From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Sat Apr 16 2005 - 10:47:30 EDT
At 3:15 AM +0200 4/15/05, Michael Heinrich wrote: > See for example the Postface >to the Second Edition: there Marx confronts political economy (in a >scientific and in a vulgar shape) with its "critique". I think the second postface is best read as largely a response to Comtist positivism--then all the rage in intellectual circles. Korsch is the only one I know who has emphasized this interpretive foil, but he doesn't really develop the point. There are of course formal resemblances between Comte and Marx--reference to inexorable laws and laws that work themselves out with iron clad necessity. But the meanings of law are of course diametrically opposed. I was recently pointed to Marcuse's comments on Comtean positivism; I had simply forgotten how illuminating this book is (note who is footnoted in the analysis of Marx): The idealistic idea of reasonhad been intrinsically connected with the idea of freedom and had opposed any notion of natural necessity ruling over society. Positive philosophy tended instead to equate the study of society with the study of nature, so that natural science, particularly biology, became the archetype of social theory. Social study was to be a science seeking social laws, the validity of which was to be analogous to that of physical laws. Social practice, especially the matter of changing the social system, was herewith throttled by the inexorable. Society was viewed as governed by rational laws that moved with natural necessity. This position directly contradicted the view held by dialectical social theory, that society is irrational precisely in that it is governed by natural laws. The 'general dogma of the invariability of physical laws' Comte calls the 'true spirit' of positivism. He proposes to apply this tenet to social theory as a means of freeing the latter from theology and metaphysics and giving it the status of a science. 'Theological and metaphysical philosophy do not hold sway today except in the system of social study. They must be excluded from this final refuge. Mainly, this will be done through the basic interpretation that social movement is necessarily subject to invariant physical laws, instead of being governed by some kind of will.' Assent to the principle of invariant laws in society will prepare men for discipline and for obedience to the existing order and will promote their 'resignation' to it. 'Resignation' is a keynote in Comte's writings, deriving directly from assent to invariable social laws. 'True resignation, that is, a disposition to endure necessary evils steadfastly and without any hope of compensation therefor, can result only from a profound feeling for the invariable laws that govern the variety of natural phenomena.' Reason and Revolution P. 343-45 This is not to say that political economy--today in the form of ever less social democratic Keynesianism--renounces the struggle for 'improvements'. But Marcuse also noted: Comte denounces 'the strange and extremely dangerous' theories and efforts that are directed against the prevailing property order. These erect "an absurd Utopia.' Certainly it is necessary to improve the condition of the lower classes, but this must be done without deranging class barriers and without disturbing 'the indispensable economic order'. On this point too, positivism offers a testomonial to itself. It promises to insure the ruling classes against every anarchistic invasion and to show the way to a proper treatment of the mass. Outlining the meaning of the term positive in his philosophy, Comte summarizes the grounds for his recommendation of himself to the cause de l'ordre by stressing that his philosophy is of its very nature 'destined not to destroy but to organize' and that it will 'never pronounce an absolute negation.' From Marcuse's Reason and Revolution p. 347 Stedman Jones as the new Comte, even though he claims to be renewing Condorcet and Paine? At any rate, Political economy is positivist (as was the political economy of the working class developed in the Kautskyan Second International); the critique of political economy dialectical or in Comtist terms destructive; an absolute negation. I think Marx's understanding of dialectics and critique and his insistence on the debt to Hegel make sense against the implicit background of positivism By critique Marx may have meant in part the making conscious of the struggle of actors not to maintain a system against its finitude but rather to overcome a structure. But the overthrowing and transformation of a structure can only happen through consciousness. For this reason Lukacs emphasized that there could be no true dialectics of nature. Levins and Lewontin would of course disagree. But if Marx's work is not simply a political economy but a critique thereof, and critique is meant not in the Kantian but the Lukacsian-Hegelian dialectical sense of making conscious a struggle for the overthrow and transformation of a structure, then Marxism cannot simply be a science, it is indeed, contra Althusser, a historicism; and Marxism must by nature impute class consciousness to actors. But it then threatens to become a dictatorship over the proletariat. Lukacs profoundly understood and exemplified the problem. Korsch was led to reconsider anarchism. But Lukacs may well be most important Marxist after Marx. His discussion of imputation in a defense of History and Class Consciousness an absolutely pivotal text. More important than the concept for which he is famous--reification Rakesh
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