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Phil 2265: Social / Political Philosophy. The (entire) history of Marxism in 120 min!. The Frankfurt School. Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin, Marcuse, Neumann, Kirchheimer, Lowenthal and Erich Fromm. Jurgen Habermas
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Phil 2265: Social / Political Philosophy The (entire) history of Marxism in 120 min!
The Frankfurt School Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin, Marcuse, Neumann, Kirchheimer, Lowenthal and Erich Fromm. Jurgen Habermas The actual school in Frankfurt disbanded in the face of Nazism and moved to NY to become The New School for Social Research.
The Problem Why was Marx so incredibly right about capitalism, but so incredibly wrong about communism? Others: Lukacs, Korsch, Gramsci • Lukacs forced to denounce his own views by the Communists in the 30s • Korsch was kicked out of the German Communist Party for refusing to do the same • Gramsci was ‘protected’ from these purges because he was held in a fascist prison!
Personal relationships with things… Economic relationships with people
Personal relationships with things… Economic relationships with people
47 Starbucks in Beijing 4 in Oman 17 in Paris! 22 in Instanbul (4 in Ankara)
Solutions? Broadly speaking, a psychological explanation: + =
Influences: Built on the research programs of Max Weber & Lukacs: + = Reification Rationalization Commodity Fetishism
Why? Weber’s central contention was this: that capitalism is not just an economic system – it is not simply explainable in terms of the ‘impulse to acquire’. It is something more: “a capitalistic economic action is one which rests on the expectation of profit by the utilization of opportunities for exchange, that is one (formally) peaceful chances of profit”
Capitalism, for Weber, is intimately connected to the Protestant ethos –it is more than an economic system, it is, at least partially, a religion.
The Frankfurt school sought similar explanations of peoples’ political and economic behavior – that is, in terms of psychological states and properties. Marcuse sees people as dominated by ‘one-dimensional’ society – people have given up their autonomy, they willingly submit to the control – both economic and political - of others. Why?
Lukacs: Commodity Fetishism: turning commodities into quasi-spiritual meaning-carrying entities through which we define our lives and find meaning.
Weber’s 2nd contribution: The ‘rationalization’ of bureaucracy: treating something that depends on human decision and is within human control as if it is not. (later)
Reification ‘Reification’: from Lukacs – a synthesis of Marx’s commodity fetishism with Weberian rationalization. It occurs when something is treated in theory or practice as a marketable commodity (I.e. its use-value becomes its exchange-value) Add to this Weber’s rationalization and…
Treating commodities as quasi-spiritual entities, and thinking that this is what they are objectively in and of themselves. (that is, failing to recognize that this quasi-spiritual status is dependent on the way we treat these objects, not anything they are themselves).
So, how is all this supposed to work? • Background: • Marx – Das Capital & Lukacs’ interpretation (commodity fetishism) • Weber ‘rationalization’ • Lukacs and ‘reification’ • Then, Marcuse (in brief) and an example of the Frankfurt school’s reasoning: Adorno on Music.
Marx. “A commodity is, in the first place, a thing outside of us that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another.” But, in reality, commodities have properties other than those that satisfy wants – people collect them, venerate them, are loyal to them, and preserve them. Where do these mysterious properties come from?
2 Key premises: • In all states of society, the labor time that it costs to produce subsistence is necessarily of interest to all mankind. • From the moment that men in any way work with or for one another, their labor assumes a social form.
Marx’s contention: • Science the special status of commodities is above and beyond subsistence, the enigmatic character of commodities comes from this social form of production.
The equality of human labor is expressed in objects by the equal value of the products (If I take 2ce as long to produce a widget than you take to produce a fidget, a widget must cost 2ce as much as a fidget). Thus, the relations between producers take on the form of relations between our products.
Therefore, a commodity is mysterious because: In it the social character of labor appears to be a property of the object itself. The relations between the producers to the sum total of their labor (that is, their products) is presented back to them as social relations between the products they produce. Therefore: “Products of labor become commodities – social things whose qualities are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses.”
The social relationship between commodities is analogous to the social relationship between ‘souls’ or ‘spirits’. They are productions of the human mind, yet appear to be independent beings endowed with life and entering into relations with one another and the human race in general.
Articles of utility become commodities only because they are products of the labor of private individuals or groups… • Since producers do not come into social contact with one another until they exchange their products, the specific social character of each producer’s labor doesn’t show itself expect in the act of exchange.
The labor of an individual is thus a prart of the labor of society only insofar as it is related in exchange with other products, and indirectly, then, to the producers. • Thus the relations connecting the labor of individuals are not direct social relations between individuals, but are material relations between persons and social relations between things.
And it is only in being exchanged that the products of labor acquire uniform social status – or value – distinct from their use-value. • And when products are produced solely for the purpose of being exchanged, then their exchange value must be taken into account before production.
Therefore, the products of labor, to the producer of those products, have value only insofar as they are desired by others, and since the products of labor are merely material expressions of the producers’ labor, the producers’ labor has value only insofar as it is desired by others (and, hence, the basis of wage-labor).
Weber The main question is “Why advanced capitalism only in the west?” ‘advanced capitalism’ = “The rational capitalistic organization of (formally) free labor” – this includes the separation of business from the household and the rationalization of bookkeeping.
Western capitalism is highly influenced by the development of technological possibilities. • And those technological possibilities were encouraged by certain social-culture mores (dissection, e.g.) • One of these social-culture mores of central importance is the particular law (i.e. the Magna Carta needed in Islam)
“Modern rational capitalism has need, not only of technical means of production, but of a calculable legal systems and of administration in terms of formal rules” (If there were individuals in the country to whom the law did not apply – would you risk your hard earned money in an investment?)
