#19661 - 4.B. Critical Theories Marx - Jurisprudence

LECTURE(s)

• The point here isn’t to justify the state – it’s to CRITIQUE it = CRITICAL THEORY

• Modern state and law offer at most seeds of LEGIT – these must be FULLY MATURED

  • Some are more radical – we need to change the paradigm completely

    • Critical theorists don’t speak with one voice

• The crux – modern SOC is still one where some dominate over others

  • Freedom is a good idea (no dilemma), but it still has to be achieved

• Marx = the key to understanding human condition (domination) is to look at the material realm = it’s the ECONOMY

  • NOTE – some focus on different strands = e.g., Arendt (political realm)

Marxism

• People can live in harmony, but only when capitalism is overthrown

• Materialism (as opposed to idealistic philosophy)

  • Historical materialism

• Capitalism

  • Specific dynamic organization of modern SOC

  • Several terms – alienation, commodification, class conflict

  • Alternatives?

• Capitalist state and law

  • Capitalism didn’t implode in the way he predicted

  • Material base and political-legal superstructure

  • Is everything held together by repressive power/ideology?

• Contemporary legacy

  • Paradox – Marx had it right, but there is no alternative to capitalism

  • Racial capitalism, ecological capitalism, etc.

• Materialist philosophy + revolutionary socialist politics + analysis of capitalism

Materialism

• This is his philosophical method

• Marx tries distancing himself from idealist philosophers (e.g., Hegel, von Schelling, etc.)

• Marx’s critique of religion – you can critique by offering another idea (e.g., SC); you can replace with as many ideas as you like, but unless you tackle the root causes = no change

  • Religion as the opium of the people – why is it that men look to religion? Because of the conditions in which they live in

• Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach – philosophers only interpreted the world in various ways, the point is to change it = philosophy as intervention, not observation

Political vs. Human Emancipation

• Revolutions were important, but they were only semi-revolutions – e.g., FRA REV does change the ancien regime, but it just gave rise to a new class of oppressors

  • Political emancipation is only half the story

• We get ideological, not material progress

• HUMAN emancipation is his goal (free as a species) – political emancipation is important in historical evolution, but human emancipation is the end goal = hugely ambitious

• For human emancipation, we must eradicate all forms of powers over one another/world

• Man is a “species being” – the point of being such is to eventually overcome estrangement

• We look at each other as a means to an end = estrangement – alienates us from our being (we are cooperative beings, not competitive or vainglorious)

• Ambitious philosophy, but one that’s supported by historical facts

Historical Materialism

• Materialism – priority of material relations:

  • Means of subsistence and social reproduction

  • Relations with things/nature

  • Relations with each other (class relations)

• Historical:

  • Dynamic of material relations

    • Material over time in accordance with a dialectical logic of class struggle

    • Feudalism > Capitalism > Communism?

      • Ultimately be emancipated as a species

• History is therefore critical in his philosophy = history as the master discipline

Mode of Production

• If we take a historical lens, two things are important to focus on:

  • Forces of production

    • Tools, factories, materials, labor

      • Big changes in forces of production (19^th century) – Marx sees this

  • Relations of production

    • Relationships that reproduce society

      • Division of labor – master/slave; lord/serf; capitalist/laborer

      • Inequality is a trait of such SOCs = domination/class conflict

        • Exploitation = way in which capital creates surplus value

• Mode of production conditions social/political/intellectual life

Capital/Capitalism

• Alienation – feeling in modern SOC that we aren’t truly authentic beings

• Dynamism – capitalism itself is a dynamic phenomenon; it has a long way to go however

  • Modernization

  • Commodification

  • Globalization

Alienation

• Transforms our relationship with things/nature/each other

• Alienates workers from:

  • Their labor – surplus isn’t owned by us

  • Product of their labor

  • Each other – we view one another as competitors

  • Species-being

Commodification

• In the modern capitalist economy, there is a shift from “use value” into “exchange value”

  • We make a chair to sit on it (use value); exchange value – house = the most basic of things, obvious use value – BUT today it’s thought of as an investment

• Exchange assumes money (we exchange to get money)

• We start with money, then purchase a commodity, and then we sell it for more money (M-C-M); capitalist pays you wage, however – you don’t get the extra surplus

• In capitalism, there is a constant dynamic to make money – you’ll lose your position vis-à-vis other capitalists

• Capitalism has an inherent dynamic to commodify

Modernity

• A driving force of commodification

• Capitalism is its own grave-digger – as everything gets commodified, it exposes us to the reality of life (capitalism exposes itself)

• Marx – prophet of globalization = capitalism has to go cross-border

Inequality: Prehistory of Capitalism

• Capitalist societies are riddled with inequality; capitalists justify this by free exchange

• WRONG – people got rich through force; “primitive accumulation” – force, fraud, war, colonization, etc.

  • Primitive accumulation continues throughout history – even today through privatization, land grabs, exploitation of nature, IP rights, etc. (Harvey – “accumulation by dispossession”)

“Doubly free laborer”

• Paradox in market system

  • Worker in CAP SOC can sell his labor (unlike feudal serf)

  • BUT many people are effectively forced to work – he has been deprived of means of subsistence (i.e., the land – he now lives in cities)

• SC theorists will say we are all free to get property rights – not the case

Inequality: class conflict

• Class relations:

  • Owner of means of production – bourgeoise

  • Those who have to sell labor to survive – working class/dispossessed

• Because of the incentive to extract maximum surplus value, gradual immiseration of working class will occur = this is the logic of the system

  • If wage is kept as such a low level – people won’t be able to buy the goods that capitalists produce = capitalism will collapse (say some philosophers)

    • Marx thinks it’ll be overthrown

• In any case = CLASS STRUGGLE

• For workers to achieve better work conditions, workers must be organized = tough thing to do

Transition to socialism/communism

• Class struggle will eventually lead to overthrow of capitalism

• Different versions of how this’ll be achieved:

  • Development of productive forces themselves

    • Technological route to socialism = capitalism holds us back; if we got rid of the fetters of capitalism, we could produce more things

  • Development in relations of production (class consciousness)

    • Revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat (lead by avant-garde party)

    • Reformist path to socialism through DEM

Socialism/communism

• In capitalist SOC, everything is organized for profit – in socialist SOC, production will be based on what people need (use value)

  • From each according to his ability, to each according to his need

• Socialism = intermediate stage; the end goal is communism

READING(s)

Handout

• Mode of production = how we interact with the material world – includes:

  • Means of production (productive forces)

  • Relations of production (class relations)

• Marx criticizes the capitalist mode of production, and relations of domination in it

From idealism to Materialism

• Marx thinks we are productive beings – “species-being” = reproduce our own conditions of existence through interactions with environment/relations with others

  • We are interdependent – in SOC and with nature

    • HOW we interact with environment changes over time

Capitalism as a social-historical order: commodification and inequality

• Use value transformed into exchange value

  • Value of basically everything is reduced to its relation with other things

• To facilitate exchange, we need money – everything becomes commodified (capable of being bought) = money becomes capital

• Workers don’t own means of production – dispossession

• Commodification + dispossession = “doubly free laborer” – free in that he isn’t a serf (i.e., can sell his labor on the market), but also freed (deprived) of means of subsistence

• Capitalism = exchange + inequality = exploitation of the worker

• Factory owned by industrialist; factory produces X; X is sold at a premium; surplus values goes back to capitalist – if worker wants to buy X, he’ll pay a premium = premium goes back to industrialist – surplus added by labor power, but returns as profit to capitalist = exploitation

Alienation

• Capitalism robs us of our humanity (i.e., “species-being”)

• Communism would free us from alienation, and make us able to relate to each other as species beings

Base and Superstructure

• Mode of production = economic base of SOC; other phenomena, e.g., politics, law, religion, etc. = superstructure – forces/relations of production determine superstructure

  • Economic determinism – inevitability of end of capitalism

• Marx is unclear – does base condition superstructure, fully determine it, can superstructure conditions the base, etc.?

• E.g., freedom, equality, etc. (SC thinkers) are “superstructures” that mask domination

• Material advances can nonetheless be made without changing the economic base – e.g., welfare state = we still live in capitalism, but we’ve...