> Aha! Reading further in Time, Labor, and Social Domination I see why
> Carrol
> thought I might be interested in this book.
>
> As I've argued before, against those who disparage identity politics as a
> kind of interloper that has usurped the true politics of class struggle,
> identity politics actually derives from what Postone calls "traditional
> Marxism" which posited a Subject of History -- the working class.
> Practically, in the U.S. this translated into a tendency for Marxist
> groups
> to believe that they should help the working class become conscious of its
> class position, the better to ensure that it truly become the grave digger
> of capitalism.
>
> But, historical events meant that Marxists ended up feeling betrayed by
> the
> working class and the search was on for a new Subject of History: in the
> U.S. it was the black liberation struggle, which was often tied to third
> world people; then there was the Marxist arms of the feminist movement
> which saw women as the Subject of History; enter a critique of feminism
> from the standpoint of black women, and queer black women, and queer black
> working class and poor women (an internal critique of, for ex, the
> Combahee
> River Collective Statement); etc.
>
> Postone's argument is that this search for the Subject of History -- the
> epistemological standpoint of the "most oppressed" and "marginalized"
> which
> would shine the light of Truth on "what is to be done" -- is a
> misapprehension of Marx's engagement with Hegel. Moreover, in the endless
> debate between Carrol and Doug re: subjectivity -- with Doug claiming that
> Carrol espouses some sort of determinate logic of history unfolding before
> us with which we cannot possibly have much to offer -- well, Postone isn't
> making that argument:
>
> "Marx's critique of Hegel, then, is quite different for Lukacs's
> materialist appropriation of Hegel, for it does not identity a concrete,
> conscious, social Subject (for example, the proletariat) that unfolds
> itself historically, achieving full self-consciousness through a process
> of
> self-reflexive objectification. Doing so would implicitly posit "labor" as
> the constituting substance of a Subject, which prevented the capitalist
> relations from realizing itself. As I implied in my discussion of
> "Ricardian Marxism," the historical Subject in that case would be a
> collective version of the bourgeois subject, constituting itself and the
> world through "labor." The concepts of "labor" and the bourgeois subject
> (whether interpreted as the individual, or as a class) are intrinsically
> related: they express a historically specific social reality in
> ontological
> form.
>
> Marx's critique of Hegel breaks with the prepositions of such a position
> ... Rather than viewing capitalist relations as extrinsic to the Subject,
> as that which hinder its full realization, Marx analyzes those very
> relations as constituting the Subject. This fundamental difference is
> related to the one outlined earlier: the quasi-objective structures
> grasped
> by the categories of Marx's critique of political economy do not 'veil'
> either the 'real' social relations of capitalism (class relations) or the
> 'real' historical Subject (the proletariat). That, those structures *are*
> the fundamental relations of capitalist society that, because of their
> peculiar properties, *constitute* what Hegel grasps as a historical
> Subject. This theoretical turn means that the Marxian theory neither
> posits
> nor is bound to the notion of a historical meta-Subject, such as the
> proletariat, which will realize itself in a future society. Indeed, the
> move from a theory of the collective (bourgeois) Subject to a theory of
> alienated social relations implies a critique of such a notion. It is one
> aspect of a major shift in critical perspective from a social critique on
> the basis of "labor" to a social critique of the peculiar nature of labor
> in capitalism, whereby the former's standpoint becomes the latter's object
> of critique.
>
> ... We have seen that the traditional assumptions regarding labor and
> social relations in capitalism lead the Hegelian concept of totality to be
> adopted and translated into "materialist" terms as follows: Social
> totality
> is constituted by "labor," but is veiled, apparently fragmented, and
> prevented from realizing itself by capitalist relations. It represents the
> *standpoint* of the critique of the capitalist present, and will be
> realized in socialism.
>
> Marx's categorial determination of capital as the historical Subject,
> however, indicates that the totality has become the *object* of his
> critique. As shall be discussed below, social totality, ... is a n
> essential feature of the capitalist formation and expression of
> alienation.
> The capitalist social formation, according to Marx, is unique inasmuch as
> it is constituted by a qualitatively homogeneous social "substance";
> hence,
> it exists as a social totality. Other social formations are not so
> totalized: their fundamental social relations are not qualitatively
> homogeneous. They cannot be grasped by the concept of "substance," cannot
> be unfolded from a single structuring principles, and do not display an
> immanent, necessary historical logic.
>
> Marx's assertion that capital, and not the proletariat or the species, is
> the total Subject implies that the historical negations of capitalism
> would
> not involve the *realization*, but the *abolition,* of the totality. ...
> Considered on another level, it indicates Marx's mature understanding of
> history cannot be grasped adequately as an essentallly eschatological
> conception in secular form."
>
> pp. 78-79
>
>
>
> "let's be civil and nice, but not to the point of obeying the rules of
> debate as defined by liberal blackmail (in which, discomfort caused by a
> challenge is seen as some vague form of harassment)."
> -- Dwayne Monroe, 11/19/08
>
> --
> http://cleandraws.com
> Wear Clean Draws
>
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