than all recent discussions comb-
ined about a crisis of Marxism. One brings to mind here, for instance, the
conceptions of a transition to a soft energy system that would not be con-
trolledby monopolistic enterprises by the Oko-Institut (Ecological Institu-
te) in the Federal Republic of Germany. Another example is the program-

me for the production of nonmilitary goods worked out by the employees

of Lucas Aerospace in Great Britain. A knowledge of engineering is more
important than linguistic knowledge when it comes to the development of
anticapitalist strategy.
Prerequisites for the step-by-step unfolding of productive forces against
profit interests and exploitation are undoubtedly the following:

ARGUMENTSONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 .

Productive Forces Will Burst the Capitalist Relations ofProduction 1 75

— a comprehensive programme for the protection of labour-power;

— the broadening of work opportunities;
— an improved utilization of the means of production and
— an effective conservation of the natural basis of societal labour.
Furthermore the main contours of a labour- and nature-oriented transfigu-
ration of the materio-practical basis of society and their interrelations need
to be projected. Looking towards the end of this century those of us living
in a country like the Federal Republic will likely be concerned with the fol-

lowing:
1 The development and introduction of labour and nature-adapted tech-
nologies for altering the form or structure of materials. These must have in-
creased capacities for the utilization of materials as well as multiple appli-
cability in production. They should be employed first of all in key industries,
e.g. in chemical and chemical-using industries, in the context of a broadly-
based transition to biotechnological processing with non-dangerous and,
above all, non-toxic work materials and products. This transition should go
hand in hand with the convergence upon closed-circle processing of ma-
terials (Gartner).
The transition to an energy system based on restricted use offossilfuels
2.

and expanded use of regenerative non-nuclear energy sources. This means

»bridging« the gap between the existing energy system and a future solar
energy system primarily by means of (i) district heating, on the basis of ra-
tional energy conservation. This has to be done by cogeneration of heat and
electricity (decentralized as far as possible) by means of extensive utilization

of natural gas and/or »solar methane«. (ii) This also presupposes the con-
version of the present transportation network into technologically flexible
public systems of passenger and freight transport (Commoner).
towards a planned multiple use of natural resources, including
3. Steps

their systematic reproduction or substitution. One such step perhaps may be

the combining of livestock feed production with that of alcohol fuels for
transportation. Contrary to propaganda coming from the oil companies, as
well as to the outcome of certain large-scale experiments, this could be done
by altering, under certain regional conditions, the carbon-nitrogen ratio
through crop substitution »without expanding the land devoted to grow
crops or increasing the environmental impacts of agriculture« (Commoner).
4. The development and introduction of technologies for the disposal of
waste that are suitable for humans and the environment. Carried out in con-
junction with appropriate changes in production technology (such as devel-
opment of low-waste technology) this must constitute a decisive step to-
wards the comprehensive recycling of reclaimed materials and utilization of
residual energy in production processes. The main examples are to be found
in the area of sewage and garbage treatment. In this we will be as
much concerned with the seperation of different kinds of liquid and solid

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
176 KarlH. Tjaden

waste as we will be with the development of techniques for processing and

the re-utilization of raw materials and energy without the transfusion or
additional generation of toxic substances (as happens in some instances
during the burning of solid wastes at high temperatures) (Czeskleba-Du-
pont).
It is evident that these medium-term objectives of an anticapitalist de-
velopment of productive forces must be interconnected within a compre-
hensive network of measures. The standard examples of need-oriented
policies at hand in the well-known proposals of alternative politics may
without difficulty be coordinated with these or similar outlines of an anti-
capitalist unfolding of productive forces. The attainment of this goal must
be combined with the struggles for better living and work conditions and
against unemployment, the expansion of arms production, and capitalist
augmentation of labour-productivity.

V
In bringing about the conscious transfiguration of societal labour-capacity
we can learn from the developmental history of socialist societies. Al-
though this idea may strike many as odd, what future generations will find
strange is how little notice the labour movement of this country, including
its ideological representatives, has taken of the theory and practice for so-

cialist development in, say —

to mention a case close at hand the Ger- — ,

man Democratic Republic. One should not fail to recognize that, re-
garding the G.D.R., one cannot speak of democratic control of produc-
tion in the full sense of the concept. There are also serious problems cente-
ring around the natural environment, the use of resources, as well as tech-
nological blunders. Nevertheless the steering of the development of the
productive forces towards the goal of socialism — which has been taking
place in the G.D.R. for decades — principally allows us to gain insight in-

to an »alternative logic« of societal production. We

ought especially to
make use of advances in the theoretical knowledge of the possibilities of
societal development that work on a theory of societal reproduc-
relate to
tion, particularly regarding the development of productive forces. These
theories are intended to consider use- value oriented growth of national in-
come increasingly as but a moment of the reproduction of the conditions
of production and of national wealth as a whole, such that the fundamen-
tal components of this wealth — including the natural resources and the
labour-power of socialist society — are to be incorporated as a whole into
societal reproduction.

VI
What, then, does »The productive forces will burst the capitalist relations
of production« mean? An anticapitalist reorganization and control of the

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Growing Role of Subjectivity in Every Current Project of Socialism 1 77

development of productive forces must be directed towards the fulfillment

of those requirements of the maintenance and renewal of the working po-
pulation and the ecological system which are based on use- value and are op-
posed to the requirements of surplus-value production and capital ac-
cumulation. To the extent that conscious policies can carry out such an anti-
capitalist reorganization and control, this development will burst asunder
the capitalist relations of production.

Note

I would like to thank Mr. Jeff Edwards (Frankfurt/M.) for his painstaking
care over the complete English version of this text —
without wishing to
evade the responsibility for any remaining mistakes or faults in style. The
complete text can be obtained the author: K.H. Tjaden, Gesamthochschule
Kassel, F606, Heinrich Plett-Strafie 40, D-3500 Kassel, FR Germany. Com-
plete text published in German in BdWi-Forum 53/54, 1983 (Hrsg. vom
Bund demokratischer Wissenschaftler, Marburg/L.) p.39-42 and in: Moder-
ne Zeiten 3, 1983, H.5, p.46-48..

Joaquim Sempere

The Growing Role

of Subjectivity in Every Current Project of Socialism

When Marx and Engels proposed a »scientific« foundation of socialism

— in opposition to »utopian« socialism — , they denied the efficacy of
wilfuland exemplary action of single individuals: they thought of social-
ism as the result of an objective social dialectics, pushed by productive
forces in evolution. In this view, the subjective factor in socialist change
reduced itself, in the main, to the consciousness of this objective process,
so that the process itself was facilitated. The main purpose of the socialist
change was the overthrow of capitalist property relations, to establish new
property relations which are fit to the social productive forces engendered
by capitalism.
Some important new developments have intervened since. I want to
emphasize three of them.
First, we have discovered — especially in the last decade — that there
are natural limits to human mastery of nature. This fact challenges the in-
herent capitalist trend to an indefinite expansion of productive forces, and

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
178 Joaquim Sempere

becomes more and more an additional reason to view capitalism as a self-

contradictory system doomed to disappear (unless it drives mankind to
disaster). But it challenges also the old socialist idea that socialism must
»free the productive forces from the bindings of capitalism« unless we —
understand by »productive forces« something quite different from what is
meant usually. We are discovering that a sound and harmonious metabol-
ism between human society and nature is a conditio sine qua non for
human survival on earth; so, this sound metabolism becomes the first pur-
pose for any reasonable project for future. If blind development of alien-
ated social forces of capitalism is today an absolute threat for mankind,
socialism must posit as its first end a project for human survival. It be-
comes more and more necessary to fight the inertial alienation which
pushes mankind to disaster; it becomes imperative to try to master tech-
nology and to advance planification devices —
a rational and conscious
factor of social life —
which are able to check the anarchic trends to inde-
finite expansion. (For instance, to suppress the motto: »everything which

is technically possible must be put to work«, and to replace it by other

sorts of principles, such as: »no technological application to production

without a previous calculation of human and ecological costs«.)
Second, we know today that mankind, alongside with productive abili-
ties, displays destructive abilities. This is true not only in the military do-
main, but also in many other domains. Technology as it is applied de-
stroys ecological balances, annihilates human abilities, damages social
fabric, etc. Capitalist industrialism —
as Marx and Engels emphasized —
creates the material conditions of general »human wealth« and of »social-
ity« for a new, free, society: communism. But it creates also many social
and technical features which are deeply in contradiction with any kind of
communist society. In other words: if communism succeeds, it will receive
not only a positive inheritance, but also a lot of damages (psychological,
technological, cultural, etc.) which will oblige the new society to rebuild
and reorganize the whole social life in accordance with other values and
priorities.

Third, the working class, which was seen by Marx and Engels as the
main actor of socialist revolution (according to the »negativeness« of its

position in capitalist society), has undergone deep transformations. Capi-

talist productive apparatus has a strong influence on subjective needs of
individual people, in such a manner that the mere reproduction of daily
life makes the population at large (including important parts of the work-
ing class) an accomplice to the capitalist system.
Because of all this, socialism may not be seen primarily as a change in
the property relations, but equally and simultaneously as a change in the
productive forces themselves (and in their subjective reflection in individu-
als). The limits of growth imposed by the limits of earth make it necessary

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Summary of Discussions 179

to work at once for a conscious direction of the main social processes,

without waiting for the triumph of socialism or communism. This con-

scious direction must: (1) define new values and priorities (which take into
account the purpose of survival) and establish the foundations of a new
morality in accordance with such values; and (2) define the guidelines
along which economic activities must be organized.
This is what I call the »growing role of subjectivity in every current pro-
ject of socialisms If this is true, we must rethink the role of social actors.
Leaving apart the crucial role of popular movements in the third world
(this is a very important subject, which would deserve a large reflection), I

think that the working classes in capitalist industrial countries can retain a
historical role — for survival and for communism — only if:

(1) they fully assume the program for survival; this supposes a con-
fluence of socialist and communist labour movement with ecologist and
other similiar social movements, and an assumption of another system of
priorities (which take into account a certain level of austerity, other
relations with the third world, etc.) in terms of trade-unionist and political
practice;

(2) they define new relations between the working-class movement as

such and the state in capitalist countries: the state is the main and most ef-

fective instrument of conscious collective action in a modern society; in

the foreseeable need to transform productive apparatuses, to convert in-
dustrial activities, to modify consumption habits —
all of it in massive

proportions — the state may appear as an unavoidable instrument when

is not enough. (In this context, the old polemics, inside
social consent
Marxism, between reformism and revolutionism, in connection with capi-
talist state, must be restated in other terms.)

Thomas Heilmann

Summary of Discussions

Because of the broad range of problems raised by the papers and contri-
butions, the area covered in the discussion was also wide. The questions
raised in the discussion were:
a) the nature of the actual conflicts in society; b) the question of the
»form of the state« or »forms of the state«; c) the nature of the current
crisis; d) the relations between the welfare state and social democracy;

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
1 80 Thomas Heilmann

e) economy«; f) the reasons for

the question of the »last instance of the
the breakdown within the present »long wave«; and g) the question of
centralism and decentralisation.
a) Joachim Hirsch argued in his paper that the conflicts organizing the
new social movements cannot be understood as traditional class struggles.
Baber Johansen, then asked whether this also holds true for the bour-
geoisie. In his answer, Hirsch referred to the processes of the restructuring
of the bourgeoisie due to its integration in the world market.
itself,

b)Elmar Altvater's contribution »Form or Forms of the State?« (not

included in the present volume) gave occasion to a number of interven-
tions. Furio Cerutti asked for the status of the »forms of the state-form«
stemming from the Marxian conception of the economic genesis of the
state. Are the »forms« mere specific forms or specifically political forms

for the regulation of the social and institutional problems and conflicts?
Or do these forms have their own autonomy? Joachim Hirsch did not
agree with Altvater's answer that the correct answer to his initial question
is »forms«. We have to maintain the notion of »the form of the state«, he

said. Herbert Bosch pleaded for the maintaining of a general concept of

the state, too, and added: »but a critical one«. Altvater's denial of the
need for a general concept of the state also occasioned criticism from Ge-
org Lohmann, who mentioned that if we make use of the notion »forms«
as Altvater did, we miss a theory of the development of »form«. Baber
Johansen went in the same direction in criticizing Altvater's functionalists
theory of state as not being very precise. In his final comment Altvater ex-
plained that the notion of form cannot be abandoned. Movements are
proceeding in forms and the forms are changing. So we have to think the
»forms« within a »meta-form«.
c) As opposed to Altvater's view, Joachim Hirsch insisted on the point

that the current crisis is not only an economic one, but also a political and
an ideological one. The new social movements can be seen as indicators of
the current crisis. Rachel Sharp argued that an economic crisis has never
brought forth a deep political crisis. Expectations in this direction are in-
appropriate and dangerous.
d) The relation between the welfare state and social democracy was
commented on after Altvater's statement that along with the failure of
Keynesian democracy and the welfare state were entering a
politics social
state of crisis. Donald Sassoon doubted the strict connection between the
welfare state and social democracy, for the different welfare states were
evidencing different political compositions. Economic planning does not
come from democracy, but is rather Keynes' proposition. Altvater
social
argued that it can be doubted whether social democracy has always been
at the beginning of the welfare state. But this is more or less a question of
terms.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 1

Summary of Discussions 18

e) According to Chantal Mouffe, Joachim Hirsch's explanation that the

actual crisis resultsfrom the connection between the tendency of the profit
rate to fall and the exploitation of labour relies on the concept of the last in-
stance of »the economics Hirsch replied that he was not able to answer
Chantal Mouffe 's question, but continued that to substitute the concept of
base and superstructure by that of articulation would generate more prob-
lems than would be solved by such a substitution. Hirsch showed at the
sametime a tendency towards the notion of »the economic in the last in-

stances
f) Karl H Tjaden raised the problem of the causes of the breakdown of
the actual long wave. Although no direct answer was found to his question,

some hints were given in the statements on the international dimensions of

economic expansion: the failure of Keynesian economics with regard to the
internationalization of capital accumulation.

g) Although Baber Johansen asked the speakers to explain more ex-

plicitly the political consequences of their papers, there was, in fact, a lot of
political reasoning in the discussion. Michael Jager's pleading for a general
decentralization found opposition in Jozsef Bayer's comment, which criti-
cized Jager's conception of power as insufficient. Neither do Soviets contra-
dict centralism nor is Stalinism a result of centralism. According to Bayer,
the reason for centralism in the states of »real socialism« is not theoretical
but political. Under the given political conditions of these states, the anti-
state trend cannot be a real political alternative. Detlev Aiders also commen-
ted on this point. He doubted if the only democratic alternative to the pre-
sent conditions can consist in decentralization. Albers made thereby re-

ference to Ingrao's concept of »mass democracy«. Rachel Sharp, on the

other hand, pointed out that the internationalization of the economies could
be an obstacle to the proposed democratization, for decision-making is

going beyond the national states, foremost in the field of economy.

With reference to Heidenreich, Herbert Bosch criticized the connection
drawn between the breakdown of some traditional value structures and the
declining of parties. It would make more sense, Bosch argued, to discuss
this problem in the context of competence/incompetence structures also

provided by the parties and the state apparatuses.

Erich Wulff, finally, asked KarlH Tjaden if there is a Marxist theory of
the reproduction of natural resources, which was clearly denied by Tjaden.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
182

Erich Wulff

Farewell to Marxist Eschatology

I will treat here the following problem: The time needed to achieve Com-

munism, via the passage through Socialism, has, as it seems, become un-
foreseeable. What does this mean to us, Marxists today?
Marx and Engels thought that revolution would take place in a near
future and a new era would begin; a classless society, in which the state
would wither away and each would receive according to his needs and
contribute according to his capacities, and where, last but not least, a new
person would emerge. Thus the generation of children or at least the
grandchildren of those who fought for this aim would be able to have the
benefits of the struggle, people they know and love and for whom the are
ready to sacrifice. Lenin and comrades in struggle still lived in this ex-
his
pectation, as well as later, in the Komintern during the period of armed
revolutions, at least until the bloody repression of the revolutionary move-
ment in China in 1927. For this goal the workers went into the streets pre-
pared to make sacrifices, and if necessary, even to die. After this period
came fascism and World War II. In the Soviet Union Stalinism killed
nearly as many lives as the war itself. Nevertheless, at the end of World
War II the communist resistance movement in Western Europe again
hoped to be able to raise the question of power, at least in Europe itself,

thus giving the other continents a drive towards the transition to Socia-
lism. All these hopes had been deceived. Instead of world revolution,
there emerged two blocs of nearly equal power, each being able to destroy
the other completely by nuclear war. This development has perpetuated
the territorial borders, at least in Europe, as well as the borderline between
Capitalism and Socialism. A modification of this balance of power seems
to be possible only in Africa, Asia and Latin America, in the Third World,
and even there more and more only at the risk of an escalating war. At the
same time environmental problems reached a critical point as the survival
of mankind in the medium term depended on its readiness to link future
economic growth and technological development to the prevention of eco-
logical damage caused by it, and at the same time to take care that the ex-
ploited natural resources are restored by recycling processes, by the repro-
duction of nature.
Considering these problems Wolfgang Harich, among others, came to
the conclusion that the communist goal no longer includes a long-term wi-
thering away of the state, the general satisfaction of needs and the emer-
gence of a totally developed personality (a new man), but that this aim
could only be realized, first, by the distribution of goods under conditions

ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 ©

Farewell to Marxist Eschatology 1 83

of an unevitable shortage and, secondly, by the control of measures for

ecological survival, a kind of eco-communist educational dictatorship.
These two factors, first the confrontation of two giant powers, both
wasting most of their resources on an arms race fostered by the capitalist
bloc, and, secondly, the necessity to use additional resources for the pre-
vention of ecological destruction, reduce economic growth and thus affect
the lives, wishes and anxieties of millions of people. It is here that I will re-

consider what could be called Marxist eschatology.

One may say that these considerations are not quite new, that scientific
socialists never did count on eschatological expectations and that you need
just revolutionary patience. But, I do not think that this answer is very sa-
tisfactory. Eschatologicalhopes have been virulent in socialism right up to
party and state leaders until the 1960s and even in the beginning of the
1970s. Khrushchev wanted to overtake the USA economically within 20
years. In the GDR, in 1961, after the open expropriations due to a loss of
all kinds of skilled personel to West Germany, one could observe a rapid
economic growth realized with the availability and high quality of distri-
buted goods. This was an argument for the hope to overcome West Ger-
many economically in the forseeable future. The line of reasoning was
that even if world revolution is not in sight, you could hope for an econo-
mic development which would cause a political liberalisation.This would
strenghten the general attraction of socialism and would thus influence a
whole way of thinking, the attitudes and the readiness to identify with the
socialist states.

But even this limited solution, the mini-paradise on earth, never came
to fruition. Even where consistent economic successes and certain public
liberties were attained, like in Hungary, it was due just as much to the
reintroduction of a partly private economy as to a developed socialist
economy. What follows is my thesis that the eschatological hopes in an
unforeseeable future have been dissolved and the time-perspective of com-
munism has been deeply changed.
How will this problematic time-perspective of communism affect
people in their real and ideology? Daily life in socialism will, for some
lives

unforeseeable time, remain focussed on the necessity to survive and on the

distribution of goods. It will be necessary to convince people to accept
this, but coercion and intervention by state power will be unavoidable as
well. Will such a perspective suffice to motivate people to work hard and
to accept sacrifices? And very modest outlook for the forseeable
will this
future play a positive role compared with the development in the capitalist
countries, especially if we compare both realities and not only, as we tend
to do, compare capitalist reality and socialist aims?
It's not easy to give a satisfactory answer to these two questions. Offi-

cial philosophy in the socialist countries has never posed them. To do so

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
184 Erich Wulff

would mean to expel Marxist eschatology from one's discourses, or at

least, to displace it to a possible, but very distant development of humani-
ty, rather than presenting it as a scientifically plausible perspective in the
short- or medium-term future. In other words one would have to give up
the realistic element in Marxist eschatology, which makes it different from
religion; its scientific, rational and planable character. This would also
mean destroying its fascination for modern man in its relation to scientific
rationality and replacing it by a purely utopic element, a kind of »hope
principal.
No one among the leaders of the communist parties is, as far as I know,
ready to do this. Isn't it, in fact, the communist goal, which gives dignity
and emotional charge to every demand for the fulfillment of the plan and
to the announcement of its fulfillment? And didn't it justify every pain,
every sacrifice as well, of which many were of questionable means? Such
justifications were not just ethical or moral with irrational foundations;
no, they had their reasons in scientifically argued goals. It would have
been unreasonable, even unjustifiable, to abolish even questionable
measures leading to a quicker attainment of a scientifically foreseeable
paradise on earth, a world of freedom where nobody would be forced to
sacrifice.

Both, the mobilising and motivating force of the communist aim for all

planning measures, for every political decision, as well as the legitimation

of means by goals would be threatened if »really existing socialism« and
its philosophy would have to give up Marxist eschatology. Plans and
measures would have to be justified much more by their direct use to
people carrying them out, or at least to their children, grandchildren,

friends, neighbours. They would lose their transcendent historical charac-

ter and come down to more human dimensions.
Without the will to correct the eschatology discourses thought and
language is soon split up into two different and totally separated levels.
The official version is translated into a magic conjuration of reality, which
everybody is obliged, to repeat as a kind of liturgy. The emphasis on every
announcement of a little step towards the fulfillment of the Plan which —
would well be understandable if it related to. foreseeable goals in a measur-
able distance —
has the same empty and somewhat ridiculous tone we
know from the Neues Deutschland or the TV-news, »Aktuelle Kamera«,
in the GDR. I really don't want to diminish or underestimate the real
achievements, which have been realized and announced, but the pathetic
tone seems to be justifiable only in terms of a foreseeable time-perspective
of classless society.

Furthermore, if an eschatological discourse is not corrected, private and

official versions of the same events will become more and more separated.
One will concentrate more and more on the individual use and will thus

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Farewell to Marxist Eschatology 1 85

lose its links to general social progress, while the latter will serve more and
more as a rhetorical justification of private advantages and privileges.

Thus, the official discourse becomes automatically »false consciousness«

and in this sense ideological. One can make such observations from the
GDR to Vietnam.
What does all this mean to people considering themselves socialists,
especially in the socialist countries?
1. If the links between private and official discourses, of acts and
words, disappears, Marxist concepts and the moral and ethical values de-
rived from them can no longer be incorporated into everyone's identity
and cannot become part of their needs and wishes, or, worse, they fulfill
this function in a perverse and absurd way by serving individual interests

and careers in a cynical and instrumental way.

2. If the achievement of goals (satisfaction of needs, withering away of

the state, emergence of a totally developed personality) become unforesee-

able, then real readyness for sacrifice will be reduced. The limitation of
our own lives, the concrete —
and limited —
solidarity between men be-
comes more important than abstract goals and duties related to a distant
future. In other words, human beings do not so easily forget that they will
die one day and that in this perspective their wives, children, neigbours
and friends are closer to them than mankind in general. If it is possible to
work for both, this would be very satisfacory. If not, the immediate or
foreseeable needs, wishes and social relations will have priority. The pre-
sent time and near future will have more weight than the long-term future.
Sacrifices would become acceptable only in in the name of a foreseeable
and scientifically understandable future.
Such an evolution of thinking, feeling and wishing opens up new possi-
bilities. It is always useful to ask somebody who is proposing sacrifices, to
tell you, when you some results of them; and when results are
will see

seen, what questionable means were used to reach these honorable goals.
This will certainly provoke new contradictions and new suffering; a lot of
things may not be done at all. However, it does not necessarily mean to
close your eyes completely in the face of problems whose solutions may
lay in a very distant future. But it forces us to distinguish between things
we know and others which, for a still indefinite time, will be open, undeci-
ded, perhaps obscure or even unsolvable. The former we will have to take
into account in our general understanding. The latter we should deal only
with great precaution, and we should not ask everybody to sacrifice him-
self for such a still-irrational future, if we want to be scientific socialists in
the spirit of Marx.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
186

Wieland Elfferding

The Relevance of the

Withering- Away-of-the-State Thesis

1 . Could human emancipation be advanced beyond the limited results of

the French Revolution? Only if the people involved in the struggles were
to break with the naturalisation and idealisation of the political form of
Marx's early works could be put under the common head-
their struggles.
ing »Critique of Politics«: a deconstruction of state-directed politics as the
natural and reasonable solution of social antagonisms. Politics was ana- 1

lysed as a certain alienated form of social unity which integrated without

overcoming social antagonisms. How could man —
this was how Marx
put it — re-appropriate his sociality now concentrated in political agencies
and the citizen, the »second nature« of himself? 2 Marx's formulation of
the problem remained primarily within the conceptual framework of tra-
ditional political philosophy: private man on the one hand, state and citi-
zen on the other.
2. The critique of politics and the analysis of private property as a key

to understanding the antagonisms of given society took Marx on to the

critique of political economy? Marx did not replace the former problema-
tic by the analysis of class relations, but reformulated it: What are the so-
cial conditions for »self-government« and are they, in some sense, prepar-
ed in capitalist class society? In the later works we always find formulas
articulating the class character with the autonomy of the state. 4 Neither is
reducible to the other; rather a conditional interrelation prevails. Marx
and Engels did not, even if they did use suggestive phrases, predict the
state's withering away. They understood it as a conditional perspective
rooted in class society.
3. is another dimension of the withering away thesis: its heuristic
There
function. The functioning of the present capitalist state can be better un-
derstood if we make reference to non-statist forms of societalization.
Since it can be demonstrated that the basic concepts of the Critique of Po-
litical Economy are constructed as negations of communitarian produc-
tion (see Haug 1972), we could, as far as Marx and Engels are concerned,
show that they conceive of the state as a historical-practical negation of
the association of the producers. 5 So the state can be taken as a historical-
ly relative phenomenon without falling into illusions of the state as a type
of natural law. In this theoretical perspective the state will be analysed in
reference to the popular and class struggles against and around the state,
representing the continued attempts to deconstruct the forms of indirect
societalization and replace them by different forms of self-government.

ARGUMENT- SONDERBAND AS 109 ©

The Relevance of the Withering-A way-of-the-State Thesis 1 87

4. To take the withering-away thesis seriously does not mean to take it

Looking at fascism and at Stalinism as well, but also at the

literally.

»normal« state machines of our time, reveals the formulation itself to be a

mere euphemism. It has to be understood historically within the context
of Marx's and Engels's polemics against anarchism and against the social
democratic concept of a »free people's state«. 6 A re-reading of Marx's
text on the Paris Commune will teach us immediately that he did not think
that the state will wither away practically »by itself«, but that this is a very
active and contradictory process of deconstruction/reconstruction of soc-
ial relations.
The withering-away thesis has become canonised in a veritable revo-
5.

lutionary calendar, and Marx and Engels contributed to its formulation

with some of their phrases: conquering of state power by the proletariat,
using state power for the repression of the capitalists, initiating a social
revolution and, finally, the withering-away of the state. There are good
reasons for just turning the tables: Will not the state have to wither away
in order to let the classes vanish? This line of thinking could shed new light
not only on developed class relations in capitalist countries which are oft-
en analysed as corporatist or neocorporatist, but also on the reproduction
of social antagonisms in the state-socialist countries and the exaggerated
expectations for the withering away of those states.

6. Is it not, really, problematic to hold the thesis of the withering-away

of the state in the face of current anti-statist ideology of right-wing popu-
lism? The question points to the more general problem of the position of
Marxist scepticism about the state within the field of other articulations of
the state. Anti-statism has been the domain of liberalism and Marxism has
been fixed — in its social democratic and its communist version very —
much on the opposite pole: counting on the state for aid and for power
for social change in the interests of the workers. But merely articulating
Marxism with anti-statism would not help very much beyond some con-
juncture sympathies from the edges of some new social movements, be-
cause bourgeois political ideology always played on both sides of the field,

statism and anti-statism. What we can learn form this is that we are not
concerned primarily with anti-statism when we talk about the withering-
away thesis. 7 This is situated
on a different level than the »alternative« of
which only performs an endless play of positions of
statism/anti-statism,
power and counterpower supporting the existence of the state. So, in the
same sense some groups within the social movements run the risk of res-
tricting themselves to a partial position against the state (not necessarily in-
dividualistic, but partial) which could mean an integration by »autonomi-
sation«. A
withering-away of the state means self-rule for society as a
whole, not only for »liberated areas«.
7. When we talk about the withering-away of the state, what is it that is

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
188 WielandElfferding

supposed to wither-away? This question has been actualised by various

kinds of populisms, fascism as well as Stalinism. The key to a proper un-
derstanding of them is not so much authoritarianism as the plebiscitarian
constitution of the masses as subjects of »mobilisation«. Deconstructing
certain institutions of the parliamentary state, they organise a seeming
»withering-away of the state«, a »politization« of society as a whole by
the repression of hegemonic political practices.
This type of politics operates within the dialectics of statism/anti-
statism and has, in fact, nothing to do with the withering-away of the sta-

te. Althusser and Poulantzas have dealt with the problem by emphasizing
the necessary deconstruction of the bourgeois state apparatuses and by
suggesting scepticism against the withering-away thesis, because it would
support the rationalistic vision of an »organic community«. But there is,

in fact, an ambiguity in Althusserianism, in so far as there are two compe-

ting concepts of the state underlying these ideas: even as critique the exten-
sion of the concept of »state apparatuses« over all of society remains with-
in the fortress-conception of politics and of the here we are, and the-
state:

re are the »bourgeois state apparatuses« and we have to destroy them.

The fear of an authoritarian, »organic community«, on the other hand, is
concerned with the social relations, the forms of socialization in a future
society. A deconstruction of the »bourgeois state apparatuses« can, as the
experience of the Soviet Union demonstrates, lead to a reinforcement of
the state apparatuses, because the underlying social relations had not been
similarly changed. But why should we try to escape this dialectic by aban-
doning the perspective of self-managed, non-statist social relations? What
is going to »wither-away« is not primarily a kind of extractable »organ«
of society, but a certain type of social relations of incompetence for the
»big questions, which has its material side in the state apparatuses and
their characteristic practices.
8. Finally, there are objections to the withering-away thesis which refer
to the fact that the state in advanced capitalism today differs heavily from
what Marx and Engels knew as the »state« because of the »complexity«
and overall interdependence of »modern society«. With most of these ob-
jections one can just turn the tables: are there really any serious proposals
for the solution of the ecological, economic and military problems of the
world which rely on the state as the main political form? The crisis of the
welfare state, the negative effects of state regulation of the environment
and the arms race driven by states point very much to the thesis that non-
statist forms may be much more able to provide solutions.
9. But there are at least two respects in which the present capitalist state
really differs from what Marx and Engels knew: its »total« and interna-
tional characters. Against the first aspect Poulantzas made the point that
we should not theorize the development as an »expansion« of the state,

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
The Relevance of the Withering-A way-of-the-State Thesis 1 89

because this would assert that the »liberal state« was in some sense outside
society —
which is not true. But it is also true that one of the main experi-
ences of people with the state in the last, say, 50 years is that it has pene-
trated by regulation one field of social life an argu-
after the other. This is

ment against the withering-away thesis only if we think of the state as an

organ, as the »bones« of a society which would collapse if we drew them
out of the social body. But looked upon in terms of competing competen-
ces of rule-from-above and self-rule of the people, this ongoing process is
one aspect of the sharpening crisis of the capitalist state (by the right mis-
takenly expressed as an »overburdening« of the state).
10. The second objection may be thought to be the more serious one:
has not the state, understood as the national state, already »withered-
away« in the sense that people are more and more confronted not with the
effects of »their« state but with those of international political regulations

of life (in the economy as well as in the developing field of mass communi-
cation and, of course, in the militarisation of social life)? This is true, but
itwould present an objection to the withering-away thesis only if one ask-
ed: what will replace the national »fortress«? And one recognizes that this
»fortress« has already been breached to a certain extent. But, first, we will
have to think of the social relations we call the »state« as internationally
constituted relations from the beginning: the constitution of the »citizen«
as a national subject means its historical positioning within a set of na-
tional states with certain changing interrelations. Secondly, it is one of the
most important tasks for Marxist theory to develop the idea of state-rela-
tions in the international sphere instead of thinking this sphere as being
»free« from state-relations or »inter-state« (and, consequently, conceiving
of the international corporations, the international communications sys-
tems, etc. as »undermining« the existing states, etc.). When we are talking
about the » withering-away of the state«, we will have to talk about the so-
cialization of these agencies as well.

Notes
1 See MEW 1, dem Artikel eines PreuBen«,
402, »Kritische Randglossen zu
where Marx draws a line from the French Revolution to a concep-
explicitly
tion of politics as being free from social antagonism.
2 See MEW 1, 370, »Zur Judenfrage«.

3 See MEW 1, 390, »Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie.

Einleitung«, where Marx indicates that a certain class, the proletariat, consti-
tutes the possibility for emancipation. See -also MEW 1, 420.
4 See e.g. MEW 4, 482, »Kommunistisches Manifesto MEW 20, 261 f., En-
gels, »Anti-Diihring«.
5 Note the difference between »Revolution« = »Zerstorung«, »Aufl6sung«
and »organisierende Tatigkeit« in socialism, which is not political, 1, MEW
409. See also MEW
17, 341, Marx, »Biirgerkrieg in Frankreich«.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
190 FriederO. Wolf

6 See MEW 34, 128f. , Engels to A. Bebel 18./28. March 1875, a critique of the
Gotha Programme.
7 For a quite different position see Frieder Otto Wolfs contribution to this vol-
ume.

Literature

Althusser, L., 1977: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. London.

Bensussan, G. and G. Labica (eds.), 1982: Dictionnaire critique du marxisme.
Paris. (German translation forthcoming in Argument-Verlag: Kritisches
Worterbuch des Marxismus.)
Haug, W.F., 1972: Die Bedeutung von Standpunkt und sozialistischer Perspecti-
ve fur die Kritik der politischen Okonomie. In: Das Argument 74, 561-585.
MEW = Marx-Engels Werke. Berlin/DDR 1956ff.
Poulantzas, N., 1978: State, Power, Socialism. London.

Frieder O. Wolf

The Future of Marxist Politics

Problems and Retractions on the »Withering Away of the State«

I must confess that in my article Diesseits und Jenseits der »Staats-Poli-

tik« (Wolf 1983a) I had been skating on thin ice, and doing so in so much
of a hurry to get to my destination that I was hardly aware of just how
thin it was. 1 Having arrived on thicker ice now, I am able to look back
with self-critical eyes. 2

I still think that the only way to advance towards an understanding of

the »extra-statal« character of subversive, revolutionary politics that is

neither cynical nor Utopian is to analyze, develop and correct the classical
Marxist thesis of the »withering away of the state« as a necessary effect of
of transition towards a classless, communist
class struggle in the process
society.have no intention to go back on my proposal that such a devel-
I

opment should be searched for in the historical contribution of our con-

temporary »alternative movements«, not however »forgetting« the devel-
opment of similar notions that Lenin has been able to achieve within the
process of the Russian revolution. Nor shall I retract my thesis that the ex-
tra-statal character of their struggles —
which for each of them has a spe-
cific content — constitutes a dimension of alliances between substantially
different social movements, such as the women's liberation movement,
the ecological movement, and the labour movement. Also, I hold on to

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
The Future of Marxist Politics 191

the suggestion that such a new type of alliance will generate new models of
subversive, revolutionary politics, strategic orientations and forms of or-
ganization, though they cannot simply »drop out« from the network of
power politics or »by-pass« the institutionalized politics constitutive of the
»modern state«.
1) It may, however, be asked, have I tried to think out in advance, in an

unacceptably Utopian manner, what might become the characteristic fea-

tures of communist, classless societies — trying to find answers to ques-
tions that are not yet on our historical agenda? I do not think so, although
I have occasionally stumbled into formulations that sound like positive

determinations of the »good life« (or might be so construed).

I will therefore try to correct this possible impression by insisting upon
the double-edged critical nature of my intervention. That is to say, it is an
attempt to demolish that type of Marxist »universalism« that claims an
imaginary competence for explaining all dimensions of struggles and real-

ities of the historical formations in which we live, and it is also trying to

expose ecologistic and feminist positions which effectively construct their
specific fields of struggle (and of inquiry) in such a way as to render these
fields incompatible with proletarian, anti-capitalist struggles. 3 I do not,
therefore, put forward the illusory claim to a new theoretical synthesis
which would integrate so-called »old« and »new« movements. My inten-
tion is more realistic and more limited: it is to formulate an articulate pat-
tern of counterpositions against various attempts to construct relations of
incompatibility — or even of antagonism — between proletarian, anti-
capitalist struggles and ecologist struggles against the ruinous exploitation
of the natural conditions of our survival or feminist struggles against pa-
triarchal structures of subordination. And I want to do this without relap-
sing into the for me totally unacceptable arrogance of considering all non-
proletarian struggles as mere »auxiliary« ones.
2) The central, not yet fully explicated thesis of my before mentioned
paper hinges upon a combination of two approaches. First, there is the
idea of a disarticulation and disautonomization of that complex pattern of
political power apparatuses4 that makes up »the state« which a mate- —
rialist investigation will best be able to grasp by starting from Machiavelli's

notion of »lo stato«, rather than from the later ideological constructions
of »the state« as opposed to »the society« —
as a theoretical successor to
the provisory, still philosophical notion of the »withering away of the sta-
te« with its additions of Saint-Simonian.Utopianism and of Hegelian
»statism« in many of Marx's formulations (cf. Balibar 1981). Second, we
have the conception of the specifically »extra-statal« character of modern
subversive socialmovements as the common ground of their possible ar-
and alliance. The combination of both approaches has led me to
ticulation
focus on what I think to be a significant tendency inherent in our present

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
192 FriederO. Wolf

historical situation: the unfolding of converging political struggles of auto-

nomous movements, each relying upon the support of the other in
social
breaking the (symbolic and factual) sutures of the existing »system of
dominations without however fusing into a homogenous movement
characterized by the negation of the specific content of each respective
struggle within a larger movement. The peace movement, e.g., is a politi-
cal movement articulating (without subsuming or even integrating or
unifying) a variety of social movements. It is also a movement developing
in conjunction with another tendency which I see at work: the gradual
constitution of a new type of political party developing »from below« in a
variety of very different conditions within the international political land-
scape. These developments e.g. the Green Party and regional Alternative
parties (Alternative Listen) herald in the FRG in a specific way, as did the
populist working-class movement Solidarnosc in Poland or as did the first
practical beginnings of »critical communism« (e.g. I'union dans les luttes)
in France.
I think we must begin to understand today that subversive politics do
not start with some future »seizure of power«, but have to commence
long before — and to continue after such a seizure for an extended histori-
cal period, i.e. during the period of transition to communism. In my
afore-mentioned paper I have tried to outline such an »alternative-
communist« development of the old notion of the »dictatorship of the
proletariat as the indispensable political power structure — being, as Le-
nin has said, a »half-state«, working actively on its own dissolution as a
separate power-structure — for the period of transition from the present
form of bourgeoisie class domination (articulated by patriarchal subordi-
nation and ecological irresponsibility) 5 to a still distant eco-feminist-
communist society that will be in the process of freeing itself from all
kinds of autonomized apparatuses of political domination.
3) My theoretical hypothesis can be approached as an intervention
within theory: on the one hand, I take up some recent formulations of
Althusser on the »position« and »com-position« of concepts which con-
stitute the »interiority/exteriority« of theoretical fields (Althusser 1978);

on the other hand, I adopt a critical counterposition against Touraine's

idea of an »auto-production of society«.
Firstly, I maintain that neither ecological nor feminist struggles can be
fruitfully subsumed under the theoretical field of Marxist theory as consti-
tuted by Marx's concepts of value, capital, surplus-value, etc. The key
concepts for these theoretical fields are not to be found in Marxist
theory. 6
At best, they are present in a muted way in such concepts as »use-
value« and the »reproduction of the capacity for labour«. Although I do
not plan to develop »other« theoretical fields here, I will nevertheless try

to show that their theoretical constitution presupposes an epistemological

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
The Future of Marxist Politics 1 93

break with the dominating ideological positions of »naturalism/human-

ism« on the one hand, and with some sexist and biologistic conceptions of
matriarchy on the other.
In doing so I give special attention to the ideology which uses specious
ecological arguments to prove the impossibility of overcoming any kind of
autonomized form of political domination (as e.g. in Harich 1973) basing
itself upon ecological considerations. Harich is right in rejecting the naive
idea of a straightforward material abundance, but I think he is dead

wrong jumping to the conclusion that the supposed insatiable »greed«

in
of human beings must be fettered by some political power erected above
them; similarly I oppose the position that patriarchy must be simply re-
placed by matriarchy. Such a position is, again, helpful; perhaps, in de-
stroying the —
for some —
attractive illusion of an »androgynous order«
(cf. Marcuse), but it goes astray in failing to consider the possibility of a

»poly-order« of sex/gender-relations which to me seems the only type of

social ordering which points to a society capable of reproducing itself
without depending on the intervention of an autonomized political power
apparatus.
Secondly, I maintain that there is a common feature to all kinds of so-
cial relations articulated within capitalist domination — despite their dif-
ferences in respect to content (the class relation of exploitation between
capital and labour; the ecological relation of industrialized production,
parasitic and destructive of existing bio-systems; the patriarchal relation of
subordination between men and women). Their common feature consists
in the impossibility of an autonomous reproduction of these relations
without the more or less continuous intervention of autonomized political
power apparatuses. More simply, there is no »auto-production of society«
(Touraine) in modern bourgeois society. 7
Nevertheless, I do think that it is possible —
if one is careful not to fall

into the delusionof an »identity of subject and object« to clarify and —

to reformulate the Marxian idea of an »internal connection« between the
overcoming of all types of class domination and the so-called »withering
away of the state« — liberating it simultaneously from the Hegelian illus-

ion of an automatic coincidence of the »general emancipation of man«

with proletarian revolution and of the Saint-Simonian illusion that there
may exist an entirely harmonic type of society, where there would exist a
mere non-political »administration of things« In other words there is, as I
.

see it, a necessary connection between the struggle against social relations
articulated within the present »system of domination and the struggle
against the autonomization of political power apparatuses (be they ideolo-
gical, bureaucratic, or repressive). The connection between these two

kinds of struggle is a real, developing one. As such it poses the project of

approaching the so-called »withering away of the state« not as a result

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
194 FriederO. Wolf

that will automatically proceed if certain societal conditions are met, but
as an already existing tendency of class struggle that has to be taken up by
a of political struggles to be carried on in an active and intelli-
specific set
gent way.
4) My argument does not presuppose »the state« as an obvious entity,
as some »thing« that will vanish some day. Conceiving »the state« as a
historically given pattern of »situations of power« and »power apparatu-
ses^ as an articulated whole, the unity of which has to be concretely ac-
counted for, makes us aware of another neglected dimension of the prob-
lematics of the » withering away of the state«: that it means something
concretely different according to the specific historical pattern the decon-
struction of which is to be achieved in class struggle. This applies not only
to the national specificity of singular nation-states, which would be more
or less trivial. It also applies to divergent historical lines of development of
the modern state, as e.g. the continental line of state-types leading up to
the Prusso-German (and Russian) »fortress-state« or the Anglo-Saxon
line of development culminating in the US- American »state-as-a-paradox-
ical-space« (cf. Pecheux 1983), which opens up a line of explanation for
the relative unsuccessfulness of traditional revolutionary politics, after the
extension of the »paradoxical-space« type state on the European conti-
nent after the Second World War, which confronted subversive move-
ments with a radically altered pattern of tasks. And it also applies to dif-
ferent historical periods —
the state of the Taylorist »regime of accumula-
tion^ e.g., not being the same entity as the state ofthe Fordist period of
history —
thereby helping us to understand the necessary discontinuity of
subversive, extra-statal politics.
5) me make clear that do not want to revive — as were, ex ne-
Let it I it

gative* — the idea of an autonomous »political sphere« or »political in-

stance« . I conceive of the specific field of the dissolution of all »separate«

political power and apparatuses (and here I do not include all
situations
types of ideological mechanisms and effects) on the theoretical level as
being constituted not by some key concepts of their own (be it »state«,
»power« or »hegemony«), but to be the result of a »com-position« of the
theoretical fields in Marxism, of ecological, and of feminist theory.

Notes
1 Etienne Balibar and Michael Lucas have done a lot to make me aware of this
— after the act.
2 This self-criticism applies even more to my earlier approaches to these prob-
lems, published in Portugal in 1977-1980, when was
I still a prisoner, albeit a
rebellious one, of an essentialist reading of Marx.
3 While I tend to agree that the category of »the proletariat designates a con-
and that the question of its effective constitution is
tingent historical agent,
an empirical question of historical fact, I would maintain that a category for

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
The Future ofMarxist Politics 195

class struggle and for proletarian class struggle constitute indispensable cat-
egories of Marxist theory.
4 The abstract concept of »power apparatus« (in the sense of a set of mech-
anisms that (re-)produce power) is not invalidated by the observation that
there are possibilities of further conceptual differentiation. What needs fur-
ther clarification is the notion of »power«.

5 For a rough sketch of the present military-Keynesian model in crisis, cf Lu- .

cas 1982 and Lucas & Wolf 1983.

6 That is only to say that they are not included within the specific, limited prob-
lematics of Marxist theory —
not to deny that they do occur in a number of
Marxist writings (cf. Wolf 1983b).
Althusser 1978,
7 The concrete question of an »alteraative party building« (or of »party build-
ing from below«) is much too complex to deal with here, but I maintain that,
if its problematics is not constructed from the point of view of the struggles

for the »deconstruction of the state« (in a given country, with regard to a spe-
cific type of state, and within a determinate historical period), there is no-
thing that may prevent »alternative politics« from falling into the trap of
»the state« —
and even in a much more naive and devastating manner —
which has already quite effectively trapped the political currents of the »old«
labour movement, be its anarchist, its reformist or its communist tendencies.

Literature

Althusser, Louis, 1978: Avant-propos. In: Dumenil, G.: Le concept de loi econo-
mique dans »Le Capital«. Paris (German version in Prokla 50, Berlin 1983.)
Balibar, Etienne, 1981: Dictature du proletariat. In: Dictionnaire critique du
marxisme. Paris
Harich, W., 1973: Kommunismus ohne Wachstum! Reinbek
Lucas, M., 1982: Die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika und das Ende des Kalten-
Kriegs-Systems. In: Prokla 48, Berlin
Lucas, M. & F.O. Wolf, 1983: Okologiebewegung und Klassenkampf. In: Mo-
derne Zeiten 5/83
Pecheux, Michel, 1983: Ideology: Fortress or Paradoxical Space. In: Hanninen,
S. & Paldan, L. (eds.): Rethinking Ideology, Argument-Sonderband 84, Ber-
lin. (German version in Das Argument 139, Berlin 1983.)
Wolf, F.O., 1983a: Diesseits und Jenseits der »Staats-Politik«. In: Aktualisie-
rung Marx, Argument-Sonderband 100, Berlin
Wolf, F.O., 1983b: Am Kapital arbeiten! In: Prokla 50, Berlin

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
196

Sakari Hanninen

Summary of Discussions

The discussion about the position papers given on »The Withering Away
of the State« was lively Two broad themes were
but not very condense.
discussed and one was touched upon. The
theme was that taken up
first

by Erich Wulff m »Farewell to Marxist Eschatology«, or in what terms

should we talk about socialism/communism, now that we do not see it in
the immediate future. The second theme was the one raised by Wieland
Elfferding and Frieder Otto Wolf in »The Withering Away of the State.«
Three subquestions were covered here:
i) what are we talking about when we talk about the withering away of
the state;
ii) the nation-state relation;
iii) the question of democracy.
The third theme, the connection between the working class movement and
the new social movements, was not discussed in so much depth.
On the theme »Farewell to Marxist Eschatology«, widespread unanimi-
ty existed with Erich Wulffs thesis that we have to speak in real terms,
that we have to have discourses that are rooted in reality: we have to call
mountains mountains and plains plains. The subsequent discussion on so-
cialism was nevertheless not very successful in this respect. Many specifi-
cations were, however, made. A few examples.
Wieland Elfferding asked Erich Wulff: what about the fact that people
are working themselves in Poland into the direction of the withering away
of the state and that in their economic reforms they wanted to phrase the
goals operationally without abolishing the ideological function of the
goals. Erich Wulff replied that he is not sure whether we should use the
term »withering away of the state« to describe the struggles in Poland and
that the socialist discourses, also with medium or short-term goals, are
penetrated or covered by »eschatologist vocabulary«.
Karl H. Tjaden, Frigga Haug, and Jozsef Bayer all took up questions
concerning the differences between the socialist and capitalist countries,
and discourses. Tjaden stressed that there are strong efforts in the socialist
countries to satisfy the needs of the people but that mistakes in planning
and the external pressure give rise to shortcomings. Bayer reminded that
socialism is under scientific discussion in the socialist countries and that it
is stressed in this discussion that when evaluating socialism we must re-

member the retardation of the social preconditions and the effect of the
system competition, both of which necessarily strenghten the role of the
state. Frigga Haug, on her part, emphasized that the battles or battlefields

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Summary of Discussions 197

present in the capitalist and socialist countries differ from each other: the
building of socialism is not a heroic task but one of everyday life. —
Pfefferer-Wolf dXso referred to Erich Wulffs position paper and stressed
the urgency to develop a Marxist psychology of time in order to be able to
confront the life-time of individuum. I myself think that when speaking of
the farewell to Marxist eschatology personally, this — a phenomenology
of temporality —an important dimension. Unfortunately, Erich Wulff
is

only touched upon the subject when he described his experiences of inti-
macy and intellectual exchange while visiting the socialist countries.
The second part of the discussions covered the theme of the withering
away of the state. Many questions were voiced as to what we mean when
speaking of the withering away of the state. Donald Sassoon said that a
state conceptualized not as a sum of instrumentalities but as a system of
social relations is a necessary conception to be held if we speak about the
withering away of the state. Wolfgang Fritz Haug stressed that instead of
»The New Metaphysics« we need »The New Dialectics«, which is a practi-
cal one, in order to see that the withering away of the state is always simul-
taneously a legitimating and a rebellious conception. Ernesto Laclau em-
phasized that the entity that is meant to wither away is the real problem,
and that if we do not distinguish between the state seen as a liberating for-
ce which combats the dissolution of society and the experience of bureau-
cracy, we cannot combat the problem either. It is, according to Laclau,
only in the latter case that we can use the term. Frieder Otto Wolf pointed
out that we have to correct the concept of the withering away of the state
from its Saint-Simonian and Hegelian formulations. In his answer, Wie-
land Elfferding said that we should perhaps also replace the question of
the withering away of the state by the question of how political compe-
tences/incompetences operate.
The second subtheme was the nation-state relation. Thomas Heilmann
took up the question by referring to the unequal development of capital-
ism and to the consequent need in the developing countries to build up a
(nation) state, while here in developed capitalism the situation is the oppo-
site. Leopoldo Marmora reacted to this by referring to the experience of
Latin America. He argued for the importance of differentiating the prob-
lematics of the nation (culture) and the state. In Latin America there was
(from above) without the nation. The urgent
at first the inherited state
problem has not been the building of the state but that of internal hege-
mony, the lack of democracy.
Donald Sassoon, then, pointed out that jf we speak about the withering
away of the nation state, we have to remember that it is already withering
away because of tendencies of internationalization. We could, however,
argue for the opposite because international competition seems to compel
the nation states to (ideologically) strengthen their position.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
1 98 Sakari Hdnninen

The third subquestion that was covered concerned the question of de-
mocracy. This question was approached from many viewpoints. Chantal
Mouffe saw a great danger if and when we talk about the disappearance
of politics, or of antagonisms. If the organic community is interpreted in
this way, there is this authoritarian danger — this is part of the reason why
we have to reconstruct the socialist project which necessitates a new con-
ception of democracy. This is the task which Wolfgang Fritz Haug sees
Elfferding just doing. In this respect, Frigga Haug emphasized that Elffer-
ding should not just analyse politics as such, but try to connect it with an
analysis of the problem of work, division of labour, productive forces etc.

This Elfferding found valuable. In this discussion, Wolfgang Fritz Haug,

among others, expressed his sympathies for the Italian efforts (Pietro In-
grao) to try to find the pattern of articulation of these problems concern-
ing democracy. The demand for concretization was something I argued
for when discussing democracy. In this sense, to speak about the need to
build up counter-state powers need not imply the danger of integration in-
to the state, but quite the opposite. This does not reduce to the question of
decentralization only but covers a whole field of concrete questions: re-
sponsitivity, elective principle, participation, national unity, the role of
bureaucracy, etc. This argumentation is similar to what Joszef Bayer ask-
ed for when he emphasized the need to build up institutional guarantees
against the bureaucratic domination. It also seems obvious that this prob-
lematic is linked to the finding that »the state free zones« (in West Berlin)
are to the liking of the neo-conservatives, as Wolfgang Fritz Haug inform-
ed in the discussion. Again, this problematic is connected with Frieder Ot-
to Wolfs position paper, where he wanted to find some common ground
for the possible articulation and alliance of the new social movements.
Frigga Haug still had difficulties in understanding Wolfs conditional
conclusion: how to combine the anticapitalist proletarian struggles with
the new social movements.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
 199

Notes on Contributors
P.= main or latest publications R. = fields of research

Bremen.
Albers, Detlev, 1943; Dr.phil.; Prof, of Political Science, University of
P.: Herforder Thesen. Zur Arbeit von Marxisten in der SPD (co-author, 1980);
Kapitalistische Krise und Strukturen der Eurolinken (editor, 1982); Westeuropai-
sche Gewerkschaften (editor, 1982); Versuche tiber Otto Bauer und Antonio
Gramsci (1983). Co-editor of the spw (review of Marxist social democrats in West
Germany).

Bayer, Joszef, 1946; Dr.phil.; Philosopher, Institute of Philosophy of the Hung-

arian Academy of Sciences. P.: Values and Ideology; The Pluralism and Its Cri-
tics (all in Hungarian).

Bidet, Jacques, 1945; Lecturer, Philosopher, University of Paris. P.: articles on

Marx's Capital, theory of ideology, social theory.

Brentano, Margherita von, 1922; Dr.phil.; Prof, of Philosophy, Freie Universi-

tat Berlin. P.: Philosophic, Theorienstreit, Wissenschaftspluralismus (Argu-
ment-Studienheft SH 3, 1978). R.: Greek Philosophy; Ontology; Philosophy and
History of Science.

Cerutti, Furio, 1938; Associate Professor of Political Philosophy, University of

Florence. P.: Hegel, Lukacs and Korsch, in Telos (No. 26, 1975-76); Totalita, bi-

sogni, organizzazione. Ridiscutendo »Storia e coscienza di classe« (Totality, Hu-

man Needs, Organization. »History and Class Consciousness« Revisited«, 1980);
Marxism e politico (collected papers, 1982); editor of a special issue of Problemi
del socialismo on the crisis of Marxism as a problem of Marxism

Gotten, Jean-Pierre, 1942; Lecturer, Philosopher, University of Caen. P.: Hei-

degger (1974), La pensee de Louis Althusser (1979)

Domenech, Antoni, 1952; Associate Professor of Philosophy and Sociology,

University of Barcelona. P.: articles on philosophy of knowledge, science policy,
ecology and economics, polemology, social philosophy; translation of German
philosophers into Spanish (e.g., Habermas, Harich, Bahro, Jungk). Member of
the editorial board of Materiales and mientras tanto.

Elfferding, Wieland, 1950; Research Fellow, member of the editorial board of

Das Argument.?.: Theorien uber Ideologie (co-author, 1979); Marxismus und
Theorie der Parteien (co-author, 1983). R.: Theory of politics and of parties.

Gransow, Volker, 1945; Dr.phil.; Senior Lecturer, University of Bielefeld. P.:

Mikroelektronik und Freizeit (1982). R.: Political sociology, political culture.

Haug, Frigga, 1937; Dr.phil.; Senior Research Fellow, University of Economics

and Politics, Hamburg. Editor of Das Argument, member of the Women's Edi-
torialBoard. P.: Gesellschaftliche Produktiort und Erziehung (1977); leader of
»Projekt Automation und Qualifikation« which published seven volumes on au-
tomated labour with Argument-Verlag, recently: Zerreifiproben. Automation im
Arbeiterleben(\9S3); Morals also have two Genders (New Left Review 143,
1984).

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
200 Notes on Contributors

Haug, Wolfgang Fritz, 1936; Dr.phil.; Prof, of Philosophy at Freie Universitat

Berlin; Editor of Das Argument. P.: Kritikder Warenasthetik(\91\, 1983; forth-
coming in English: Critique of Commodity Aesthetics); Vorlesungen zur Einfiih-
rung ins Kapital (1974, 1976; in French: Cours d' introduction au Capital, Gene-
va, 1983; in Spanish: Introduction a la lectura de »El Capital«, Materiales/Bar-
celona, 1978); books on Antifascism, Philosophy of the Absurd, Ideology, and
Mass-Culture; forthcoming in English: Commodity Aesthetics, Ideology and
Mass Culture (International General, 1984). Editor of the German version of the
Critical Dictionary of Marxism, ed. by G. Labica.

Heilmann, Thomas, 1949; Member of the national board of the »Progressive Or-
ganisationen der Schweiz« (POCH). P.: Der anti-imperialistische Gehalt der Be-
wegungen der Blockfreien, in: Die Bewegungen der Blockfreien (1978); Antimo-.
nopolistische Politik in der Schweiz, I-II (1978). R.: Economic and social history
of modern Switzerland; theoretical basis of political strategy.

Hirsch, Joachim, 1938; Dr.rer.pol.; Prof of Political Science, University of

Frankfurt/M. P.: Der Sicherheitsstaat (1980); The Fordist Security State and
New Social Movements, in: Kapitalistate (1983). R.: State theory, political sy-
stems, social movements.

Hountondji, Paulin J., 1942; Prof, of philosophy, National University of Benin,

Cotonou. P.: Sur la »philosophie africaine« (1976); African philosophy, myth
and reality (1983). Articles on African thought, and technological de-
scientific

pendence and other related issues in Diogenes, Presence africaine, Les etudes phi-
losophiques, Magyar filosofiai szemle, Recherche, Pedagogie et Culture, etc.

Hanninen, Sakari, 1948; Political Scientist, University of Helsinki. P.: Aika,

paikka, politiikka (Time, space, politics) (1981).

Jager, Michael, 1946; Dr.phil.; P.: UberMacht undParteien (in: Marxismus und
Theorie der Parteien, 1983). R.: Theory of science, politics and parties.

Kitamura, Minoru, 1933; Prof, of Philosophy, Waseda University. P.: The Con-
cept of Contradiction; Re-examination of the Fundamental Laws of Dialectic; A
New Angle to the Theory of Freedom; Modern Theory of Human Rights (all in

Japanese). R.: History of modern philosophy.

Kosonen, Pekka, 1950; Sociologist, The Academy of Finland, Helsinki. P.: Suo-
malainen kapitalismi (The Finnish Capitalism, 1979); articles on Marxist theory,
contemporary capitalism and state activities.

Kratke, Michael, 1946; Lecturer, Dept. of Andragology, University of Amster-

dam. P.: Kritik der Staatsfinanzen (1983). R.: Social policy, fiscal policy, societal
policy.

Labica, Georges, 1930; Prof, of Philosophy at Paris University X; director of the

Dept. of Political, Economical and Social Philosophy at the CNRS. P.: Lestatut
marxiste de la philosophic (1976); Le marxisme-leninisme/Elements pour une cri-
tique (1984); Dictionnaire critique du marxisme (editor, 1982). R.: Marxist theo-
ry.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
Notes on Contributors 201

Laclau, Ernesto, 1935; PhD; Lecturer in Politics, University of Essex. P.: Poli-
tics and Ideology Marxist Theory (1977, German translation 1981 in Argu-
in

ment- Verlag); Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (with C. Mouffe, 1984). R.: Dis-
course theory and theory of politics.

Liedman, Sven-Eric, 1939; Dr.phil.; Prof, of Philosophy, University of Gote-

borg. P.: From Plato to Mao (in Swedish, 1971); Spiel der Gegensatze. Friedrich
Engels (2 Vol., in Swedish, 1977). R.: Ideology, dialectics, contemporary history.

Lohmann, Georg, 1948; Assistant, Institute of Philosophy, Freie Universitat

Berlin. P.: Gesellschaftskritik und normativer Mafistab, in: Honneth, A. and
Jaeggi, U. (eds.): Arbeit, Handlung, Normativitat (1980). R.: Social theory,
ethics.

Marmora, Leopoldo, 1945; Dr.phil.; Lecturer in History, Freie Universitat Ber-

lin. P. Populistes et socialistes.
: Notes sur la nation et la democratic en Argentine
(1981); Probleme und Perspektiven eines sozialistischen Nationenbegriffs (1984).
Mehtonen, Lauri, 1945; Lie. Phil.; Lecturer of Philosophy, University of Jyvas-
kyla. P.: Ihmistieteiden filosofiset perusteet (in Finnish, 1982); Philosophic »lafit
alles wie es ist« oder die »moderne Philosophie« als Kritik der »alten Philoso-
phie« und der Alltagswelt, in: Peczenik, A. and J. Uusitalo (eds.): Reasoning on

Legal Reasoning (1979). R.: History and theory of philosophy, aesthetics, ideolo-
gy and cultural theory.
Mercier-Josa, Solange; 1931; Philosopher, Centre national de la recherche scien-
tifique, Paris. P.: Pour lire Hegel et Marx (1980); Combat pour la reconnaissan-
ce et criminalite, in: Hegels Philosophic des Rechts (1982). R.: History of politi-
cal philosophy.

Minnerup, Gunter, 1949; M.A., Senior Lecturer in German Portsmouth Politics,

Polytechnic. P.: Die deutsche Frage. Problemskizze und
Prokla 47Thesen, in:

(1982; with P. Brandt); East Germany's Frozen Revolution, in: New Left Review
132 (1982); DDR —
Vor und hinter der Mauer (1982). R.: Marxism and the na-
tion, the German Question.

Mouffe, Chantal; previously lecturer at the National University of Columbia in

Bogota and at the City University of London; presently an independent socialist
writer. P.: Gramsci and Marxist Theory (1979); Hegemony and Socialist Strategy
(with E. Laclau, 1984); articles on socialist politics and Marxist theory.
Muller, Hans-Peter, 1946; Dr.phil.; Freie Universitat Berlin. P.: Die technolo-
gisch-historischen Exzerpte. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe; transcribed and edited
by H.-P. Muller (1981). R.: Marx and technology.
Nemitz, Rolf, 1948; unemployed, research fellow; member of the editorial board
of Das Argument. Member of Projekt Ideologie-Theorie (PIT) and Project Au-
tomation und Qualifikation. P.: Zerreifiproben. Automation im Arbeiterleben
'co-author, 1983). R.: Theory of education and schooling.
Pasquinelli, Carla, 1939: Associate Prof, of Ethnology, University of Cagliari.
P.: Antropologia culturale e Questione meridionale (1977); I giovani e la societa
italiana (1977); Neue soziale Bewegungen und Marxismus (1982); La gauche, le
pouvoir, le socialisme (1983). Articles on Marxist theory, on the methodology of
social sciences, and Marxist anthropology.

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
202 Notes on Contributors

Pietila, Veikko, 1941; Assistant Prof, of Journalism and Mass Communication,

University of Tampere. P.: On the Explanation in Social Sciences (in Finnish, 1980);
R: Methodology of social sciences (and of Marx), theory and philosophy of science.

Ruoff, Karen, 1946; Dr.phil.; Lecturer at Stanford University (Berlin Study

Center). P.: Tui oder Weiser? Zur Gestalt des Philosophen bei Brecht (Argument-
Sonderband AS 11, 1976); Aktualisierung Brechts (Hrsg., AS 50; 1980); Politics of
Private in Literature (Phil.Diss., 1983).

Sagnol, Marc, 1956; Research Fellow, Maison des Sciences de Phomme, Paris.
Translator of »18. Brumaire«. P.: Des »Grundrisses« au »Capital«, in: La Pensee
(1982); La methode archeologique de Walter Benjamin, in: Les Temps Modernes
(1983). R.: German philosophy and sociology, Marxist theory.

Sassoon, Donald, 1946; Ph.D. Lecturer in Modern History, Westfield College (Uni-
,

versity of London). P.: The Strategy of the Italian Communist Party (1981); Editor
of selection of Togliatti's writings (1979) and of Italian Communist texts (1978); 7b-
gliatti e la via italiana al socialismo (1980); articles on Italian and British Politics.

Sekulic, Bozidar, 1938; Dr.phil.; Prof, at the Faculty of Political Science, Universi-
ty of Sarajevo. P.: Klasna svijest i proletariat (The Class Consciousness and the
Proletariat, 1971); Filozofija i proletariat u djelu Karla Marxa (Philosophy and the
Proletariat in the Work of Karl Marx, 1980). R.: Class consciousness, theory of
ideology, history of Marxism.

Sempere, Joaquim, 1941; Publisher, formerly Assistant Prof, of Philosophy, Bar-

celona and editor of the theoretical review of the Catalan Communist Party (1977-
1981). P.: Articles on political theory. R.: Sartre and ethics and moral philosophy.

Sharp, Rachel, 1940; PhD; Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Education, Macquarie

University, Sydney. P.: Education and Social Control (co-author, 1975); Know-
ledge, Ideology and the Politics of Schooling (1980). R.: Capitalist development in
South Africa, Schooling in Nazi Germany, Peace and Disarmament Education.

Tjaden, Karl Hermann, 1935; Dr.phil.; Prof, of Political Economy and Sociology,
University of Kassel. P.: Soziales System undsozialer Wandel (1972); Klassenver-
hdltnisse im Spatkapitalismus (co-author, 1973); Industrielle Arbeitnehmer im
Schwalm-Eder-Kreis, 2 vols, (co-author, 1980); Struktur und Funktion der
KPD(Opposition) (1983). R.: Social theory, regional science.

Winkelmann, Rainer, 1944; Dr.phil.; Sociologist, Freie Universitat Berlin. P.: Karl
Marx: Exzerpte iiber Arbeitsteilung, Maschinerie und Industrie, Historisch-kriti-
scheAusgabe (transcribed and edited by R! Winkelmann, 1981). R.: Historical ma-
terialism, Marx and technology.

Wolf, Frieder O., 1943; Dr.phil.; Philosopher and Political Scientist, Senior Re-
search Fellow. P.: Die neue Wissenschaft des Thomas Hobbes (1969); Wissen-
schaftskritik und sozialistische Praxis (co-editor, 1972); Umwege (1983); member of
the editorial board of Prokla and Moderne Zeiten.

Wulff Erich (pseudonym: Georg W. Alsheimer); 1926; Dr.med.; Prof of Social

Psychiatry atHannover University; speaker for Antiimperialist Committee, West
Germany; Friendship Society Vietnam-West Germany; member of World Peace
Council. P.: Vietnamesische Lehrjahre (1968); Eine Reise nach Vietnam (1979);
Transkulturelle Psychiatrie (Argument-Studienheft SH 23, 1979); Psychiatrie und
Herrschaft (Argument-Studienheft SH 34, 1979).

ARGUMENT-SONDERBAND AS 109 ©
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In the 100 years since Marx's death in 1SS3. the theory and
practice of the ruling and subaltern classes have evolved radical!
introducing new unforeseen forms and problems in the struggle
a truly liberated society. The Marxist heritage, however, has
rarely been the object of a systematic critical analysis by those
working within the Marxist tradition, and it is the purpose of
Rethinking Marx to propose a new critical reading of Marx in
—
light of or in dark of — current problems. This book contains
the principal papers presented at the "Internationale Konferenz
Aktualisierung Marx" held in Berlin in February 198^. The
contributions range from questions on historical materialism th< ,

State, economic and class analvses, culture and ideology, new

lovements. politics a

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