Beyond Capital offers a thorough and engaging exploration
of class subjectivity, presenting compelling reasons for Marxists, particularly
political economists, to delve into its contents. One of its main objectives is
to interpret the struggles of the "new social movements" within a
Marxist theoretical framework, reflecting the author's deep dedication to
Marxist theory and social emancipation. While it covers a multitude of themes
and sub-themes, I will focus on summarizing the author's argument and offering
some constructive criticisms.
In Chapter 1, the author acknowledges a critical silence
in Marx's Capital concerning the proletariat as subject. This silence allows
for the perception that capital is the sole subject of scientific inquiry,
perpetuating a deterministic and reductionist interpretation of Marxism. Moving
beyond this one-sided Marxism entails moving beyond Capital itself. The author
suggests that the direction to move towards is indicated by the absence of the
book on wage labor in Marx's planned six-book series. Rather than assuming Marx
incorporated the relevant material into Capital, the author, along with
Maximilian Rubel, argues that Marx's work should be viewed as fragmentary,
leaving room for further development in the directions he was unable to pursue.
Chapter 2 begins to outline the possible contents of the
missing book on wage labor. The author highlights Marx's assumption that the
level of necessity is given, which determines necessary and surplus labor.
However, this assumption overlooks the aspect of rising necessity resulting
from the expansion of capitalist production, implying a need for the working
class's development beyond capital's valorization. Analyzing needs in
capitalism, the author concludes that force decides between conflicting goals:
those of capital and those of wage labor. This realization challenges the
assumption of constant necessary needs in Capital, revealing that the level of
necessity is a product of the class struggle.
In Chapter 2, Lebowitz begins to outline the potential
contents of the missing book on wage labor, highlighting Marx's assumption that
the level of necessity is given to determine necessary and surplus labor in
Capital. However, he argues that this assumption is made only for explanatory
purposes, overlooking Marx's assertion in other parts of his work that the
expansion of capitalist production leads to the growth of workers' needs.
Lebowitz suggests that this missing book could have addressed this by
abandoning the assumption of constant necessity levels and acknowledging the
rising necessity resulting from capitalist production. He emphasizes that this
production of needs signifies the recognition of the working class's own need
for development, beyond capital's pursuit of valorization. Through an analysis
of needs in capitalism, Lebowitz concludes that there are conflicting
goals—those of capital and those of wage labor—and force decides between them,
implying the non-realization of capital's objectives. This challenges the
assumption of constant necessary needs in Capital and reveals that the level of
necessity is a product of the class struggle.
Chapter 3 critiques the inadequacy of Capital, advocating
for the development of the side of wage labor that is absent in Marx's work.
Lebowitz argues that by incorporating this aspect, there would be an adequate
basis for understanding the struggle of workers to realize their own goals.
Chapter 4 proposes a political economy of wage labor,
drawing on Lukács's emphasis on the "whole" and the
interconnectedness of elements within society. Lebowitz suggests that in the
young Marx, capitalism is defined by the dynamic relationship between capital
and wage labor, driving inexorably towards resolution through class struggle.
However, in the later Marx, wage labor is seen only as a mediator for capital's
growth, obscuring the presence of the side of wage labor in Capital. Lebowitz
asserts that a political economy of wage labor is evident in the working
class's struggle against capital as a mediator throughout its circuits. This
struggle emphasizes the combination of labor as the source of social
productivity and the separation of workers through exploitation, ultimately
aiming for the realization of a communist society. Lebowitz argues that
recognizing the side of the working class allows for the rejection of the
separation between the economic and political spheres inherent in one-sided
Marxism, affirming their integral relation as inherent in Marx's political
economy.
In this chapter, the author appears to depart from an
earlier stance of caution and openly criticizes Marx's concepts in Capital,
rather than attributing the one-sidedness to post-Marx Marxist interpretations.
While acknowledging Marx's responsibility for the limitations of his work, the
author fails to recognize the ontological two-sidedness of Marx's categories in
Capital. Engaging in discussion with Marxists who support this perspective,
such as Cleaver (1979), could have been beneficial. The presupposition of this
two-sidedness allows Marx to focus on one side to reveal the strategies and
logic of the enemy against the working class. However, this is insufficient.
Recognizing the other side present in Marx's categories enables us to view his
work as unfinished and move beyond both Marx and Capital.
Post-Marx Marxists, as termed by Raya Dunayevskaya, have
confined Marx's approach to economic determinism, disregarding the inherent
struggle against domination and control. Lebowitz rightly acknowledges that
without the worker's opposition to capital, the tendencies presented in Capital
are one-sided. However, the worker's resistance forms the basis of these
tendencies. For instance, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, not
addressed by Lebowitz, is not merely a result of technological laws but arises
from class antagonism at the point of production. The struggle of the working
class compels capital to adopt strategies like shifting from absolute to
relative surplus value, undermining its own despotism. Even if we accept the
assumption of constant necessary needs or declining value of labor-power with
increasing productivity, working class subjectivity remains presupposed.
Capital's response to working class resistance at the
point of production manifests as difficulties in imposing work on society as a
whole, reflected in the falling rate of profit tendency. The limit of capital's
accumulation is rooted in the capitalist class's struggle, highlighting the
inherent conflict within capitalist relations.
In chapter 6, the author's attempt to advocate for the
representation of the 'totality' encounters a limitation. The emphasis on
totality, inherent in the dialectical method, stems from the recognition that
the 'whole' is defined by the class relation, with capitalist imposition of
work being its historical substance. However, our endeavor to grasp the
totality, often referred to as the dialectical method, must acknowledge that
our aim is to dismantle this totality—the very process by which capitalism
reduces our multidimensional lives to the totality of capital. While our
cognitive process may recognize our class position within this totality, it
must also acknowledge that our struggle aims to transcend and overthrow it.
In Chapters 7 and 8, Lebowitz emphasizes the primacy of
needs and, consequently, working-class subjectivity, contrasting it with the
emphasis of 'one-sided Marxism' on the autonomous development of the forces of
production as the driver of history. While his point is generally valid, it
does have some limitations.
Drawing from Lenin's notion of working-class spontaneous
consciousness as merely trade unionist consciousness, Lebowitz argues that the
inability of workers to satisfy their needs leads them not beyond capitalism
but rather to class struggle within capitalism. However, he acknowledges that
this struggle for material needs is also the process of generating new people
with new, "radical" needs—needs that, following Heller, can only be
fulfilled through the transcendence of capitalism. Unlike Heller, Lebowitz
correctly sees the development of these radical needs as intertwined with the
class struggle, which plays a central role in shaping reality and informing the
development of revolutionary theory.
Lebowitz quotes Marx on the relationship between thought
and struggle, emphasizing that theory must not only strive for realization but
that reality must also strive towards thought. Additionally, he acknowledges
the role of theorists of the working class in interpreting and articulating the
struggles happening before their eyes. However, while theory may serve a
pedagogical role, its revolutionary potential—its capacity to contribute to the
transcendence of capitalism—extends beyond mere explanation. It involves
counter-information, the articulation of arguments against those of capital,
which is a crucial moment but only one aspect of a broader movement from theory
to practice and back. This movement enables the formulation of political
hypotheses, projects, and strategies to circulate struggles and move beyond
capitalism. It is rooted in the lived experience of the working class's
subordinate role vis-à-vis capital.
The author intends to highlight that while rising above
the conception of political economy that reduces the worker to a mere appendage
of capital, there is still a tendency to exclude from the inquiry anything
beyond the immediate class struggle between capital and wage labor. Marx's
assumption in Capital that individuals are only bearers of a particular class
relation overlooks aspects of life beyond class identity. Many Marxist
interpretations, including Marx's own, have failed to fully address struggles
against patriarchy, quality of life, and cultural identity, thus rendering the
theory incomplete.
The disagreement arises in how struggles beyond the traditional
blue-collar waged working class are understood as struggles against capital.
Lebowitz stresses the need to shift perspective from capital to the wage
laborer or working class. However, non-wage laborers are not discussed merely
as workers vis-à-vis capital but as forms of exploited work outside the realm
of capital. The key question is to what extent these other relations become
important for capital and are targeted by its strategies, as every aspect of
life becomes subject to capitalist imposition of work.
Starting from the premise that every aspect of life
becomes a target of capitalist subsumption, we can begin to address the
political question of building forms of organization and promoting the
circulation of struggles that recognize the distinctiveness and autonomy of
different sections of the class while weaving an antagonistic and constitutive
web against capital.
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