Lukacs free essay sample

# 8217 ; Reification And Heller # 8217 ; s Theory Of Needs In Marx Essay, Research Paper 1. A small over a decennary after the # 8220 ; prostration of Communism # 8221 ; , it might look that Marxist theory has been relegated to little more than an historical or even archaeological artifact with small relevancy to or influence over an of all time encroaching and spread outing, globalizing capitalist economy. Socialism # 8220 ; proper # 8221 ; , as a province economic theoretical account and political orientation seems to hold been banished to the borders of the universe scene. The black consequences in footings of the absolutisms and dictatorship that have ensued wherever an effort has been made to implement a socialist theoretical account ; the Fukuyaman announcement of the # 8220 ; terminal of history # 8221 ; after communism collapsed, this terminal being equated with the eschatological victory of free-market capitalist economy ; and the insisting of transnational endeavors and capitalist authoritiess on the enlargement of planetary capital appear to some extent to hold marked the decease of socialism and Marxist review. 2. However, it can non be denied that cardinal contradictions remain and are increasing in strength. Recent events, such as frequently violent presentations whenever and wherever organic structures seen to be representative of planetary capitalist economy, such as the World Trade Organisation, meet, and the rush in anti-western sentiment, particularly in Islamic middle-eastern states, point to a tendency that now denies the exultant temper in the West during the early 1890ss. Magnus and Cullenberg referred to these already in 1994 in their Introductions to Derrida # 8217 ; s Ghosts of Marx: Given the troubles some democratic, free market economic systems are sing # 8211 ; including the predicament of the homeless, the deficiency of equal wellness attention, environmental debasement, and tremendous debt burdens # 8211 ; what kind of theoretical account for the hereafter do we hold? And what is one to do of the destructive, even violent # 8220 ; nationalisms # 8221 ; which have followed in the aftermath of the prostration of communism, non to advert deadly signifiers of ethnocentrism and xenophobia possibly non seen since Hitler # 8217 ; s Germany? What does this imply so for? the planetary economic system and life throughout our shared universe? ( eight ) Derrida besides takes note of the economic contradictions sabotaging the # 8220 ; stop # 8221 ; of history: And how can one overlook, furthermore, the economic war that is ramping today both between [ the United States and the European Community ] and within the European Community? How can one minimise the struggles of the GATT pact and all that it represents, which the composite schemes of protectionism recall every twenty-four hours, non to advert the economic war with Japan and all the contradictions at work within the trade between the affluent states and the remainder of the universe, the phenomena of indigence and the fierceness of the # 8220 ; foreign debt # 8221 ; , the effects of what [ Marx s ] Manifesto besides called # 8220 ; the epidemic of overrun # 8221 ; and the # 8220 ; province of fleeting brutality # 8221 ; ? it can bring on in alleged civilised societies, and so forth? ( 1994: 63 ) 3. We have seen the effects of the GATT struggles in metropoliss like Seattle and Melbourne, with large-scale presentations against the World Trade Organisation. Much more powerful, flooring and eventful a symbol of late capitalist contradictions, nevertheless, is the devastation of the towering World Trade Centre in New York by self-destruction bombers earlier this twelvemonth and the resulting # 8220 ; War on Terrorism # 8221 ; waged by the West upon Afghanistan. 4. It seems though, that with the # 8220 ; stop # 8221 ; of history, the West has besides experienced the loss of history. A genuinely critical ( self- ) analysis, necessitating at least a depth consistent with that of the Marxian tradition is obviously missing in visible radiation of the virtually automatic and instant response of what has been widely dubbed as the # 8220 ; War on Terrorism # 8221 ; ( as opposed to, state, # 8221 ; Yet another War in Afghanistan # 8221 ; ) . 5. What of the # 8216 ; world # 8217 ; of socialism though? Feher, Heller and Markus ( 1983 ) have argued that, whatever else they have been, those states which have defined themselves as socialist have been anything but. Socialism has non yet really existed: The new society, the # 8216 ; absolutism over demands # 8217 ; , is neither a novel, modified signifier of ( province ) capitalist economy, nor is it socialism # 8211 ; it is # 8217 ; something else # 8217 ; . It is a societal formation wholly different from any that has existed in European or universe history to day of the month and it is every bit different from any relevant construct in footings of which socialism, either # 8217 ; scientifically # 8217 ; or in a Utopian mode, has of all time been conceived ( 221 ) . As they go on to explicate, one of the grounds for this dramatic failure of socialism to go a existent societal formation is that, Marxism ( and socialist theories in general ) were much excessively self indulgently value-free, in the positive sense typical of nineteenth-century theories, to do unequivocally clear the conditions, the fulfillment of which would represent socialism ( and conversely, the conditions, the privation of which constitutes an anti-capitalist formation, which nevertheless can non and should non be identified with socialism ) ( Feher, Heller A ; Markus, 1983: 229 ) . 6. Both Lukacs # 8217 ; construct of hypostatization and Heller # 8217 ; s analysis of the Marxist theory of demands, which I attempt to clarify here, are themselves efforts to counter this positivism built-in in Marxism, which has tended to blight socialism to its utmost hurt wherever it attempts to breed itself as a societal world. This type of controling of positivism in Marxian review has appeared elsewhere besides, for illustration in Baudrillard # 8217 ; s [ Symbolic Exchange ] which tends to knock the valorisation and naturalization of the construct # 8220 ; work # 8221 ; over and against that of ( inordinate ) # 8220 ; play # 8221 ; , and in Derrida # 8217 ; s already cited Ghosts of Marx ( 1994 ) , which highlights peculiarly that historically sited Marxism and communisms are mediated by the societies, civilizations and traditions in which they appear and argues for a plurality of Marxism ( s ) and even of the proper name Marx. 7. Concepts such as Lukacs # 8217 ; # 8216 ; hypostatization # 8217 ; and Heller # 8217 ; s # 8216 ; dissatisfaction # 8217 ; are still valid, particularly in visible radiation of the triumphant # 8217 ; self-indulgence # 8217 ; and # 8216 ; positivism # 8217 ; of capitalist theories, such as globalization and economic rationalism, which are now trying in a similar mode that appears to many people as more dictatorial than democratic, at the least in a # 8217 ; sinister # 8217 ; mode, to go planetary societal worlds. For this ground I have digressed slightly: excessively frequently university essays can look abstract exercisings, with small relevancy to the # 8216 ; existent # 8217 ; universe, but in straying onto recent historical contradictions, I want to foreground that Marxist theory need non decease peacefully at all, or merely be an academic exercising in a theory which is merely of historical involvement. 8. Both Lukacs in his analysis of hypostatization and Heller in her analysis of demands in Marx postulate as cardinal effects of commodifaction the fact that the worker becomes dominated by and alienated from his ain activity and labor power # 8211 ; the consequence of commodification is basically one of alienation and disaffection. Heller ( 1974: 48 ) defines this as follows: In disaffection ( and peculiarly in capitalist economy ) the end/means relation inherent in labor is turned upside down and becomes its opposite. In trade good bring forthing society, usage value ( the merchandise of concrete labor ) does non function to fulfill demands. Its kernel consists, on the contrary, in fulfilling the demands of the individual to whom it does non belong. The nature of the usage value that the worker produces is all the same to him ; he bears no relation to it. Hence, the worker in modern capitalist economy is alienated from his labor as concrete because its merchandise serves to fulfill the demands of person else, non his ain. What the worker performs for himself is # 8216 ; abstract labour # 8217 ; ( 48 ) which he performs for another in exhange for money in order to fulfill his ain necessary demands, which labour appears so as an obectivated trade good when rendered as concrete. The consequence is that # 8220 ; capitalist industry and agribusiness do non bring forth for demands, nor for their satisfaction. The terminal of production is the valorisation of capital, and the satisfaction of demands ( on the market ) is merely a agency towards this terminal # 8221 ; ( 49 ) . 9. Lukacs renders this disaffection in footings of the hypostatization of the trade good: What is of cardinal importance here is that because of this state of affairs [ trade good hypostatization ] a adult male # 8217 ; s ain activity, his ain labor becomes something nonsubjective and independent of him, something that controls him by virtuousness of an liberty foreigner to adult male ( 1971: 86,87 ) . 10. Although Lukacs beginnings his analysis of hypostatization in the subdivision in Marx # 8217 ; s Capital entitled # 8216 ; The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret thereof # 8217 ; ( Lukacs, 1971: 86 ) , we can see the kernel of both of the above commendations in Marx # 8217 ; s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. In these, in a much stronger tone than is used in, say, Capital, Marx already develops the subjects of disaffection, trade good hypostatization and the construct of the worker # 8217 ; s demands and their satisfaction, or the impossibleness of fulfilling these under capitalist economy. In footings of hypostatization and the disaffection of adult male # 8217 ; s labour, Marx writes: ? the worker sinks to the degree of a trade good and becomes so the most deplorable of trade goods? the misery of the worker is in reverse proportion to the power and magnitude of his production? The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production additions in power and size. The worker becomes an of all time cheaper trade good the more trade goods he creates? Labour produces non lone trade goods: it produces itself and the worker as a trade good – and this at the same rate at which it produces trade goods in general ( Marx, 1997: 60-62 ) . This procedure has the direct consequence of estranging the laborer from the object in the capacity of the merchandise of his labor: The worker puts his life into the object ; but now his life no longer belongs to him but to the object. Whatever the merchandise of his labor, he is non. Therefore the greater this merchandise, the lupus erythematosus he is himself. The disaffection of the worker in his merchandise means non merely that his labor becomes an object, an external being, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something foreigner to him? ( 62 ) This is a procedure of instrumentalisation that is impacting the worker. It consequences in # 8220 ; alienation, the loss of the object, of his merchandise # 8221 ; ( 63 ) , which in bend straight affects the demands of adult male and how they are satisfied, which is the focal point of Heller # 8217 ; s analysis. As a consequence of disaffection, adult male # 8217 ; s need go of all time greater, but the lone manner he can react to his demand is in the selfish objectification of the other: Man becomes of all time poorer as adult male, his demand for money becomes of all time greater if he wants to get the hang the hostile power [ which is the demand as foreign power placed in him by the other, so that the other may try to fulfill his ain demand which turns worlds into mere means towards an foreign terminal: that of net income ] . The power of his money diminutions in reverse proportion to the addition in the volume of production: that is, his neediness grows as the power of money additions ( 82 ) . The apogee of the disaffection of labor and subservience of adult male to alien, # 8216 ; fanciful # 8217 ; ( 82 ) demands is the victory of money [ defined in The Fetishism of Commodities? as the ultimate signifier of the universe of trade goods that really conceals, alternatively of disclosing, the societal character of private labor, and the societal dealingss between the single manufacturers ( Marx, 1954: 76 ) ] , as virtually almighty, taking the natural topographic point of the human being, pass oning worlds to something like the # 8220 ; mist enveloped parts of the spiritual universe # 8221 ; ( 72 ) from wich, by analogy, the Fetishism itself was originally derived: The less you are, the less you show your ain life, the more you have, i.e. , the greater is your anomic life, the greater is the shop of your alienated being. Everything [ taken ] from you in life and in humanity, [ is replaced ] for you in money and in wealth ; and all the things you can non make, your money can make. It can eat and imbibe, travel to the dance hall and the theater ; it can go, it can allow art, acquisition, the hoarded wealths of the past, political power # 8211 ; all this it can allow for you # 8211 ; it can purchase all this: it is true gift ( 84 ) . However, the one thing it specifically can non make, is fulfil human demand, for money merely wants to make and multiply itself, whilst the worker, eventually, may merely have every bit much as will do him desire to travel on life, necessitating ever more, in a ageless rhythm of dissatisfaction. 11. Lukacs # 8217 ; construct of hypostatization is peculiarly elucidated in the essay # 8216 ; Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat # 8217 ; particularly in the subdivision # 8216 ; The Phenomenon of Reification # 8217 ; which appears in History and Class Consciousness ( 1971 ) . The term # 8216 ; hypostatization # 8217 ; , nevertheless, is a instead unmanageable one, and suffers from a symptom that foreign footings frequently tend to endure when translated into English: the inclination to utilize uncommon or vague footings in English. ( We note a similar destiny in the interlingual rendition of Freud # 8217 ; s # 8220 ; das Ich # 8221 ; , literally # 8220 ; the I # 8221 ; , rendered as # 8220 ; the Ego # 8221 ; ; and # 8220 ; das Es # 8221 ; , literally # 8220 ; the it # 8221 ; , rendered as # 8220 ; the Id # 8221 ; . ) The term # 8220 ; hypostatization # 8221 ; is barely an mundane word, and its verb signifier # 8220 ; to reify # 8221 ; is d efined by the Encarta World English Dictionary as, # 8220 ; to believe of or handle something asbtract as if it existed as a existent or touchable object # 8221 ; . The original German term is # 8220 ; Verdinglichung # 8221 ; ( Lukacs, 1923 ) , which conveys the sense of the procedure of being changed into a thing. That which is changed is the # 8220 ; relation between people # 8221 ; ( Lukacs, 1971: 83 ) which # 8220 ; takes on the character of a thing # 8221 ; ( 83 ) . The cardinal impact of Lukacs # 8217 ; analysis lies in his supplication of the word consciousness. As Johnson ( 1984: 10-11 ) draws out, Lukacs locates the radical moral force in the societal being of the worker, as opposed to mechanical economic Torahs which are supposed to necessarily and automatically transform capitalist economy into socialism. Lukacs accordingly relates consciousness to the whole of society ( 1971: 51 ) in order to deduce or ascribe consciousness to the labor # 8220 ; as if they were able to measure # 8221 ; ( 51 ) their nonsubjective state of affairs. This is may be identified as the anti-positivist strain in Lukacs # 8217 ; thought, which is subsequently specified in his unfavorable judgment of # 8220 ; vulgar Marxism # 8221 ; , which # 8220 ; bases itself on the # 8216 ; natural Torahs # 8217 ; of economic development which are to convey about these passages by their ain drift and without holding resort to a beastly force lying # 8216 ; beyond econ omic sciences # 8217 ; # 8221 ; ( 239 ) . However, because # 8211 ; as argued above # 8211 ; worlds are, in capitalist economy, go wholly subservient to and in bondage to perpetually generated fanciful demands ( which might be defined as # 8216 ; luxuries # 8217 ; ) which they are all excessively busy trying to fulfill, the worker is continually persuaded of his subjective value in footings of his consumptive power mediated by money # 8211 ; even if this subjectiveness is merely in the terminal a # 8216 ; false consciousness # 8217 ; . Therefore the labor can non go cognizant in order to analyze its state of affairs with a position to accomplishing true consciousness and revolution. In the terminal, Lukacs is forced to trust on the Communist Party as a interceding power for the imputation of a radical category consciousness. 12. Heller # 8217 ; s analysis of demands in Marx on the other manus, specifically the analysis of extremist demands, proposes that # 8220 ; the worker becomes witting of the contradiction between the demand to develop his personality and the # 8220 ; inadvertent # 8221 ; character of his subordination to the division of labor # 8221 ; ( Heller, 1974: 90 ) . This consciousness is precipitated by the outgrowth of extremist demands, which are demands which capitalist economy is structurally incapable of fulfilling. However these demands # 8220 ; can non be # 8216 ; eliminated # 8217 ; from capitalist economy because they are necessary to its operation? it is non the Being of extremist demands that transcends capitalist economy but their satisfaction # 8221 ; ( 76 ) . Where dissatisfaction of extremist demands so becomes a historical world, the possibility of exceeding capitalist economy besides becomes existent. Take for illustration the impression of # 8216 ; free clip # 82 17 ; : [ The worker ] is convinced that from a certain point onwards capitalist economy is incapable of shortening labour clip any farther: the demand for free clip so becomes in rule a extremist demand, which can merely be satisfied with the transcendency of capitalist economy. When related to the demand for free clip, the character of # 8220 ; extremist demands # 8221 ; is brought out in a peculiarly dramatic mode: it is produced by capitalist economy itself, by its contradictory character, and therefore belongs to the really operation of capitalist economy? At the same clip, necessitate itself mobilises the working category into exceeding capitalist economy ( 91 ) . Heller # 8217 ; s analysis of demands in Marx therefore offers the possibility of the working category going witting of its ain state of affairs and revolting against it in a mode which Lukacs # 8217 ; theory of hypostatization can non. Lukacs in History and Class Consciousness is forced to randomly and unconvincingly rely on the party as go-between of the revolution # 8211 ; nevertheless the inquiry remains, If the labor is incapable of coming to consciousness, what will vouch that the Party is any more unfalsely witting than the labor it is supposed to stand for? It would look that the history of the Communist Party has shown that there is no warrant of this whatsoever. As Heller reminds us: As yet, history has non answered the inquiry as to whether capitalist society in fact produces this # 8220 ; consciousness transcending its bounds # 8221 ; , which in Marx # 8217 ; s twenty-four hours did non be, and whose being Marx hence had to project ( 1974: 95 ) . List OF REFERENCESDerrida, J ( 1994 ) Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, A ; the New International New York: Routledge. Feher, F ; Heller, A and Markus, G ( 1983 ) Dictatorship over Needs Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Heller, A ( 1974 ) The Theory of Need in Marx London: Allison A ; Busby. Johnson, P ( 1984 ) Marxist Aestheticss: The foundations within an mundane life for an liberated consciousness London: Routledge A ; Kegan Paul. Lukacs, G ( 1923 ) Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein: Studien? ber marxistische Dialektik Berlin: Malin Verlag. __________ ( 1971 ) History and Class Consciousness: Surveies in Marxist Dialectics London: Merlin Press. Marx, K ( 1954 ) Capital Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing. _______ ( 1997 ) The Marx Reader ( ed. C. Pierson ) Cambridge: Polity Press. BIBLIOGRAPHYEagleton, T ( 1976 ) Marxism and Literary Criticism London: Methuen A ; Co. Kearny, R ( 1986 ) Modern Movements in European Philosophy Manchester: Manchester University Press. Heller A and Ferenc F ( explosive detection systems. ) ( 1986 ) Reconstructing Aestheticss: Hagiographas of the Budapest School Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Lukacs, G ( 1962 ) The Historical Novel London: Merlin Press