Phil 2265: Social / Political Philosophy

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Phil 2265 Social / Political Philosophy

• The (entire) history of Marxism in 50 min!

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The Frankfort School

• Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin, Marcuse, Neumann,
  Kirchheimer, Lowenthal and Erich Fromm.
• Jurgen Habermas
• The actual school in Frankfort disbanded in the
  face of Nazism and moved to NY to become The New
  School for Social Research.

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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!

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Solutions?

• Broadly speaking, a psychological explanation

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Influences

• Built on the research programs of Max Weber
  Lukacs

Reification
Rationalization
Commodity Fetishism
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Why?

• Webers 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

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• Capitalism, for Weber, is intimately connected to
  the Protestant ethos it is more than an economic
  system, it is, at least partially, a religion.

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• The Frankfort 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?

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Lukacs

• Commodity Fetishism turning commodities into
  quasi-spiritual meaning-carrying entities through
  which we define our lives and find meaning.

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Webers 2nd contribution

• The rationalization of beaurocracy treating
  something that depends on human decision and is
  within human control as if it is not.
• (later)

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Reification

• Reification from Lukacs a synthesis of
  Marxs 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 Webers rationalization and

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• 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).

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So, how is all this supposed to work?

• Background
• Marx Das Capital Lukacs interepretation
  (commodity fetishism)
• Weber rationlization
• Lukacs and reification
• Then, Marcuse (in brief) and an example of the
  Frankfort schools reasoning Adorno on Music.

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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?

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2 Key premises

1. In all states of society, the labor time that it
   costs to produce subsistence is necessarily of
   interest to all mankind.
2. From the moment that men in any way work with or
   for oneanother, their labor assumes a social form.

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• Marxs contention
• Science the special status of commodities is
  above and beyond subsistence, the enigmatic
  character of commodities comes from this social
  form of production.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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1. Articles of utility become commodities only
   because they are products of the labor of private
   individuals or groups
2. Since producers do not come into social contact
   with one another until they exchange their
   products, the specific social character of each
   producers labor doesnt show itself expect in
   the act of exchange.

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1. 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.
2. 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.

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1. And it is only in being exchanged that the
   products of labor acquire uniform social status
   or value distinct from their use-value.
2. And when products are produced solely for the
   purpose of being exchanged, then their exchange
   value must be taken into account before
   production.

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1. 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).

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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
  bookeeping.

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1. Western capitalism is highly influenced by the
   development of technological possibilities.
2. And those technological possibilities were
   encouraged by certain social-culture mores
   (dissection, e.g.)
3. One of these social-culture mores of central
   importance is the particular law (i.e. the Magna
   Carta needed in Islam)

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• 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?)

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1. When the rationalization of law comes into
   conflict with religion, religion usually wins
   (witness the development of biology in Hindu and
   Buddhist cultures, Islam in the modern world)
2. So, there must have been something in the
   protestant, Calvinistic tradition that was
   amenable to the rationalization of law. (we
   talked about that)

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• It is one of the fundamental characteristics of
  an individualistic capitalistic economy that it
  is rationalized on the basis of rigorous
  calculation, directed with foresight and caution
  toward economic success which is sought in sharp
  contrast to the hand-to-mouth existence of the
  peasant, and to the privileged traditionalism of
  the guild craftsman and of the adventures
  capitalism, oriented to the exploitation of
  political opportunities and irrational
  speculation.

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• The development of the spirit of capitalism is
  best understood as part of the development of
  rationalism as a whole and could be deduced from
  the fundamental position of rationalism on the
  basic problems of life (76)

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• So, capitalism is a feature of rationalization of
  society (which is intimately connected to
  religion).
• Its self-justifying
• Its self-verifying
• It takes on a life of its own
• And its seen to be outside of human control.
• Its intimately connected with religion

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Lukacs

• Central thesis in developed capitalistic
  societies, the fetishism of commodities
  penetrates all spheres of social life
• The factory is the model of all social
  relationships
• The fate of the worker is the fate of all
  humanity

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1. The world of commodity exchange is seen as the
   estrangement (alienation) of human activity and
   the de-activation of individuality
2. Reducing human labor to a commodity abstracts it
   and makes it interchangable with other laborers
   thus undermining individual choice, expression,
   thought, etc.

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1. The worker is mutilated reduced to mere
   spectatorship, to mere contemplation of his own
   estranged activity and that of his fellows. He
   is emasculated.

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Marcuse

• Central question
• Why does the comfortable, smooth and reasonable
  unfreedom prevail in advanced industrialized
  society?

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• Comfortable
• Smooth
• Reasonable

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• Marcuse through extending the notion of
  rationalization beyond the relationship between
  people and their products to people and what they
  consume, find this same emasculation in all
  spheres of human life.
• If the market is the model for the family, family
  relationships are rationalized (they just happen)
• If the market is the model for education,
  students are passive recipients, unable to choose
  or interact.
• Etc

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• The facts directing mans thoughts and actions
  are not those of nature which must be accepted in
  order to be mastered, of those of society which
  must be changed because they no longer correspond
  to human needs and potentialities. Rather are
  they those of the machine process, which itself
  appears as the embodiment of rationality and
  expediency.

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• In more detail to the extent that freedom from
  want is decreased, the traditional freedoms of
  freedom of thought, autonomy and opposing
  political views are being deprived of their
  basic critical function in advanced societies
  that can satisfy our every want.

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How?

• Reduce the discussion and promotion of
  alternative political views to those within the
  status quo.
• How?
• non-conformity is socially useless and
• It is of great economic and practical
  disadvantage.
• And, it threatens the smoothness of the society
  as a whole.
• (Co-opting)

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How did this come about?

• Again subsistence.
• Subsistence and liberty are not necessarily
  amenable.
• The freedom to starve, e.g.
• Recall Berlin- when faced with starvation, people
  prefer security to liberty.

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So, it should follow that

• Increasing the satisfaction of needs should
  increase freedom and liberty
• Once everyones basic needs are met, society
  should be perfectly free and perfectly ordered.
• But thats Marxs theory.
• And it didnt work.

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Technically

• The end of technological society to render
  individual autonomy possible through the
  organization or an apparatus (automation and
  mechanization) of the satisfaction of our basic
  needs.

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• In actual fact, however, the contrary trend
  operates the apparatus imposes its economic and
  political requirements for defense and expansion
  on labor time and free time, on the material and
  intellectual culture.

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• Therefore, society tends to be totalitarian-
• not in the sense of a terroristic political
  organization, but rather in the sense of a
  non-terroristic economic-technical coordination
  which operates through the manipulation of needs
  by vested interests.

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• Society therefore precludes any opposition to the
  whole.
• Note this a bit strong the premise that a
  system manipulates needs and is therefore
  totalitarian, he still hasnt demonstrated that
  that society precludes opposition. But, if we
  charitably give him the notion of the co-opting
  of oppositional ideals, we get the strong thesis.
  And the strong thesis gives us

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• The government of such societies can maintain and
  secure itself only through mobilizing,
  organizing and exploiting the technical,
  scientific and mechanical productivity available
  to industrialized civilization And this
  productivity mobilizes society. Therefore, to
  control the society, one only need control the
  apparatus or machine of the economy.

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Whats all this about the Apparatus / Machine?

• Does Marcuse think were living in the Matrix or
  what?
• No, its a basic assumption of Marxs theory that
  the bourgeoisie controls the modes of production
  and the proletariat controls the means. Modes
  are the way production happens (I.e. the big
  factories) and the means are the labor by which
  the machines are run.

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• And remember the power of the machine is
  nothing more than the power of the people we
  shouldnt reify it. Thats the fallacy most
  people make.
• Thus, in order to be liberated, we have to
  recognize that the economic-political machine
  that zaps our autonomy is just a product of
  people. The work-world therefore becomes the
  potential basis for freedom. (notice the
  dialectical move here).

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• Freedom must be rethought.
• Economic freedom is not longer freedom to make
  money (free market) it is freedom from the
  economy.
• Political freedom is no longer freedom to
  participate in politics it is freedom from the
  political system over which they have no control.
• And Freedom of speech (thought / conscience) is
  not freedom to speak, but freedom from the
  (marketing and manipulative) speech of others.

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• These ideals seem unrealistic only insofar as we
  have become alienated from our own needs to such
  an extent that we cant even tell what our needs
  are (as opposed to our wants) let alone what it
  is that might satisfy our needs.

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• False needs are those that are imposed on the
  individual by particular social interests in his
  repression the needs that
• perpetuate toil, aggressiveness, misery and
  injustice.
• The need to get to Baltimore 1 minute earlier
  than you would if you got off my ass on 140.
• The need to drive a hummer.

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• The satisfaction of these needs is, in reality,
  unsatisfactory. Why? Because on some
  subconscious level, one knows that these needs
  are not ones own.
• These needs are determined by external powers
  outside of my control
• No matter how much I identify with them (in fact,
  the more identify with them, the worse the
  problem), the development and satisfaction of
  these needs are the products of the society
  which demands repression.

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